Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? I had a broken hand and a cracked ankle when I was a sophomore and I didn't play in any games. I think by NCAA rules I can get an extra year of eligibility.' You never saw a guy grab a phone so fast. He called Father Joyce back and said, 'And we need to give Nick an extra year of eligibility by NCAA rules.' "That was a great meeting for me." Next, in the spring and now on scholarship, Rassas was shifted per- manently to safety, joining former quarterbacks Tony Carey and Tom Longo as defensive backfield starters in the 4-4-3 alignment. In the summer, another life-altering event occurred when he and a friend were invited to spend time in Jack- son, Wyo., with the captain of Notre Dame's ski team, John Turner. "As we drove there, the Teton Range open up in front of you — just an in- credible view," Rassas said. "I worked on the ranch as a wrangler for the summer and said then, 'This is where I want to live or will end up living.'" Finally, in the fall, Rassas started all 10 games during the Cinderella season that saw the Irish rise to No. 1 before falling 20-17 in the finale at USC, but still received a share of the national title by being awarded the MacArthur Bowl. BEYOND FOOTBALL The fifth season Parseghian lobbied for on Rassas' behalf turned out to be one of the greatest ever by a Notre Dame defensive back. In 1965, Rassas picked off six passes that he returned for 197 yards (still a Notre Dame sin- gle-season record) and a score. Meanwhile, his 24 punt returns ac- cumulated 459 yards — another Irish single-season mark that still stands — and ranked No. 1 in the NCAA with a 19.1-yard average and three touchdowns (matched by Tim Brown in 1987 and Allen Rossum in 1996). The consensus All-American became a second-round pick (No. 17 overall) of the Atlanta Falcons, where he played three seasons while also starting work on his master's degree in business at Loyola (Chicago). In 1969, he was on the taxi squad in Vince Lombardi's one season with the Washington Red- skins. While alone with Lombardi one day, Rassas confided that his mother wanted him to give up football to ac- celerate his graduate work. "Coach Lombardi said, 'Nick, you don't need to be playing football. Go finish your master 's degree and do something with your life,'" Rassas said. "I idolized Coach Lombardi, so when he tells you to go back to school, you go back to school." Upon the completion of his mas- ter's, Rassas began his professional ca- reer at First National Bank in Chicago, which eventually merged with JPM- organ Chase. By the time he finished his three-decade long banking career, Rassas was a senior vice president of the second-largest bank in the world, based in Basel, Switzerland. Rassas accumulated more than three million business flying miles through- out the United States while serving as an advisor and managing hundreds of millions of dollars for clients in estates and retirement funds.