When Tyrone Willingham stepped onto the field at Notre Dame, he faced challenges no coach of the storied Fighting Irish had ever confronted before. The once mighty team was in a decade-long slide, and Willingham was the first African American ever to take its helm.

The result: ten victories and a major bowl appearance.

In Return to Glory, Alan Grant, a former player for Willingham at Stanford, takes readers inside Notre Dame's program as no one has seen it before. Given exclusive access to the players and coaching staff, he masterfully re-creates, week by week, the drama of a team playing above all expectations and the maneuvering of a master strategist facing the biggest challenge of his life.

Most of all, he takes readers behind the famously stone-faced persona of Ty Willingham, revealing the warmth, intelligence, and originality that inspired players and fans. From sweltering summer practice to tense coaches' meetings to the sidelines of the Gator Bowl, Grant shows how a single season transformed one of the nation's most renowned sports programs-and how an unlikely pairing of coach and university proved to be the beginning of something huge. Originally published in 2002 by Little Brown, and now in paperback with a new afterword by Grant, Return to Glory serves as the record of Notre Dame's remarkable resurrection.