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"I'm the Greatest." The wonder is that it took him so long to get to South Bend. Handsome and raven-haired, Parseghian could pose for anyone's image of the spirit of Notre Dame—wearing Leahy's shoes and Rockne's suit. He has to win because the laundry bill is too high when he loses; his wife has to change the sweat-soaked bed sheets each morning. Navy Coach Wayne Hardin delights in telling of playing partners with Parseghian in a golf match a few summers ago: "We came up to the 18th hole and had to win it to take the match. Ara stuck one on the green, about 40 ft. from the pin. He stepped up to putt, paused and asked: 'What state are we in?' 'We're in Pennsylvania,' I said. 'All right,' said Ara. Then I'm the greatest putter in the state of Pennsylvania.' He swung and, sure enough, the ball went over four or five breaks plunk into the cup."
It stands to reason that Parseghian must have been a beautiful baby. His father named him after a mythological Armenian king named "Ara the Beautiful," and his mother kept him in dresses until he was six. As soon as he graduated to pants, he started sneaking off to play tackle football with the older kids in Akron, and the only way mom could get him home was to come after him with the sawed-off broomstick she used to stir the family wash. As an eighth-grader, Ara was everybody's nomination for Toughest Kid in school—even the Board of Education's. "They were having a lot of trouble with vandals breaking windows," recalls Older Brother Gerard, 43, a Toledo businessman. "So they just hired Ara to patrol the grounds. The checks came directly from the Board of Education. He was real proud of that."
At South High School, Parseghian is remembered as a kind of Jack Armstrong with Wheaties coming out his ears. "He worked like the dickens for his S," a classmate recalls. "If he saw somebody wearing a letter who hadn't participated in athletics, he'd take it away from him and tell him to turn out for the team." Ara's mother was violently against football; whenever she went to a game, she spent the afternoon hiding under the stands, praying for Ara's safety. It would have been kinder to pray for the other fellow. South High Coach Frank ("Doc") Wargo remembers one encounter against Steubenville High, an Ohio Valley team made up mostly of miners' sons. "Ara was tough. But Steubenville had a tough fullback too. On the first play from scrimmage, the two of them met headon, and you could hear the helmets crash. Both boys went down. After a few seconds, Ara jumped up. They carried their fullback out."
Call Him Hardnose. Parseghian enrolled at the University of Akron, spent two wartime years in the Navy: then back to football he went, this time at Miami of Ohio, a small school with an uncanny knack for producing big-time coaches—Army's Earl Blaik and Paul Dietzel, Ohio State's Woody Hayes, the pros' Paul Brown, Weeb Ewbank and Sid Gillman. In 1947, a solid 190-lb. halfback, Ara led the Redskins to an undefeated season, won All-America mention and a pro tryout with the Cleveland Browns.