For Butler, Notre Dame star Hanratty, College Football Hall of Fame nod ‘sort of ends the book’
There are multiple chapters to any football player’s story.
With the announcement of his inclusion in the College Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025, Terry Hanratty no longer has to wait to complete his odyssey.
“It means a lot,” said Hanratty, 76, a Butler graduate who played quarterback for Notre Dame from 1966-68. “It sort of ends the book. No more football has to be talked about.”
Not quite yet.
The Hall of Fame class was announced Wednesday, Jan. 15, and Hanratty will enter the exclusive club in Las Vegas on Dec. 9 with fellow legends Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and others. Hanratty led the Fighting Irish to a national championship in his first year as a starter and was later drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, playing for them from 1969-75 and winning two Super Bowls.
“It’s an achievement of your whole lifetime, starting in Butler,” Hanratty said. “I mean, that’s where everything starts. You don’t start out going to college and all of a sudden say, ‘Well, I want to play quarterback.’ It’s the hard work that’s put in from grade school. I think I started playing in, like, fourth grade. You just learn the discipline. ... You learn what it takes to reach a level.”
Hanratty played for coach Art Bernardi’s Golden Tornado teams that ran the ball heavily. He didn’t have his breakout performance until his senior season.
“Art sort of liked Woody Hayes’ (idea) of get that big offensive line, big fullback, and 3 yards and a cloud of dust,” Hanratty said. “Then, my senior year, we opened up. I think we scored 299 points. All of my teammates kept pulling my leg saying it was my fault we didn’t get to 300 because I missed the extra point.”
Hanratty “probably could’ve gone anywhere” for college. Bernardi advised him to cut his options to two or three schools.
“He had done this before,” Hanratty said. “He had many guys before me who went to major colleges, so he knew the whole schtick of what was going on. He said, ‘You’re not going to Southern Cal to go to school. Don’t go there just for the trip. Be true to the people. You know you’re not going to go to Florida. Don’t go there just for the trip, to fly down to Florida and see what it looks like.’”
Hanratty’s final two choices were Notre Dame and Michigan State, the latter of which climbed as high as No. 9 in the Associated Press poll during Hanratty’s senior year with the Golden Tornado.
He was leaning toward committing to the Spartans before Fighting Irish defensive coordinator John Ray called him to let him know head coach Ara Parseghian would be in Pittsburgh and wanted to meet Hanratty for lunch.
“We sat for about two hours, and that was it,” Hanratty said. “I went home and told my mother, ‘I’m going to Notre Dame.’ She said, ‘Oh, what changed?’ I said, ‘I just met the man I want to spend the next four years with.’”
Parseghian’s sincerity was what convinced Hanratty. Other schools were offering Hanratty their starting jobs, money and even houses, he said. Parseghian, early into his 11-year tenure at Notre Dame, didn’t promise the high school signal caller anything but a chance at starting as a sophomore.
Hanratty wound up leading the Fighting Irish to a national championship as a sophomore and was a consensus All-American two seasons later in 1968. He passed for more than 1,200 yards in each of his three seasons as the team’s starter and, when he left, owned the program’s records for completions (304), passing yards (4,152) and passing touchdowns (27).
He most cherished the school’s stress on academics — he was an economics major — and the Notre Dame team camaraderie.
“I loved being on campus, living in the dorms with all the guys that were pre-med and science and every aspect of life — and all from all over the world,” Hanratty said. “Back then, there was no internet, so where you got most of your experience in life was communicating with people from other parts of the world.”
Hanratty worked on Wall Street as a stock trader for nearly 40 years after his professional football career. He currently resides in New Canaan, Conn.
