Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? I did prior to that — and my GPA was the highest it had ever been," Crable noted. The No. 23 overall pick in 1982, Crable had a six-year career with the New York Jets cut short by torn ACLs in both his knees, the first in his third year and the second in his seventh in 1988, both in non-contact drills. Crable was at his peak with 26 starts in 1986- 87 before the second tear. The first injury prompted him to be- gin a sports apparel business in 1985 that made him a hefty profit by the time he sold it in 1989. "You start thinking and say, 'Look, you better start getting ready for something after football,'" Crable said. "You look back on your Notre Dame education and you really feel blessed. You're in a position where you've got contacts within the game, within the Notre Dame community … you realize how blessed you are to attend a place like Notre Dame." Then in 1990, a life-changing mo- ment occurred when older cousin Jack, a role model in his life, saw his wife pass away from cancer. "When I was in the business world, I had the same intensity and the same drive in everything that drove me to be successful in football," Crable recalled. "I guess I had an epiphany one night where I had to ask myself a question: 'If I die right at this moment, do I think I'm going to heaven?' "And even learning so many years about God's mercy, I didn't believe I was, because I was focused on a lot of other things than my spiritual life. I had to make those changes in my life, and part of that revolved around go- ing back and getting a degree to teach religion." From 1992-2007, Crable taught reli- Unbreakable Record Contrary to a popular belief, records aren't always meant to be broken. From Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point output in a 1962 NBA game to Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in 1941, some standards become untouchable. At Notre Dame, Bob Crable's 521 career tackles (not including two bowl games) from 1978-81 is one of them. Particularly amazing is he recorded only 13 stops as a freshman while apprenticing behind senior Bob Golic, whose 479 tackles standard from 1975-78 he broke. Crable then amassed 187 stops as a sopho- more, 154 his junior year in 1980, and 167 as a senior. Those single season totals rank Nos. 1, 2 and 4 in Fighting Irish annals. The 2012 Heisman Trophy runner-up, Manti Te'o, basically started about 15 more games than Crable, yet his 437 tackles (including bowl games) are still 84 short of the record. With 283 career stops entering the Fiesta Bowl, 2015 Butkus Award winner Jaylon Smith would probably need about 225 tackles, if he returned for his senior year, to reach Crable's mark. "The game has changed because they pass the ball so much now," Crable said. "The way the game is today, the only one who might be able to break it is a strong safety — and that's an awful lot of tackles for a strong safety to make." — Lou Somogyi