Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? Crable was curious if he would have a worthy successor at middle linebacker, so he also took on rare hosting duties for someone in his class. Eventual first-round NFL pick Crable (1978-81) had become the program's all-time tackles leader, breaking the re- cord of predecessor and second-round pick Bob Golic (1975-78), who had suc- ceeded second-round pick Greg Collins (1972-74). Not one to mince words or sugar- coat, Crable cut to the quick with Fur- janic. "Tony, why do you want to come to Notre Dame?" Crable began with a serious, you've-got-to-be-kidding- me tone. "The social life stinks, the weather sucks and you've got to go to class." "I said, 'I want to get my degree,'" Furjanic replied. "Right answer," Crable nodded with approval. Furjanic eventually would choose Notre Dame over Michigan, Iowa and Penn State, the other three schools where he took official visits. A native of Chicago's South Side, Furjanic starred at longtime feeder school Mount Carmel, where 1954-58 Notre Dame head coach Terry Brennan received his coaching start and where 1968-70 Irish fullback Bill Barz was the head coach. Yet despite the natural ties, Furjanic did not follow Notre Dame, and Barz remained impartial during the recruit- ment. "Recruiting back then was not like it is now, where everybody knows about everything going on," Furjanic said. "My coach hid all the letters he was receiving from schools, until after our season was done, and my mom hid all the letters too. I didn't see anything until the season was over. You took the visits after the season finished. "I didn't know what Notre Dame was all about until I did my research and compared my four schools. … I looked at it as, 'What's best for me 10 years after I left school?'" One of 11 children in a house with one bathroom, Furjanic placed a pre- mium on getting a strong education. "My dad was a school teacher, so that was part of it," he said. "I wasn't the best student in the whole world, but the most important thing to us as a family was to go to college and do better than our parents." BITTERSWEET TIMES Since Crable's graduation after the 1981 season, the two highest tackle totals recorded in a season by a Notre Dame player were the 147 by Furjanic in 1985, when he received honorable mention All-America notice, and 142 by Furjanic again during his sopho- more season in 1983. The closest anyone has come since then was 133 by Manti Te'o in both 2010 and 2012. It was a bittersweet time for Fur- janic, who apprenticed his freshman season behind fellow Chicago na- tive and then-senior Mark Zavagnin. During the coaching regime of Gerry Faust, who had come from Cincin- nati Moeller High School, there was a maddening inconsistency in the infra- structure.