Ara Parseghian, a Presbyterian of Armenian descent who might have seemed an unlikely savior of Notre Dame football but became just that, coaching the Fighting Irish out of the wilderness and back to greatness in the 1960s and ’70s, died early Wednesday morning at his home in Granger, Ind. He was 94.
The Rev. John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, announced the death in a statement.
Parseghian, whose home was not far from the university’s campus in South Bend, Ind., had recently been undergoing treatment at a care facility for a hip infection.