This week in Notre Dame history, trivia, and much more
In an effort to keep alive the mission and spirit of Lou Somogyi, this every-Monday piece looks at the upcoming week in Fighting Irish history. This one covers April 3-9.
Know your Domers trivia
(answers below)
1) How many national titles did legendary football head coach Frank Leahy win at Notre Dame?
2) What former Notre Dame safety easily holds the record for career tackles by an Irish defensive back?
3) What Notre Dame placekicker holds the program record with 23 consecutive made field goals?
Fighting Irish Birthdays
*John Shumate (April 4, 1952)
-Shumate, a standout basketball forward for the Irish from 1971-74, turns 71 on Tuesday. A consensus All-American on the 1973-74 Irish team that broke UCLA’s NCAA-record 88-game winning streak, the Greenville, S.C., native later became a first-round draft pick of the Phoenix Suns in 1974 (4th overall). Shumate played five seasons in the NBA and later coached from 1983-2010, serving as a college and a WNBA head coach, and an NBA assistant.
*Jeff Faine (April 6, 1981)
-Faine, a standout Notre Dame center from 2000-03, turns 42 on Thursday. Faine was so valuable and talented, he remains the last Irish center to become a first-round NFL Draft pick. The Milwaukie, Ore., native was selected 21st overall by the Cleveland Browns in 2003 and enjoyed a 10-year, 118-game career with four different NFL teams.
*Ricky Watters (April 7, 1969)
-Watters, a star tailback/flanker on the Irish 1988 national championship team, turns 54 on Friday. The Harrisburg, Pa., native was an electric rusher, receiver and return man for the Irish from 1987-90, and eventually became a second-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1991.
Watters enjoyed a stellar 11-year NFL career that included a Super Bowl championship in 1995 with the San Francisco 49ers, five Pro Bowl selections, 10,643 rushing yards, and a strong candidacy for NFL Hall of Fame induction.
Notable Death
*Blair Kiel (April 8, 2012)
Kiel, a four-year starting quarterback for Notre Dame from 1980-83, died of a heart attack 11 years ago Saturday at his home in Columbus, Ind., at the age of 50.
Ranked as the No. 3 high school quarterback in his recruiting class out of Columbus East High School, Kiel played in 44 games at Notre Dame and still remains the 14th all-time leading Fighting Irish passer with 3,650 career passing yards.
Kiel also still holds the record for the program’s longest pass play — a 96-yard touchdown bomb to Joe Howard against Georgia Tech in 1981.
An 11th-round draft pick of Tampa Bay in 1984, Kiel played 10 years professionally — nine in the NFL with five different teams, and one with the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL — before working as a private quarterbacks coach until his death.
Memory lane
*April 4, 1973 (50 years ago)
Notre Dame football under 10th-year head coach Ara Parseghian signed 40 student-athletes — National Signing Day was held in April back then — one year before the NCAA would limit the scholarship count to 30 per year and 95 over four seasons. Those numbers were again adjusted to the modern-day limits of 25 per class and 85 total.
Unique to this 1973 class was that nine if its members were black, easily the most ever in one class at the time.
This 1973 recruiting class was headlined by prized tight end/defensive end Ross Browner. Other members of this class included defensive lineman Willie Fry and star defensive back Luther Bradley. All three of these Irish players became either first- or second-round NFL Draft picks in 1978.
*April 6, 2002 (21 years ago)
Under eighth-year Irish head baseball coach Paul Mainieri, Notre Dame lost 4-3 to St. John’s on this date, dropping its record to an underwhelming 16-11 to start the 2002 season.
The significance of this loss?
A day later, Notre Dame beat St. John’s 5-2, the first victory during a stretch where Notre Dame won 18 of 19 games and finished the season with 34 wins in its final 41 games after the pedestrian start.
Notre Dame won both the Big East regular-season and conference tournament championships. It set the program record for most wins in a single season (50), and it eventually earned a place in the 2002 College World Series, its first appearance since 1957.
*March 29-April 12, 2022 (One year ago)
After losing four straight games, the Notre Dame baseball team under third-year head coach Link Jarrett peeled off nine straight victories during this two-week stretch. The winning streak improved the Fighting Irish record to 21-5 and became the launch point for a run to the 2022 College World Series, only the third-ever appearance in Omaha, Neb., for Notre Dame, and its first in 20 years.
Know your Domers answers:
1) Leahy coached the Irish from 1941-43 and 1946-53, and won FOUR national titles (1943, 1946, 1947 and 1949).
2) TOM ZBIKOWSKI recorded 300 tackles as a safety from 2004-07. Irish safety Kyle McCarthy is second on the list with 240 stops.
3) DAVID RUFFER made 23 consecutive field goals between November of 2009 and December of 2010.
— Blue & Gold Illustrated Managing Editor Steve Downey, and the late-great Lou Somogyi contributed to this report
