Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? Larry Moriarty, 1980-82 Fullback Junior college transfer had unique path to Notre Dame BY LOU SOMOGYI 1993 movie. The story of former Notre Dame fullback Larry Moriarty is even better. The first to acknowledge it is Rudy, T he story of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger was good enough to be made into a who speaks with Moriarty several times per week and joined him in Los Angeles for the Nov. 24 Notre Dame- USC game. "He always says, 'Larry, we've got to do your story. Yours is unbelievable,'" noted Moriarty, who enrolled at Notre Dame in 1980 as a 22-year-old sopho- more from Santa Barbara (Calif.) City College. Rudy at least was good enough to letter as a high school football player at offensive guard and inside line- backer. Moriarty did not letter as a 5-10, 170-pound backup high school nose guard at Dos Pueblos in Santa Barbara. Actually, he was fortunate to even be alive. At age 16, Moriarty was involved in a vehicular accident in which he fell off the back of a pickup truck. It cracked his skull and left him deaf in his left ear, where the nerves had been severed. After recovering, he contracted spi- Moriarty averaged 6.2 yards per carry during his Notre Dame career while rushing for 692 yards. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS nal meningitis six months later. While near death's door in a hospital, he was administered penicillin for three weeks