Huarte Goes from Heisman to Hall

If any player has enjoyed life after football, it’s John Huarte. These days, the Pacific Palisades resident is too busy with other endeavors to reminisce much about the past. In fact, he is still surprised at the attention he gets from having won the Heisman Trophy 41 years ago. In May, the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame named Huarte one of 11 players to be elected to the shrine in South Bend, Indiana, next August and no one was more tickled than the former Notre Dame quarterback. “I was just as surprised by that as I was when I won the Heisman,” Huarte says. “It’s a great honor and it’s nice to know that even so many years later people still remember what I did in football.” After winning the Heisman, Huarte signed with the New York Jets of the American Football League along with fellow rookie Joe Namath. In his six seasons in the AFL/NFL, Huarte played in only 24 games, completing 19 of 48 passes for 230 yards and one touchdown. Huarte was a backup to Len Dawson when the Kansas City Chiefs’ won the Super Bowl in 1970–a team that featured current USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett, who won the Heisman the year after Huarte. A two-year stint as the starting quarterback for the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League followed, but the league folded following the 1975 season. “Being part of a Super Bowl championship team was a great experience, but winning the Heisman was definitely the high point of my career,” Huarte admits. “Nothing can top that.” Huarte is perhaps the most improbable Heisman winner in the 70-year history of the award, beating out the likes of Tulsa’s Jerry Rhome, Illinois’ Dick Butkus, California’s Craig Morton, Alabama’s Namath and Kansas’ Gale Sayers to become the sixth Fighting Irish player to join college football’s elite fraternity. Long before the hit movie “Rudy” and 10 years before the subject of the story, Daniel Ruettiger, ever stepped foot on Notre Dame’s campus, Huarte’s cinderella season of 1964 played out like a Hollywood script. “Ara [Parseghian] used to joke that the whole ‘Rudy’ story could’ve been made about me,” Huarte says, laughing. “Because that was Ara’s first season, we’d gone 2-7 the year before and I barely had any experience. So no one expected much of me or the team.” To say Huarte’s first three seasons at Notre Dame were uneventful is an understatement. He played a grand total of 50 minutes and attempted only 50 passes. He didn’t even play enough his junior year to earn a monogram. Then, as a senior, he earned the starting job and passed for 2,062 yards and 16 touchdowns, setting 12 school records in the process. The Irish finished 9-1 and were declared national champions in several polls. “Our only loss was in the last game at USC,” Huarte recalls. “We were up 17-0 at halftime but they came back and beat us, 20-17. And it cost us, too, because back then Notre Dame didn’t go to bowl games.” What made Huarte’s dream season even more unlikely, however, was the fact that he almost missed his senior year entirely and would have had it not been for Parseghian’s prescience. “I separated my shoulder in practice and the three team doctors all agreed that I needed to have surgery,” Huarte says, reflecting back on a decision that ultimately altered his future for the better. “Ara was skeptical, so he sent me to a specialist in Chicago who told me to just leave it alone and the soreness will go away. I took his advice and it never bothered me again.” Ironically, that doctor’s son, Rich Cronin, now lives right across the street from Huarte’s home in the Huntington Palisades. “He apparently found out I was living here, came over and knocked on my door,” Huarte says. “When he introduced himself I couldn’t believe it. Small world, huh?” Huarte enjoys attending the Heisman dinner every year and was thrilled to see Matt Leinart win in 2004 because he has something in common with the Trojans’ quarterback: both graduated from Mater Dei High in Santa Ana. Huarte says he voted Leinart No. 1 on his ballot. “How many high schools can say they’ve had two Heisman Trophy winners?” Huarte asks. “That’s pretty special.” Even more special was Huarte’s decision to donate his trophy to his high school alma mater in hopes that it will inspire future generations of kids to achieve their goals. “I just thought that’s where it [the trophy] should be,” Huarte acknowledges. “Besides, I have so many kids [five] that I wouldn’t know which one to bequeath it to.” Though he still loves to watch football and marvels at how complex the game has become since he played, he is saddened by what he sees as more of a “me” than “we” attitude in today’s game. For instance, when Huarte won the Heisman, he was not sitting amongst his fellow finalists, in a crowded room in front of a nationwide television audience, waiting with bated breath as his name was read to thunderous applause. No, his experience was far different. “I was shaving in my dorm room at Walsh Hall,” Huarte remembers. “The closest phone was at the end of the hallway and one of my roommates, George Keenan, heard it ringing and went to answer it. Next thing I know, he’s shouting ‘Hey John–you got it!'” Winning the most prestigious individual award in American sports changed Huarte’s life, but it didn’t change who he is. He and his wife, Eileen, moved to the Palisades in 1993 and love the community feeling that exists. “It’s a great neighborhood,” Huarte sayd. “It’s close to the ocean, close to the airport and yet it’s small enough where you can still walk around town and meet lots of folks you know.” After retiring from football, Huarte started his own business, Arizona Tile, which now has 22 branches throughout the Western United States and even imports granite from foreign countries like Brazil, China, Mexico and the Czech Republic. When he is not busy running the company, Huarte is an active parishioner at Corpus Christi Church and enjoys spending time with his five children and eight grandchildren. One daughter, Monica, lives nearby in the Huntington while another, Mariah, lives in the Alphabet streets. His youngest daughter, Bridget, is an A-level paddle tennis player at the Jonathan Club. His two sons, Matt and Mark, both live in Orange County. “We’re all just one big happy family,” says Huarte, whose front yard is frequently littered with children’s toys. “What’s neat about the Palisades is that everyone around town knows you. One time I took my three-year-old grandson to Mort’s and he got a bottle and started cleaning the windows. One of the employees teased him, ‘You’re going to steal my job!'”