The Gipper

by Jack Cavanaugh

THE MISSING ARMY INDUCTEE

  WHEN GIPP RETURNED home to Laurium in mid-June 1917, he found that quite a few of his friends, including some former baseball teammates, had joined the Army in the two months since the United States—with an army of only 128,000 men—declared war on Germany. Members of other teams in the Trolley League, one of the best amateur baseball leagues in Michigan, had also entered the services, which was certain to diminish the quality of play in a circuit comparable to that of a modern low-level minor league.

  Laurium still managed to field a reasonably good team, which often attracted as many as 2,000 fans to its home games. Gipp, whose exploits on the football field at Notre Dame had surprised sports fans in the Calumet area, was the main attraction, primarily because of his hitting prowess, but also thanks to his fielding, his speed, and his strong arm. As a baseball player, Gipp most closely resembled a later-era Joe DiMaggio, the Hall of Fame centerfielder for the New York Yankees, in that he hit for both power and high average, was an excellent base runner, and a graceful outfielder, who made even difficult fly balls look easy to catch.

  “No one around Calumet thought of George as a football player until he went to Notre Dame,” said Joe Savini, a former baseball teammate of Gipp from Calumet. “He was one of the best baseball players around Calumet, though. When we played an afternoon game at home on the weekend, we often had to go find George, but when we played out of town and stayed over after playing, there usually was no problem. Then, George would come around and wake us up to make sure we’d catch the bus home. The reason he’d be up so early was that he’d never got to bed in the first place because he’d found an all-night poker game somewhere or was shooting pool someplace, no doubt for money.”

  In early August 1917 a story appeared in the Daily Mining Gazette, the major newspaper in the Calumet area, that the Laurium draft board had released a list of forty-two young men who were to be inducted on September 21. Gipp’s name was on the list, much to his chagrin, since unlike many young Americans he was not particularly interested in the prospect of firing a gun or being shot at. But when a train left the Calumet train station for an Army post in Battle Creek, Michigan, on the scheduled date, Gipp was not aboard—and no one seemed to be able to determine why. Gipp himself would not explain his absence, nor would the Laurium draft board, who raised eyebrows and also speculation that Gipp’s sports stardom had earned him at least a temporary deferment, which was not unusual either during World War I or II. Since the board never did say Gipp had received a deferment—and there seemed no legitimate reason why he should have been given one—Gipp was technically a draft dodger and thus subject to arrest. But as a celebrity athlete in Laurium, where fans tended to worship sports stars—and Gipp was on the verge of becoming the biggest star in the local constellation, with his celebrity status now enhanced as a football player at Notre Dame—perhaps the Laurium draft board felt that Gipp would do best on the home front, helping people forget about the war “over there” (as George M. Cohan described the war in Europe in his rousing song about American troops who, as the lyrics forecast, “won’t come back ’til it’s over over there”).

  By the time the Laurium baseball team had played its last game and its first draftees had gone off to war, classes had started at Notre Dame, as had football practice. But Gipp, obviously in no hurry to return to South Bend, continued to drive a truck for the Roehm Construction Company, a choice, well-paying job that Gipp got more for his baseball ability than for his capacity to navigate a dump truck along Calumet area highways and side streets. Four days after the Laurium draftees had departed for Battle Creek, a story appeared in the sports section of the South Bend Tribune that reported that the Notre Dame football team was still awaiting Gipp’s much-anticipated arrival. “Both Harper and Rockne presume at this time that Gipp must be in the Army,” the story read in referring to head coach Jesse Harper and his chief assistant. That neither Harper nor Rockne tried to get in touch with Gipp is hard to comprehend today, but is relatively typical of the lack of communication between coaches of the era and their players during summer vacations, even potential star football players like Gipp. By contrast, well before the turn of the twenty-first century, most Division I football players stayed on campus most of the summer, attending required classes that they could not fit into their schedules during the normal academic year and, of course, practicing on their own, since coaches are forbidden to work with their players during the off season except for spring practice.

  Gipp finally returned to South Bend on Sunday, October 15, the day after Notre Dame’s second game, a scoreless tie with Wisconsin in Madison and more than a month after classes had begun. Despite his late and unannounced return, Harper, Rockne, and most of the players were glad to see Gipp turn out for practice, particularly since Notre Dame had lost about a half dozen players to the military and because starting halfback Leonard “Pete” Bahan had been hurt in the Wisconsin game. What, if anything, Gipp told Harper and Rockne as to why he had returned so late was never disclosed, although certainly they must have asked. Likewise, it’s not known whether Gipp told any of his teammates why he had shown up more than a month after preseason practice had begun and two games had been played. Most likely he did not, since Gipp always kept his own counsel and, with the exception of his new roommate, fullback Walter Miller, and center Frank Rydzewski, one of the best centers in the country, was not close to any of the returning lettermen or the current sophomores with whom he had played on the 1916 freshmen team.

  Gipp’s return came at a propitious time, since Notre Dame’s next game was against powerful Nebraska in Lincoln. In practices leading up to the game, Gipp was obviously in good condition, mainly, no doubt, because of all the baseball he had played during the summer (and despite the all-nighters he had pulled playing poker or pocket billiards). Though both Harper and Rockne were cool toward Gipp in the days after his belated arrival, neither coach was about to be caustic toward him, knowing that, given his independent spirit, he might take umbrage at criticism and quit the team, as he had the freshman baseball team in the spring. They likely had no worries about how the team would react, since he had been popular with his freshman teammates and had even been elected as the team’s captain.

  During the week leading up to the Nebraska game, the South Bend News-Times mentioned Gipp for the first time since his arrival on campus. “Gipp is the long-distance dropkicker who starred as a freshman last year,” the paper noted, while failing to mention that he also had been the freshmen team’s best runner and passer. “If he can demonstrate any of his old-time acumen, dropkicking, he will be a very valuable man to have around for the Cornhuskers.”

  As it happened, Gipp never was called on to drop-kick in the Nebraska game. As much as his other skills were needed, he did not start, although he played more than half the game. His lack of practice and familiarity with the team’s offensive plays showed, and for the most part, he was contained by a much bigger Nebraska defensive line and a strong secondary as the Cornhuskers prevailed, 7-0.

  The defeat, which was hardly an upset, was followed by more bad news early the next week when starting quarterback and captain Jim Phelan (one of many early-day Notre Dame players who went on to coach in the National Football League) left for Army service. Making up somewhat for the team’s losses to the military were a number of outstanding freshmen who, under a temporary rule stemming from the war, were allowed to play with the varsity, as was the case at other schools that tried to play a schedule in 1917. They included lineman Maurice “Clipper” Smith, who became a well-known college coach; Joe Brandy, a 145-pound quarterback who would go on to become a college professor, an NFL head coach, the publisher of a newspaper and the founder of a radio station in his hometown of Ogdensburg, New York; and halfback Norm Barry, who would coach the Chicago Bears for two years after spending two seasons as a running back with the Bears. Barry would be the only player to spend his entire academic career at Notre Dame, from the first grade through his senior year
.

  (A year later, three more eventual National Football League coaches, Earl “Curley” Lambeau, Heartley “Hunk” Anderson, and Ojay Larson would join the Notre Dame varsity, as would Eddie Anderson, who would become both a physician and a Hall of Fame college coach, most notably at Holy Cross.)

  Among those returning was the 220-pound Rydzewski, the biggest player on the squad and the anchor of one of the best defensive lines in Notre Dame history, who would go on to play with the Chicago Cardinals and the Chicago Bears in the National Football League.

  Gipp, while still hardly a typical Notre Dame student, took up residence in the basement of Sorin Hall, named for the university’s founder, which housed most of the team’s thirty players, including his new roommate, Walter Miller, a junior fullback whose sense of humor, overall affability, and good study habits were expected—it was hoped by Harper and Rockne—to have a salutary effect on Gipp. They did to a degree, but before Gipp’s first full week back was over, he had ventured downtown several times to visit Hullie and Mike’s, the Hotel Oliver, and a few other favorite haunts. As the academic year went on, Miller found himself spending most nights alone in his basement room while his roommate worked at his off-campus job—shooting pool and playing poker for money (a lot of it, more often than not).

  What Gipp saw on his first trip into town surprised him. South Bend, like many American industrial cities, had gone on a war footing, with the Studebaker Corp. plant and the Singer Sewing Machine Co. facility, among other factories, operating around the clock turning out products for the military. Gipp also saw more than a few servicemen home on leave and in uniform. Given his own close call with conscription, Gipp might have felt a twinge of guilt when he saw the military personnel, realizing that he had escaped the draft, which had already claimed about a half million young American men who, along with several hundred thousand who had enlisted, by early fall were already in harm’s way in France. Just maybe, Knute Rockne thought, the realization that so many American men had gone to war might have a calming effect on Notre Dame’s wayward football star and perhaps make him realize he was lucky to be going to college and playing football, a dangerous sport, to be sure, but nowhere as hazardous as wartime duty in France. Gipp might have thought that, but he was not about to admit it.

  Apparently trying to make up for his late arrival, Gipp was uncharacteristically punctual for practices from the time he arrived back on campus. He also seemed intent on ingratiating himself with his coaches, especially Harper, who was less forgiving than Rockne about Gipp’s tardy return. Harper and Rockne could hardly have been more different. If Rockne was fiery, passionate, and loud, the tall and slender Harper was taciturn, scholarly, and soft-spoken. They differed drastically in their coaching demeanor as well, and even in how they dressed for practice—Rockne in football pants, a sweatshirt, and football cleats; Harper in a business suit and tie. Though he commanded respect, Harper rarely raised his voice and was almost professorial in his coaching approach. Rockne, by contrast, was both vocal and demonstrative, to the point of lining up at the scrimmage line without any protective gear and throwing a block or making a tackle, to the amusement of the players.

  A brilliant tactician, Harper had been a backup quarterback to All-American Walter Eckersall at the University of Chicago under the legendary and innovative Amos Alonzo Stagg, whose coaching philosophy he tended to adopt, especially Stagg’s penchant for using the embryonic forward pass off play-action fakes and having the passer throw to a moving, rather than a stationary, target. At Notre Dame, the promethean Harper also introduced a variation of the shift that Stagg is believed to have devised, wherein all four backs shifted in unison before the ball was snapped, thus distracting and confusing the opposing defense. Stagg himself had learned from a master, Walter Camp, while playing at Yale in the 1880s and was named to Camp’s first All-America team in 1889. Camp, a former player at Yale who became known as the “father of American football,” had devised the line of scrimmage and the requirement of gaining at least ten yards on three downs to retain possession of the football (the possession rule ultimately was changed from three downs to four). As Rockne, aware of Harper’s lineage, once said, “Notre Dame football goes back to Stagg and to Yale.” And, he might have added, to Walter Camp.

  An intellectual who majored in philosophy at the University of Chicago, where he had been an outstanding baseball player despite severe rheumatism, Harper had felt, from the time he was a player, that academics were more important than sports and that sportsmanship should trump winning—a heretical view among some big-time college coaches at a time when winning was everything, even if a coach relied heavily on tramp athletes. “It will take years to educate the public to the point where they will look down on the college that uses unfair methods to win,” Harper wrote in 1911 in the college magazine while coaching at Wabash. “The American spirit is that we must win.” A year later, after Harper announced he was leaving for Notre Dame, the magazine paid tribute to Harper: “Standing for fair play, square deal, and gentlemanly sport at all times and in every contest, he has helped establish among Wabash men a standard of sportsmanship that is becoming recognized in the college world.”

  In what would turn out to be Gipp’s only home game of the 1917 season, Notre Dame crushed South Dakota, 40-0, the week before what had now become an annual meeting with Army, with whom the Ramblers had split their last four games. Playing about half the game, Gipp had a good but hardly spectacular day. That would usually be the case when Notre Dame played an overmatched opponent; Gipp would inevitably break off a few long runs, as he did against South Dakota, but obviously would not go all-out. Saving his best for crucial situations in tough games would become a hallmark for the carefree running back.

  Five days after the South Dakota game, a Notre Dame squad of twenty left South Bend for the fifth game in a series that began in 1913. What made that small number of players all the more remarkable is that it was the era of the two-way player—Gipp, for example, played cornerback on defense, punted, and drop-kicked extra points—and, on average, Notre Dame only used about four substitutes. Army, by contrast, dressed about thirty-five players. In Army, the “Hoosiers,” as a New York Times headline referred to Notre Dame, would face a team that would outweigh it by an average of fifteen pounds a man. The Cadets also hadn’t lost a game in two years.

  Before a crowd of about 5,000 non-paying fans—there was no admission charge at Army games, which at the time were played in an open field with bleachers on both sides—the home team scored minutes after the opening kickoff when a punt by Gipp from the Notre Dame end zone was blocked, resulting in a safety that gave the “soldiers,” as the unbylined New York Times writer called the Army team, a 2-0 lead. That lead stood until early in the fourth quarter. After Joe Brandy intercepted a pass by Army star Elmer Oliphant deep in Notre Dame territory late in the third quarter, Notre Dame, led by Gipp’s running and passing, drove to the Army 7-yard line. Brandy, playing quarterback, then called Gipp’s number on a power run on the right side. But Gipp, convinced that Army would expect him to carry the ball, persuaded Brandy to instead fake a handoff to Gipp who would then run right, drawing most of the Army line to that side, while Brandy kept the ball and went up the middle. The play unfolded as Gipp suggested, and Brandy had no trouble running straight ahead through a huge hole and into the end zone unmolested for a touchdown, after which Gipp added the extra point.

  Led by Oliphant, now in his seventh season as a varsity football player, Army then drove to the Notre Dame 19-yard line, where, on fourth down, the “soldiers” lined up for a field goal. Aware that a field goal made no sense at that juncture, since it would still leave Army trailing 7-5 with less than two minutes to play, Gipp called out from his right halfback post on defense, “Look out for the pass!” Sure enough, quarterback Hugh Murrill, on one knee in the holder’s position, took the snap from center, bounded to his feet, faded back, and fired a pass into the end zone in Gipp’s territory. Timing his leap pe
rfectly, Gipp batted the pass down in what proved to be the key defensive play in a 7-2 Notre Dame victory. In hindsight, Army should hardly have expected a different outcome on the pass, since, as Rockne was to recount over the years, he could not recall a single pass ever having been completed in Gipp’s part of Notre Dame’s defensive secondary. That might have been a bit of Rockne hyperbole, but, in an era when most teams seldom threw more than a half dozen passes in a game, it might well have been true.

  In his thousand-word story headlined “Light Notre Dame Team Downs Army,” The New York Times reporter misspelled Gipp’s name throughout, calling him “Gipe,” indicating that word of Gipp’s superb football abilities at that point apparently had been confined to the Midwest. In referring to Army, “They took too much for granted, and before the afternoon waned, the Notre Dame youngsters had stopped the battering, line-smashing Oliphant in his tracks and administered a shocking defeat to a team which was being hailed as one of the greatest the Point had seen in years.”

  In truth, Oliphant had played very well, gaining more than 100 yards, mostly on power drives up the middle and also completing several passes, kicking off, and punting during what would be his final game against Notre Dame. But, as the Times reporter pointed out, Army was “a team of giants” whose “whole attack [was] built around Oliphant.” (At five foot seven, Oliphant was hardly a “giant.”) By contrast, he wrote, Notre Dame “has another of those quick shifty elevens,” which, though outweighed considerably and at a disadvantage because of a muddy field, “was quick at starting and went through with a driving assault at great speed.”

  Though ecstatic with the team’s performance, Harper and Rockne knew they had to worry about a letdown since Notre Dame’s next opponent, Morningside College of Iowa, was hardly in Army’s class and was regarded by many as a “breather” in an otherwise difficult schedule. As it turned out, it was a hard-fought contest, which Notre Dame won, 13-0. On the first play of the game, Gipp raced through a big hole on the right side, cut to the right and sprinted almost 40 yards before he was knocked out of bounds and into a metal fence post. Unable to get up on his own, he was helped to his feet by teammates and carried off the field with a broken right leg.