ROCKNE, KNUTE 1888-1931
Legendary football coach
Creator
Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne was a primary creator of modern football and of the modern college football hero. An astute promoter of the game, Rockne had an actor's gift for dramatic oratory and gesture, with which he inspired his players to near-religious fervor and captivated the popular press and throngs of spectators who felt themselves part—perhaps for the first time—of the drama played out weekly on the gridiron. Rockne changed the spectator's connection to the game, making the play literally more visible to large crowds. In the process he produced athlete-heroes for whom audiences could cheer and with whom they could identify: George Gipp, the Four Horsemen, and the Seven Mules.
Smart Football
Before the 1920s football formations characteristically featured tight knots of players smashing together in contests of strength that resembled rugby scrums. Rockne opened up the game by instituting his famous "box formation" and a system that emphasized speed and deception rather than brute force. His "smart football" plays were designed for long, game-breaking—and crowd-pleasing—touchdowns rather than the standard slow, grinding, three-yard power plays. He introduced "brush" or "influence" blocking that allowed smaller but faster linemen who complemented his small, fast backfield. These slighter, quicker athletes were necessary for the Notre Dame "shift," a carefully choreographed movement of players designed to spread the offense and defense. The shift worked so well that the rules committee of the Coaches Association twice tried to have it banned.
Early Life
Born in Voss, Norway, Rockne moved with his family to the north side of Chicago when he was five years old. The boy loved athletics, particularly football and track, and when he cut highschool classes to practice for a track meet, school officials suspended him and told him to transfer to another school. Instead, although he was an excellent math and history student and was close to graduation, Rockne dropped out of high school in 1905. He worked at various odd jobs and in 1907 decided to take the Civil Service Examination. His essay for the written section of the exam, "The Advisability of Our Having a Larger Navy Is Becoming Greater Since Japan Whipped Russia," revealed his interest in history and his colorful style. Later, proud of his writing skills, he would publish one nonfiction book, Coaching (1925), and a novel, The Four Winners (1925).
Student Athlete
Though a Lutheran, Rockne enrolled at Notre Dame, a Roman Catholic college, because the school had a history of providing employment for poor but bright students. He worked as a janitor in the chemistry laboratory and, at five feet eight inches and 165 pounds, started at left end on the 1911, 1912, and 1913 teams. The undefeated Notre Dame teams of 1911-1913 won twenty and tied twice, scored 879 points to their opponents' 77, defeating them by an average of forty to three a game. The team's greatest moment was Notre Dame's stunning 35-13 victory over powerhouse Army on 1 November 1913, the win that, according to Michael R. Steele, "changed forever the game of football." Rockne, a team leader and primary originator of the strategy, faked a limp, causing the Army defenders to neglect him as a receiver. At a key moment quarterback Gus Dorias threw a long pass to Rockne, who caught the ball in full stride. From then on, when Army defended against the pass, Notre Dame ran the ball; when Army defended against the run, Notre Dame passed. It was this balanced attack and use of deception (the pass used to set up the run) rather than a nearly exclusive use of the forward pass, as most accounts have it, that surprised Army and changed the strategy of college football. Rockne graduated from Notre Dame magna cum laude with a major in chemistry and pharmacology and applied to Saint Louis University's medical school. He was denied admission since school officials believed that coaching football—one of Rockne's stated intentions—and studying medicine were incompatible.
Early Coaching Career
After graduation Rockne was hired by Notre Dame as a chemistry instructor, head track coach, and assistant football coach. He served as an assistant for four years until 1917, when head football coach Jesse Harper resigned and Rockne assumed his position. Because young men were volunteering in large numbers for military service, the 1918 season was virtually canceled, but after the war American sports began its Golden Era, with the return to campuses of veterans and with the public's growing demand for athlete-heroes.
George Gipp
The decade of the 1920s was Rockne's greatest period, as he perfected his teams' running and passing games and their mastery of deceptive strategy. He also created football idols who captured the American imagination. George Gipp was one. By nature he was a rebel, willing to be indulged by rich, powerful alumni and disdainful of the somewhat sentimental, golden boy image of athletes espoused by his coach. He broke training rules, missed practice for three weeks, gambled openly, and was a superb halfback In his first college game, Gipp was told to punt but instead drop-kicked a sixty-two-yard field goal from his thirty-eight yard line, giving Notre Dame its margin of victory over Western State Normal. This kick remains one of the longest field goals in college records. In his twenty-six varsity games,
Gipp ran for more than one hundred yards on ten different occasions and accumulated 4,833 total yards as a ballcarrier, passer, receiver, and returner, a total of 185 yards produced every time he played a game.
Gipp's Death
In his senior year, the Notre Dame-Northwestern game was designated "George Gipp Day." Gipp, who had a high fever, did not play for three quarters, but the crowd chanted for his appearance. Rockne put him in during the fourth quarter, and he threw two long touchdown passes. However, the hero's days were numbered; his illness turned into pneumonia, and he died on 14 December 1920. The legendary deathbed conversation between Rockne and Gipp has been met with skepticism, but eight years later Rockne did use the famous "Win one for the Gipper" to inspire Notre Dame to a 12-6 victory over a tough Army team during his worst season as a coach.
The Four Horsemen
In 1922 Rockne brought in Elmer Layden at fullback to join Jim Crowley at left halfback, Don Miller at right halfback, and Harry Stuhldreher at quarterback. Though small and light, averaging 158.5 pounds, this backfield was one of the greatest in college football history. Quick and resourceful, the four backs functioned as not individual stars but instead as a well-organized unit, thereby providing the perfect vehicle for executing Rockne's sophisticated plays. The Notre Dame backfield became known as the Four Horsemen, so-named in sportswriter Grantland Rice's famous description: "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they were known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction, and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, and Layden." To complement the Four Horsemen and perhaps to emphasize their crucial but less glamorous function, the Notre Dame linemen were nicknamed the Seven Mules. The 1924 team was undefeated in nine regular season games and scored 258 points to their opponents' 44, beating them by an average of 28-5. Notre Dame was invited to play Pop Warner's Stanford team led by Ernie Nevers in the 1925 Rose Bowl game. Though Stanford outgained Notre Dame 310 to 182 yards, the Irish won 27-10.
Final Years
Toward the end of his career, as Rockne became increasingly concerned with insuring the financial security of his family, he made himself a familiar voice on the lecture circuit and began to explore opportunities in Hollywood. On 31 March 1931 during a flight to California, his plane crashed, killing all aboard. At his memorial service Rockne was eulogized as one of America's greatest college football coaches and as a molder of young men. He clearly belonged to a decade in which heroes were created and adored as embodiments of the American dream of success and glory.
Sources:
Ken Chowder, "When Notre Dame needed inspiration, Rockne provided it," Smithsonian, 24 (November 1993): 164-177;
Michael R. Steele, Knute Rockne: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983);
Wells Twombly, Shake Down the Thunder (Radnor, Pa.: Chilton, 1974).
