How To Repair A Throwback Mini Trophy

Earlier I become to my story I'd like to limited my deepest condolences to the family of Terry Brennan who passed this week. In an commodity posted on UND.com:

Terry Brennan, ii-time national championship winning halfback and five-year head coach at the University of Notre Dame, has passed away at the age of 93. He won 65 games as a educatee-athlete and head coach with the Irish gaelic, played in the legendary 'Game of the Century' scoreless necktie with Army in 1946 and led Notre Dame to one of its greatest upset victories – ending Oklahoma's tape 47-game win streak in 1957.

Brennan was an outstanding halfback at Notre Matriarch, rushing for over 1,716 yards during his four-year career under legendary coach Frank Leahy. The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native averaged v.8 yards per carry while helping the Irish compile a 33-two-iii tape over iv seasons and earning the 1946 and 1947 National Title.

Brennan was drafted in the fifth circular (51st overall selection) of the 1949 NFL Typhoon but chose to enter the coaching ranks at Mountain Carmel High School in Chicago. He led the Caravan to three consecutive city championships before being chosen dorsum to his alma mater in 1953 every bit an Irish assistant and leader of the freshman team.

Leahy retired as the Notre Matriarch head double-decker after the 1953 season and Brennan became the youngest head autobus in Notre Dame history, assuming the position just earlier his 26th birthday.

In his first game as the Irish head coach Brennan'due south team handed Texas its first shutout in 77 games and assumed the nation's number-one ranking. The Irish eventually finished 9-1 and fourth in the final Associated Press poll – one of four top-xv AP finishes in Brennan's five years with the team.

Adjusting to a lowered scholarship limit as the University doubled-downwardly on its academic focus, Brennan'due south squad stumbled to a 2-8 record in 1956, just however provided a highlight, equally Paul Hornung earned the fifth of Notre Dame's vii Heisman Trophies.

The 1957 team, dubbed the "Improvement Comets," jumped back into the national give-and-take in 1957, finishing 7-3, 9th in the terminal AP poll and posting the same 7-0 upset of height-ranked Oklahoma.

Brennan's terminal season with the Irish was 1958, a six-4 entrada that earned the squad a final AP ranking of 14th.

Brennan was preceded in death by his wife Kel (Mary Louise Kelley) and is survived by Terry Brennan (Gilmore), Denise "Dinny" Dwyer (John), Jane Lipton (Richard), Chris Brennan (Dianne), Joe Brennan, Matt Brennan (Marilyn) along with 25 grandchildren and 32 great grandchildren.

A Commemoration of Life mass service will be held Friday, September 10, 2022, (11 a.one thousand.) at Saints Religion, Hope & Clemency Catholic Church in Winnetka, Illinois.

###

Well, we survived week ane and captured the win, and are looking ahead to Toledo. Since there is no football game history between Notre Dame and Toledo to throwback to, I'm going to tell y'all about one of the new books that I've gotten an advanced re-create of: Though the Odds Exist Great or Minor, by Terry Brennan.

I honey reading near Notre Matriarch history. There's a lot to be learned by looking dorsum at the coaches, teams, and players who have come before us. When I got the opportunity to go an advance look at Terry Brennan's new book, I was and so excited. I very much enjoyed Jim Paring's volume, The Undefeated, about Oklahoma's win streak that Notre Dame broke in 1957. And so when I saw that Terry Brennan's volume was nearly that very same 1957 season, I was eager to read about it from his perspective.

Here's a footling bit almost the volume. This is one you'll definitely want to go a copy of, trust me!

Dorsum when Paul Hornung was a Heisman Bays winner and South Bend was the epicenter of the football universe a young coach led the Fighting Irish back from the brink to beat the unbeatable.

Though the Odds Be Swell or Minor

Terry Brennan is 93 years erstwhile and he is quick to remind you of the age-old one-liner about the three toughest jobs in America: The President of U.s.a., the mayor of New York City and the caput coach of Notre Dame football. With a wink, he'll remind united states all that he was the head coach for the Fighting Irish gaelic from 1954 to 1958 and although it went by all besides chop-chop, he remembers every moment of it. He calls information technology "aboriginal history", but he's so wrong.

Brennan's tenure in Due south Bend is the centerpiece of i of the disquisitional eras of the Fighting Irish'south fabled football tradition and the bailiwick of the new book "THOUGH THE ODDS BE Cracking OR SMALL: Notre Dame'southward 1957 Comeback Flavour and the Year That Inverse College Football game," coauthored with William Meiners (Loyola Printing, Baronial 24, 2022).

THOUGH THE ODDS BE GREAT OR SMALL is the full telling of Coach Brennan's story as he pulled a programme in distress back from the brink of disaster and provided the game plan for one of the Fighting Irish gaelic'south greatest all-time wins and i of the biggest upsets in football history. As nearly who follow college football can agree, there is the Mountain Rushmore of legendary Notre Dame caput coaches over their many decades of dominance—Knute Rockne, Ara Parseghian, Lou Holtz, and Frank Leahy. In 1954, at the age of 25, Brennan replaced the legendary Leahy who had grown too controversial and powerful for the university'due south comfort. They needed a new direction. Brennan provided that.

As a histrion for Notre Dame under Leahy, Terry Brennan was a star known for his speed and grit. As a coach, he was cognitive and adaptable, preaching fundamentals and smart play while exhibiting maturity beyond his years. Simply it was an era when Notre Dame greatly favored academics over athletics and the young motorbus found his scholarships cut. Football is a game of numbers and his ranks of championship-quotient talent faded leading to a disastrous 2-eight season in his tertiary year equally passenger vehicle—1956. Thereafter, the vivid lights of the Notre Matriarch fishbowl grew infinitely brighter. Could he exist able to testify that the 1956 season was an bibelot and rise from the ashes in 1957? Could he prove to the Notre Dame true-blue that he deserved one of the premier jobs in sports?

Aye, he could. And, against all odds, he did.

THOUGH THE ODDS Be Corking OR Small-scale too covers:

• Brennan'due south babyhood romping through Whitefish Bay a due north shore suburb in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• His days playing running back and defensive back for the Fighting Irish (1945-1948)
• How when Terry's brother Jim—a standout player for Notre Dame—shipped off for his naval service, his football scholarship seemed to fall to Terry
• The plane crash that nearly took his life
• His three seasons coaching Mount Carmel High School football game in Chicago afterwards his Notre Matriarch playing days were over
• How he was considered for the head-coaching job with the professional Chicago Cardinals as early on as 1952, at historic period 23
• The rivalries and perils of Notre Dame's vaunted almanac schedule against some of the premier football programs in the country
• The rumors surrounding Frank Leahy's recruiting strategies and coaching tactics
• Brennan's experiences dealing with a vindictive Leahy and the academic agenda of Father Theodore Hesbaugh, Notre Dame's very visible president
• Comparing and contrasting the efforts of Notre Dame coaches from era to era
• The state of Notre Dame football in the postwar era
• The unnecessary tensions that can arise between bookish ambitions and gridiron celebrity
• The evolution of the game happening during this time, including the integration of black players
• The controversial Paul Hornung Heisman in 1956 subsequently the 2-8 season
• Notre Dame's rebound seasons in 1957 and 1958
• Notre Dame's unequaled November lineup of games in 1957 including 4 ranked opponents on sequent weekends—Navy, Michigan State, Oklahoma, and Iowa—final the brutal calendar month with arch rival Southern California
• All of the bona fides of the 1957 Oklahoma Sooners, ane of the greatest teams in college football history
• How Father Hesbaugh was criticized widely for his determination to fire Brennan
• How his tenure at Notre Dame marked the end of Brennan'southward coaching career—despite offers from Colorado and Maryland to be their caput motorbus, and an offer from good friend, Vince Lombardi, to bring together his Green Bay Packer'southward staff—as he didn't want to motility from town to town, position to position, dragging his growing family from place to place
• How Brennan returned to football game on his own terms, as a broadcaster.

Respect, by almost any measure, is not guaranteed equally a college football coach, but Terry Brennan earned almost universal respect from nearly of the legendary coaches of the era while steering Notre Dame through those five seasons with placidity confidence, adept sportsmanship and a disarming smile. And with a 32-xviii record, it was a truly controversial decision for Notre Dame to fire the father of iv just prior to Christmas in 1958. Brennan was disappointed, injure and more than a little angry, but he moved on to other challenges over the side by side sixty years—with piffling fanfare and fifty-fifty fewer headlines. Yes, life has been full for the father of six, grandfather of 27 and bang-up-grandfather of thirty.

THOUGH THE ODDS Be Bang-up OR SMALL represents a await back at his many memories leading the Notre Dame Fighting Irish from decades past—memories of thrilling games and storybook endings; of loyalties and legacies; and of beating the unbeatable.

About the Authors:

Terry Brennan played halfback at the University of Notre Dame from 1945 to 1948. In 1954, at the age of 25, he became Notre Dame's youngest head football coach, serving every bit caput coach until 1958. In his five seasons every bit caput coach for the Fighting Irish, Terry Brennan compiled an overall record of 32–xviii while playing i of the most challenging schedules in college football game history.

William J. Meiners is a writer, an editor, and the founder of Sport Literate, which celebrated its 25th anniversary event in 2022 as a preeminent periodical for all things sports.

###

Here's a snippet from Chapter Four:

Heisman Hopeless

Notre Dame had a lot of returning players in 1957. Brennan certainly knew, however, that he couldn't supersede Paul Hornung with a single human being. There was no denying the all-around versatility that Hornung brought to a squad, which he punctuated throughout a Hall of Fame career with the Green Bay Packers. He brought a sense of effortlessness to a violent game.

"Paul played the game similar it was ping-pong," said Dick Selcer, a sophomore backup quarterback to Hornung in 1956. "Larry Cooke was in Paul's class and also played backup QB. He was a pre-med major who went on to get a doctor. A driven student and good football game player, he was probably half dozen anxiety, 195 pounds. Nosotros always tackled our position in practise. Cooke never could tackle Hornung in practice. Hell, I couldn't tackle him either."

Jim Morse, the helm on the 1956 team, said he "had the pleasure of tackling Paul more one time. He was tough to bring downwards."

Additionally, Morse believes his friend and teammate deserved the Heisman in spite of the team'south record. "Paul was the best all-around football game thespian I've e'er seen," he said. "Simply you lot expect at him, it was deceiving. He didn't seem to be running very fast, but he could move."

Hornung, in answering his female parent's prayers, arrived at Notre Matriarch fully expecting to play for the legendary Frank Leahy. As it turned out, he'd only scrimmage occasionally with the varsity team, so Brennan turned out to exist his head motorbus for four years. Non long later on his retirement, however, Leahy heaped loftier praise on the Golden Boy afterward the spring erstwhile-timers' game in 1955. "Paul Hornung volition be the greatest quarterback Notre Dame ever had," he said. "He runs like a mower going through grass. Tacklers just bounce off him. His pass is tops and his kicking is, too."

Pick up your copy of Though the Odds Be Great or Small, by Terry Brennan and keep reading!

Thanks & Get Irish!

Source: https://www.onefootdown.com/2021/9/9/22660161/throwback-thursday-though-the-odds-be-great-or-small-by-terry-brennan

Posted by: brisenohumbeas.blogspot.com

Share this post