The last time Notre Dame lost in Philadelphia

The heft of the following day's Inquirer - as big and bulky as a medieval Bible - symbolized how newsy Saturday, Oct. 29, 1960, had been.

On a day reporters described as "rainy, raw and bleak," President Eisenhower delivered a major address at the Bellevue-Stratford hotel, citing both the accomplishments of his outgoing administration and the reasons Americans should support the Republican hoping to succeed him, Richard Nixon.

With the presidential election just 10 days away, the Democratic candidate, John F. Kennedy, also was in Philadelphia that Saturday. Wearing a rain hat at times, the young senator made several area stops, including two that drew large crowds to the Lawrence Park and Cheltenham shopping centers.

Across the Delaware River, 33,330 fans watched Carry Back, who would win April's Kentucky Derby, capture the world's richest horse race, the $287,930 Garden State Futurity. In Boston, the Philadelphia Warriors thrashed rival Boston, 131-103. Near Toledo, a twin-engine C-46 plane carrying the Cal Poly football team crashed, killing 16 players. And that night a young boxer named Cassius Clay won his professional debut, a six-round decision over Tunney Hunsaker.

But the Saturday event that most interested Philadelphia sports fans took place at the southern end of Broad Street, where 63,000 soggy fans at Municipal Stadium watched Navy's unbeaten football team defeat Notre Dame.

The Fighting Irish, of course, will be back in town Saturday for a nationally televised Lincoln Financial Field date with undefeated Temple. And the man who coached Navy to that 1960 victory said that if the underdog Owls needed inspiration, they ought to remember what he told his team that rainy day.

"I told them it's not easy playing Notre Dame," Wayne Hardin, 88, recalled last week. "They've got the Four Horsemen and all of that. They're very religious and they feel like God is going to favor them. Sometimes their opponents feel the same way. They have a big edge before the game even starts. Temple needs to look past all that stuff the way we did."

There also were a few other ways that Navy's 14-7 victory 55 years ago might be inspirational to Temple.

It proved, after all, that Notre Dame could be beaten in Philadelphia. That marked the only time in 16 appearances over 65 years that the Irish lost here. Between 1928 and 1993, they posted victories here over Penn State (1), Army (1), Penn (4), and Navy (8). (In 1952, they tied Penn at Franklin Field.)

And Hardin, the fourth-year Navy coach who engineered the triumph, has powerful links to the Owls program, later becoming Temple's winningest coach.

"When I got the job at Navy somebody told me that if I beat Army, I could be there forever," Hardin said. "They didn't mind if I lost to Notre Dame as long as it wasn't disastrous."

That Navy-Notre Dame matchup was, in retrospect, more notable for its historical quirks than its outcome. The game not only showcased the versatility and speed of the little Navy halfback who two months later would win the Heisman Trophy, it also hinted at the bad times that lay just ahead for Philadelphia's professional football team.

Joe Bellino dazzled, scoring both Navy touchdowns and helping shut down the Irish on defense. The Notre Dame coach, meanwhile, lost for the 10th time in his 16-game South Bend tenure. Two years later, possessing the worst record of any Irish coach ever, Joe Kuharich was fired.

In 1964, new Eagles owner Jerry Wolman hired Kuharich as his coach. In 1965, he gave him an unprecedented 15-year-extension. In 1968, he fired him.

But late that 1960 afternoon, Kuharich sat in the losers' dank locker room and tried to explain what had happened in the defeat, what had happened to mighty Notre Dame.

"We've got a lot of injuries," Kuharich said. "But we're a young team and I hope we have a better showing for the fans of Philadelphia when we come back here in 1962."

At a Union League dinner the night before, speakers such as Harry Stuhldreher, one of Notre Dame's legendary Four Horsemen, tried to stir up interest in the 3 p.m. game.

After defeating California in its 1960 opener, Kuharich's team had dropped four straight. Coming after a disappointing 5-5 season, that losing quieted some of the enthusiasm surrounding Notre Dame's first Philadelphia appearance in three years.

While 95,000 had watched the Irish beat Army there in 1957, a crowd of only 65,000 - including 3,000 Navy midshipmen and 600 Notre Dame students - was expected at 100,000-seat Municipal Stadium.

"Even the magic name of Notre Dame apparently loses some of its drawing power in a losing season," The Inquirer's Herb Good wrote on Saturday.

Navy, meanwhile, arrived unbeaten, its six victims having included two local teams, Penn and Villanova. The Midshipmen were led by Bellino, just 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds but swift and elusive.

"Joe was the best one-on-one runner I ever saw," Hardin said. "He had one run at the end of our upset of Washington that year that I'll never forget."

Thanks in part to Bellino and Notre Dame's enduring cachet here, 63,000 fans sat through rain and cold to watch the continuation of what organizers billed as "the nation's oldest intrasectional rivalry."

Bellino, at least, didn't disappoint. He ran for 43 yards on the game's first play, 18 more two plays later. He would score both Navy touchdowns, rush for 113 yards, play defensive back, and add a 41-yard quick-kick in the victory.

Navy held on because Irish quarterback George Haffner - Kuharich had future American Football League MVP Daryle Lamonica on the bench - never generated any consistent offense.

"You know that anytime you play Notre Dame away from home, the crowd is going to be in their corner," said Hardin. "So to beat them at a neutral site like that, where at least 70 percent of the crowd was pulling for them, was an accomplishment."

Navy would end the season 9-2, having earned an invitation to the Orange Bowl, where it fell to Missouri.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame was devastated. Good termed the loss "as frustrating a football battle as the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame ever yielded."

They would end 1960 with a 2-8 record, still the worst in school history. Following 5-5 seasons in 1961 and 1962, Kuharich was dismissed. His old friend, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle - the football publicist at San Francisco when Kuharich coached there - immediately named him the league's supervisor of officials.

Two years later, Wolman, after interviewing football legends like Paul Brown, Otto Graham, and George Allen, hired Kuharich. No one knew why, though some believed he did so as a favor to Rozelle. If his hiring made little sense, the 15-year extension Wolman gave him a year later made less.

Kuharich fared no better as a pro in Philadelphia, his Eagles going 28-41-1 in five chaotic seasons.

In 1969, following a 2-11-1 record, Wolman sold the Eagles to Leonard Tose. A rabid Notre Dame alumnus, Tose had been at Municipal Stadium the day Navy beat Notre Dame. His first official act shocked no one.

"Before the ink [on the agreement of sale] was dry," the Associated Press noted, "he had fired Joe Kuharich."

ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com

@philafitz