So we've been here before at the History Museum to tell you about the Rockne Life and Legacy exhibit that's on here, which is absolutely wonderful to see all the different things.

But today we're going to talk about a different coach, part of the Notre Dame legacy.

And I'm here with author Mark Hubbard.

Mark, tell me a little bit about the book that you've written and the coach that you've written about.

Well, thank you for inviting me.

I appreciate it very much.

The start of this project actually happened when I wrote a book about the 1966 national championship team, and I got to meet er and got to know them quite well.

And, and we stayed friends and I would visit him a lot.

And after he passed, and I got to know Katie Parseghian, his wife, after he passed, Katie called me a couple of years later and said, she'd like me to get started on the biography, and, and I said I'd be honored to do so.

And so that's how it all started.

And it took about four years to write the book, but she was my copilot through most of the project, and it was.

And she made everything that she had available to me all of her errors, records, personal papers, memorabilia.

And so I was able to put it all together, assemble it into this, biography of her past, you know, which is now the authorized biography.

I don't think they'll ever be another one quite like it.

And, it's been a great thing for me because I've gotten to meet a lot of interesting people.

I've gotten to do some very interesting things, like this interview, and, it's it's been well received generally.

So I'm very pleased with the result.

Nice.

That's that's wonderful.

And what did his wife think of it?

Well, she got to watch the process all the way through.

And she was a really she didn't actually make any, I would say, critical comments, but she was able to fill in a lot of the blanks.

And of course, there were wonderful documents that she had that I was able to, use.

And I had, or her on a tape for over 30 hours.

So we got to sit down.

And as a result of that, we became actually very good friends.

In fact, she and my wife, Bridget, and, Mickey Bullock, who is Brian Bullock's, wife and, Katie, we all go out for dinner about once every couple of months, and we just celebrated my birthday in December.

So I've made really good friends out of the process as well.

Takes a lot of patience.

You know, I think a lot of people have an idea to write a book, you know, and you kind of want to get through it as quick as you can.

But for years, I mean, that's a that's a long time.

It's not a long time, but it takes a lot of patience to really do that well, doing a good job.

And of course, as a publisher, I had University of Notre Dame Press, and they're very demanding in terms of making sure all of the, data is correct and all the approvals are there for the photos and the quotes and so forth.

And it did.

It was a time consuming process.

When I started the book, I didn't have a publisher and it took almost three years to get a publisher.

But finally, we were able to get the University of Notre Dame Press, and that was great.

And then they wanted to have a foreword written.

And I was really, really fortunate to get Rocky Bleier, who was one of, errors players.

And of course, his story with the Pittsburgh Steelers is legendary.

Because he was injured in Vietnam.

And so he wrote the most marvelous, forward in the book.

And I'm going to start my speech on Sunday, reading that foreword, because it's such a really a good piece of writing.

As it turns out, the book, has now won a couple national awards, so they're really pleased with the results.

It's wonderful.

And as I look at it, the quality of it just looking at, yeah, no, this is a great thing.

And the the covers got Ara from the 1970 Cotton Bowl, being carried off the field after he beat Texas.

And this cover, was, art was found from, UPI and it was in black and white and they colorized it.

And so they had to pay extra for the, photograph for the cover.

But it's a great cover.

I love it.

And we're here at the History Museum in South Bend, because on January 11th, you're actually going to have an event here.

And.

Yes, they've invited me, and I'm very pleased, to speak about the book, but I'm also going to include some aspects of the similarities between, Newt Rockne and ERA.

And there's a lot of similarities.

And I think the, the one that is the most appropriate, I think, is that both of them, lived in South Bend and stayed in South Bend.

Of course, Rockne died tragically.

But, you know, Ara lived here for 60 years.

And so he was a person that I'm sure a lot of the people that come to the presentation are going to have some experience with how many people knew him and got to see him out in public, played golf with him?

Yeah.

He was a wonderful guy, and I, I was very, very lucky.

I mean, I don't consider myself a great writer, but I had a great subject and I had great material to work with, and I focused on personality and character.

So we'll talk about football.

But this is not a book about blocks and tackles.

This is a book about personality and character.

Well, the good thing is, it's up to the reader to decide whether you're a good writer or not.

Not you.

So yeah, that's the that's the most exciting thing.

Hopefully they'll decide that it's a good job, I think so Katie thinks it's a good job.

And that's really the person that I wanted to please the most.

Absolutely.

Well, I hope the event on January 11th, goes great for you.

And thank you so much for your time.

And I know we're here at the History Museum.

We're going to learn a little bit more before the end of this about what else is going on here at the History Museum.

But thank you so much for taking the time.

It's my pleasure, and thanks for having me.

So we really appreciate the time that I had with Mark there to learn about his book.

But there's lots going on here at the History Museum in South Bend.

And I'm here with Christy Erickson, who's the deputy executive director.

So what else is going on?

I mean, we talked about Rockne back in September.

I was here, and but there's a lot going on in here.

Sure.

So in our Rockne universe, we have a number of other lectures going on this year.

Once Mark is done, we have in March, we have Tricia Slama coming to talk about Nate Rockne as well, along with, later in the spring, Larry Dwyer from the Notre Dame band and, a lecture later about women's football in the area.

Also to kind of continue that inspiration from early football years and how that's affected the community.

Visitors to the museum right now can also see an exhibit on shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including the Edmund Fitzgerald, that covers a wide time span and kind of why those shipwrecks occurred and how many you can or can't expect to find anymore.

As well as we are the national repository for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

So as made famous by the movie A League of Their Own, you can learn all about them.

And I did see the t shirt.

There's no crying in baseball.

They are outside and and right here is the place to to learn about that league.

So the shipwrecks thing is really fascinating to me as well because, you know, when I first moved to this area, I grew up in Ireland, where it's an island that I grew up like right beside the water.

And I really missed water when I moved here.

I know it's a water funny.

Sorry.

It's how you pronounce it, but, when I first went up to visit Lake Michigan, it sounds so silly, but I never imagined that lake could be something.

I know it's not what you were expecting.

Well, you know, I think of a lake as, like, something like that doesn't really move much.

And then you see these waves, and it just reminded me of the Irish Sea.

You know, of course, shipwrecks happen up there.

And.

And so.

Yeah.

So how did that exhibit come about, or was that just, so in 2025 was the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

So in, commemoration, remembrance of that event, our archivist, Travis Childs, put together, a bunch of different shipwrecks around the Great Lakes, as well as even in Indiana, a lot of people didn't know that there's shipwrecks to explore right here in our own state.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Out in Elkhart.

I'm not, you know, I got the little piece of Lake Michigan.

Yeah, yeah.

So that is true.

Well, thank you so much.

I know there's lots of reasons to come here, so I hope people do.

And, thank you for spending time with us and telling us about everything that's going on.

Course.

Thank you.