John Huarte is one of the most improbable Heisman Trophy winners of all time. USC upset Notre Dame in 1964, knocking the Irish out of the hunt for the national championship, but that didn’t prevent Huarte from winning the fabled stiff-arm trophy.
Huarte will be honored in person at the Knute Rockne Memorial Society’s Spirit of Sports Awards Celebration on Friday at lunchtime in The Center at Cathedral Plaza, located at 555 West Temple Street in Los Angeles.
Huarte is just one of several distinguished Notre Dame alumni who will be in Los Angeles at this event, part of the festivities for the Notre Dame-USC weekend, the first Irish-Trojan game held in L.A. since 2018.
Fighting Irish Wire wrote this about Huarte on his birthday in 2020:
“Before there was Joe Burrow or Cam Newton coming out of absolutely nowhere to win the Heisman Trophy, there was a young man by the name of John Huarte.
“Huarte split time at quarterback with Frank Budka in 1963 as Notre Dame went just 2-7 in what was a truly awful year. One fall later though, the Fighting Irish had hired Ara Parseghian and began one of the all-time turnarounds in college football history.”
Read more about Huarte in the Fighting Irish Wire piece, and learn more about Notre Dame-USC history (among other subjects) at the Knute Rockne Memorial Society, whose gathering has brought John Huarte to L.A. for this big weekend.
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