Controversy
Chroniclers of Notre Dame sports history disagree on the validity of this claim. One skeptical observer, Murray Sperber, author of Shake Down the Thunder, speculates: "...when N.D. publicists began compiling the history of Notre Dame football, no one could ascertain who had coached in 1902 and 1903. Because Farragher had played on the team at the turn of the century and was a popular police officer on the Notre Dame campus in the 1930s, the publicists inscribed his name on one of the most prestigious lists in American sports–head football coach at Notre Dame".
Despite questions surrounding Farragher's status as coach, he was evidently a major participant in one of Notre Dame football's early "golden ages". As Sperber's text notes: "After the mediocre 1905 season–5–4 including bad losses to the in-state rivals–the Notre Dame Scholastic announced: 'The time has come when Notre Dame should take her rank in the old football world. The rank she had when Fortin and Farragher and Farley were playing here; the rank she had when Salmon, the invincible, tore through the opposition'".
James Farragher spent his last years in South Bend. He died in Youngstown, Ohio, on February 22, 1949, at the age of 75, after a three-month illness.
Read more about this topic: James Farragher
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