The Gipper

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The Gipper Page 5

by Jack Cavanaugh


  As Gipp lay on the ground, Horace Wulf, one of the players who had hit him, said, “I’m sorry. I hope it isn’t bad.”

  “Forget it, pal,” Gipp replied. “It’s all part of the game.”

  Gipp, who had missed the first two games because of his late arrival, would now also miss the last two while spending almost two weeks in a Sioux City, Iowa, hospital. Fortunately for the Ramblers his absence was not costly, though he was missed. Notre Dame easily beat Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State), 23-0, but barely got by Washington and Jefferson, 3-0, on November 24 in the final game of the 1917 season. By then, although classes still had almost three weeks to go before the Christmas break, Gipp was gone from campus, having returned home to Laurium on crutches in time for Thanksgiving. Both Harper and Rockne knew that with the football season over, there was no guarantee that Gipp would return in January for the spring semester, given his injury, his mysterious draft status, and his personal state of mind. Perhaps Gipp would decide that he wasn’t up to being a student-athlete (he had already demonstrated his distaste for the first half of that role) and could shoot as much pool and play as much poker, albeit not for as much money, in the Calumet area as he could in South Bend. One thing was certain, though; if Gipp did come back, he would have a new head coach.

  5

  THE BEGINNING OF A LEGEND

  KNUTE ROCKNE, FOR one, was not about to let Gipp get away, not when he had at least two more years of eligibility at Notre Dame, assuming he attended classes once in a while. Aware that Notre Dame was bound to lose more than a few players to military service before the 1918 season began, Rockne wrote Gipp a letter in early December 1917.

  “Dear George,” the salutation read, “I hope you are recuperating from the broken leg that you received in the last game. Your teammates and I want you to know that we look forward to seeing you this coming year and need you for our football team. If there is anything that I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask. Sincerely yours. Knute Rockne.”

  By then, Gipp had heard that Jesse Harper had resigned as head coach and athletic director, effective June 1, and that Rockne was a strong candidate to replace him. It would make no difference to Gipp, assuming he returned to Notre Dame, since he liked both men. Though he was a disciplinarian, Harper tolerated Gipp’s idiosyncratic behavior and left it to Rockne to handle, or at least try to handle Gipp, mainly to see to it that he went to classes more often and showed up for more practices. Reflecting his respect for the far more emotive Rockne, Gipp, somewhat surprisingly, did respond to Rockne’s letter. In a handwritten letter, Gipp wrote that his injured leg was getting better but still hurt. “I am hoping that I might return to school in time to start practicing for football,” Gipp wrote.

  Even though Gipp’s letter did not guarantee that he would return—Gipp could still be pressed into military service—it most certainly lifted the coach’s spirits. Rockne obviously had a vested interest in Gipp, who he was convinced had unlimited potential as a football player. At the same time, Rockne felt that Gipp “was dissipating his life,” according to Chet Grant, a quarterback at Notre Dame in 1916, 1920, and 1921.

  “Rockne knew that George had an innate intelligence and had great potential as a person besides as a football player,” the erudite Grant said, “but he felt that George was drifting along without any particular goal in his life. That’s the real reason, I think, that he wanted him to come back to Notre Dame.”

  Still limping when the spring semester began in early January, Gipp, as expected, did not return to Notre Dame, as much because of his draft status as his recuperation, and perhaps because of a blizzard, the worst ever in South Bend, which kept schools and many businesses closed for a week and virtually brought life in the city to a standstill. In late January, Gipp was ordered to report for a physical examination for the second time by the Laurium draft board. Limping noticeably when he arrived for his exam, Gipp was either given a six-month deferment or rejected for service—it never was made clear which—because of his leg injury. With the war still raging in France, the United States Army needed more men, but not men with only one good leg. While recovering that winter, Gipp sporadically drove a taxi in Calumet and spent much of his time shooting pool and playing poker, activities that did not require Gipp to be in great physical condition. By late spring, though, with his leg healed, Gipp signed on with the Laurium baseball team and had another very good season, hitting well over .400 and showing no ill effects from his broken leg, only to injure the other leg late in the season. Once again, a number of major league scouts drooled over Gipp’s prowess as a baseball player and tried to get him to sign professional contracts, only to be rebuffed by Gipp, for reasons unknown, since his main objective was to play in the major leagues, preferably with the Chicago Cubs. If Gipp had any major disappointments during the spring and summer of 1918, it was that Indiana’s prohibition act, prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages (enacted in February 1917), took effect on April 2, 1918, some two years before the Volstead Act became law. As in South Bend, Michigan’s own prohibition laws had little impact on Calumet, where a large number of speakeasies soon sprung up, well-attended and pretty much ignored by the local police.

  Successful as Gipp was at the pool and poker tables, his winnings weren’t sufficient to help him survive, even though he lived with his family during some of his summer vacations. To make ends meet and supplement his gambling winnings, Gipp spent his weekdays driving a truck again for the Roehm Construction Company. Something of a dashing and handsome man about town, and now a Notre Dame football star to boot, Gipp had no trouble attracting women and dated a number of girls in Laurium and Calumet whenever such dates did not interfere with baseball, pool, or poker. From what some of his closest friends said, none of those relationships became serious, at least through the summer of 1918.

  Following the 1917 season, Jesse Harper informed Notre Dame’s president, John W. Cavanaugh, that he was resigning because his father-in-law was seriously ill and Harper, who had grown up on a farm, had to take over the family ranch in Kansas. Harper was well aware that Notre Dame had a history of bringing in head football coaches from the outside, as had been the case with his own hiring. So before Father Cavanaugh even asked about a possible successor, Harper told him Rockne was perfect for the job. Cavanaugh paused for several moments, then said, “I have some doubts, Jesse. In the first place, I think he’s too young.”

  Harper had expected that response. He also realized that Cavanaugh knew that Rockne, at the age of thirty, was not many years older than some of the players he might be coaching, especially those who eventually would be returning from military service. But then Cavanaugh also knew that Harper was even younger, twenty-nine, when he was hired away from Wabash in 1913 not only to coach the football team but also the baseball, basketball, and track teams, and to serve as athletic director. Probably more of a factor to Cavanaugh, Harper suspected, was his concern about Rockne’s flamboyance and temper, which made him difficult for the Notre Dame administration to handle. Aware of what Cavanaugh’s position on Rockne might be, Harper then pointed out that he—with Cavanaugh’s permission—had hired Rockne as the school’s track coach when he was a senior, and that the head of the chemistry department had given Rockne a job as an assistant and then hired him to teach chemistry classes in the preparatory school on the Notre Dame campus while he was still an undergraduate. Still, he sensed Cavanaugh was not convinced that Rockne was ready to coach the varsity football team. Then, using what he thought was his ace in the hole, Harper told the university president that Rockne had a chance to become head coach at Michigan Agricultural College for more money than he was now making as an assistant football coach, head track coach, and chemistry instructor combined, and might well take it since his wife, Bonnie, had given birth to their first child, a son, a year earlier.

  Unwilling to make a decision right away, Cavanaugh stopped by Harper’s office frequently in the week or so that follow
ed to suggest coaches from other schools who he thought might do well at Notre Dame. Harper, who was highly respected by Cavanaugh, would shake his head and adamantly suggest his own choice—Rockne. Growing impatient with Cavanaugh’s reluctance to name Rockne the head coach, Harper finally told the president that several years earlier he had promised Rockne the head coaching job when he stepped down. That did it.

  “Well, Jesse, if you promised it to him, we certainly will have to offer it to him, won’t we?” said Cavanaugh with a smile.

  A week later, in March 1918, Rockne signed a contract to become the head football and track coach, as well as the athletic director, for $3,500 a year ($1,500 less than what Harper, reportedly the highest paid employee at Notre Dame, had made). That, of course, wasn’t saying much, since Notre Dame was still a small school striving for accreditation, better known for its football team than for its academics. Rockne’s ascension would mark the beginning of the most colorful era in the history of Notre Dame sports.

  Much as Gipp liked the low-key and cerebral Harper, he was glad to know that Rockne had been named head coach. During their symbiotic relationship, Gipp had come to both like and respect the fiery assistant coach, aware that he had the knack to inspire players and get the most out of them, including Gipp. In large measure because of Rockne’s hiring, Gipp, during the summer of 1918, convinced two longtime friends and outstanding all-around athletes, with whom he had attended Calumet High School—Heartley “Hunk” Anderson and Fred “Ojay” Larson—to attend Notre Dame and play football. Both had taken a year off after graduation to work while hoping to get scholarship offers to play football, and Gipp, aware that about a dozen members of the 1917 Notre Dame team had gone into military service, felt that Rockne would be more than glad to have Anderson and Larson on his depleted team. There were no guarantees, but Gipp, as smooth in conversation as he was on a football field, was certain he could convince Rockne to give scholarships to both his friends.

  In late summer, Rockne, anxious to find out whether Gipp planned to return to Notre Dame, finally managed to reach him by phone to check on his draft status, his right leg, and, primarily, whether he would be returning to Notre Dame. “We need you, and I hope you’re coming back,” Rockne said. Expecting Gipp to waver and give a noncommittal answer, Rockne was amazed when Gipp said, “I’ll be back, Rock. I look forward to playing with you.” It was during this conversation that Gipp convinced Rockne to offer scholarships to Anderson and Larson without ever having seen them play—not uncommon at the time—or even having spoken with either man. That Gipp wanted them to play alongside him was good enough for Rockne to believe that they would be welcome additions to an undermanned Notre Dame team. Rockne knew that Gipp was smart and wouldn’t recommend players who would be blocking for him just because they were boyhood friends.

  Not only did Gipp agree to return, but he did so in time for the brief weeklong preseason practice sessions that were customary in the era. The coming academic year would turn out to be a much more comforting one for Gipp, since he would be playing alongside Anderson and Larson, and, at least for a while, living with Larson on campus in Sorin Hall. Gipp and Larson were on hand at the South Bend train station to meet Anderson when he arrived.

  “George told me that Rockne was getting some cigars at Hullie and Mike’s, which George had already told me about, and would be by to meet us soon,” Anderson said. “When he did arrive, George introduced me to him and Rockne asked, ‘What position do you play?’”

  “I mainly play fullback,” Anderson replied.

  “That’s fine, but what we really need are linemen,” Rockne responded. “Can you play tackle or guard?”

  “I can play anywhere on the line, ” said Anderson, who had played both fullback and as a linebacker at Calumet High, although he only weighed about 170 pounds, which was about average for a lineman at Notre Dame, where Harper and Rockne put a premium on speed and quickness, not size.

  “OK,” Rockne said, seemingly impressed with Anderson. “See you at practice tomorrow afternoon.”

  If downtown South Bend had changed as its factories became defense plants, so, too, had the Notre Dame campus. Under a program begun that fall by the government, male students were able to enroll in the Student Army Training Corps, which permitted students to stay in school while undergoing military training in addition to attending classes. It was a win-win situation for the students, most of whom were of draft age, since the government also paid their tuition, albeit only 100 dollars a year plus room and board. As in the Army, students had to pass a physical to qualify for the SATC, which some students said, with tongue in cheek, stood for “safe at the college.” Rockne, not surprisingly, suggested to most of his players, including Gipp, that they join the SATC and thus be able to play football. Both of Gipp’s friends from Calumet, Hunk Anderson and Ojay Larson, were among those who joined and had to drill for two hours every morning before classes began. Gipp, however, was rejected, ostensibly because of the leg injury he had sustained playing baseball during the summer. That made it two draft board rejections, both based on injured legs, not to mention the mysterious circumstances of Gipp’s first call to duty. Rockne, taking no chances, thereupon asked the head of the SATC on the Notre Dame campus to inform the draft board in Laurium that Gipp had flunked the physical, hoping, no doubt, that the draft board—which had already either rejected Gipp because of his first leg injury or given him a six-month deferment in January—would thus exempt Laurium’s biggest sports star from military service. As it developed, Gipp never did hear back from the Laurium board after his physical examination in Laurium and was never summoned again for military service. Why the draft board never sought to charge Gipp with draft evasion for failing to report for induction on September 21, 1917, never was explained. Nor, it seems, did anyone in Laurium ever bother to ask. Perhaps members of the board were big Gipp fans who felt that the local sports hero was needed on the home front to entertain sporting crowds and thus help keep their minds off the war, both in the Calumet area and in South Bend and other college towns where the Ramblers/Hoosiers/Westerners played.

  6

  FOOTBALL’S ODD COUPLE

  ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1913, high school dropout George Gipp, then eighteen, read about Notre Dame’s stunning victory over Army in the Daily Mining Gazette. Living a carefree life as a taxi and truck driver, amateur baseball and basketball star, and skilled poker and pool player, Gipp had no particular interest in Notre Dame—still, like tens of thousands, if not millions, of newspaper readers he was surprised at the outcome. He also was delighted to read how the relatively new forward pass was the key to Notre Dame’s victory, since he himself enjoyed throwing forward passes to friends, who marveled at how Gipp could fling the stubby football of the time up to 50 yards.

  Because of his passing ability, his speed, and his all-around athleticism, Gipp was in demand by Calumet area semi-pro football teams, and occasionally played both halfback and as a lineman against much older players, some of whom had played on the college level. Gipp more than held his own in such games, as both Hunk Anderson and Ojay Larson were to recall, especially as a swift and elusive hard-to-bring-down runner. Quite often teammates suggested to Gipp that he pursue a football scholarship at Michigan, Notre Dame, or some other big-time football-playing college in the Midwest, where, they felt, he would be more than welcome. Gipp’s automatic response was that, first, he hadn’t graduated from high school, and, second, he had no interest in playing college football.

  Like Rockne, his lack of organized football experience and years of work prior to entering Notre Dame was no deterrent to Gipp when he agreed, at Rockne’s suggestion, to go out for football. By the 1918 season, Rockne’s first as head coach, Gipp had established himself as the team’s star player.

  Gipp’s dual personality as a football star and a carefree, seemingly fatalistic, hedonist, coupled with his disdain of authority, both in sports and in academic life, begs the question of whether his behavior was
a facade or an inexplicable character trait stemming from an early-life trauma. Yet despite his carefree and cavalier attitude at Notre Dame, Gipp never displayed any arrogance or hostility of the type often manifested by many latter-day sports stars, apart from an occasional outburst at a player who he felt had gone out of his way to rough him up. If anything, as a college football player, he was something of a charming rogue—liked and respected by his teammates and by his opponents on the field (as well as those at both the pool and card tables in South Bend and elsewhere), idolized by his fellow students and most of the faculty and staff at Notre Dame, and highly but grudgingly esteemed by Rockne despite his unconventional, even aggravating, off-the-field behavior, which often drove the coach to distraction.

  From the beginning, when he was still an assistant, Rockne felt Gipp would be difficult to deal with as a player, and a challenge to him as a coach—which proved to be the case. Even in the quintessential tramp athlete era, many, if indeed not most, coaches would not have tolerated Gipp’s off-campus gambling and his chronic absenteeism from classes, and often practices. Nor would many top administrative officials at most universities. But Rockne feigned ignorance of Gipp’s off-campus activities and allowed him a huge amount of leeway, both because of his great talent as a player and because of the growing bond that had formed between them despite their disparate personalities. He was not about to try to transmogrify Gipp into a more conventional college student, realizing that it would be impossible. Also, Rockne obviously had a vested interest in Gipp, having recognized his greatness from the start, as he was to say some years later. “I felt the thrill that comes to every coach when he knows it is his fate and his responsibility to handle unusual greatness—the perfect performer who comes rarely more than once in a generation.”

 

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