The Gipper

by Jack Cavanaugh

  The victory made sports pages across the country. It also boosted the spirits of an untold number of Catholic sports fans and non fans, too, in an era when Catholics still encountered discrimination in employment and other segments of American society. Above all, the spectacular use of the forward pass by Notre Dame against Army was credited with helping change the game. Years later, highly respected New York Times sportswriter Allison Danzig was to write that Notre Dame’s upset triumph over Army was “the greatest impetus of all to the use of the forward pass.” Danzig went on to say that the game “brought Notre Dame from obscurity to national fame and did more to make coaches pass-conscious than anything that had happened since the pass was put into the game in 1906.”

  The stunning victory by the visitors from the small Midwestern school also helped launch one of sport’s greatest rivalries, with games that would attract as many as 60,000 spectators to Yankee Stadium and, some years, decide national championships. Notre Dame would end the season unbeaten for the third straight year, meaning that the three teams on which Rockne had been a starter had never lost a game. It was a harbinger of things to come when Rockne became Notre Dame’s most famous head coach.

  10

  SHARPSHOOTER WITH A BASKETBALL AND A CUE STICK

  WITH THE ABBREVIATED 1918 football season over, George Gipp surprised his football teammates by going out for the varsity basketball team in January of the new year. Considering how Gus Dorais, Knute Rockne’s best friend and former teammate, was the new varsity basketball coach, some observers of the Notre Dame sports scene thought that Rockne had perhaps encouraged Dorais to ask Gipp to come out for the team to ensure that he would stay in shape and spend more time on campus and less time gambling in downtown South Bend.

  Rockne always insisted that he never knew about Gipp’s gambling proclivities, but that was hard to believe in light of Rockne’s downtown connections and his friendship with George Hull and Mike Calnon, the owners of Hullie and Mike’s. Furthermore, by early 1919, Gipp’s accomplishments as a pool player were even being reported in the city’s two dailies, and Rockne, an avid newspaper reader, read both the South Bend Tribune and the South Bend News- Times.

  Dorais welcomed Gipp with open arms when he showed up for team tryouts. Before coming to Notre Dame, Gipp had played far more basketball than he had football, including his one season at Calumet High, where he starred as a freshman on a very good team. An excellent shooter and solid all-around player, Gipp had a strong background in the sport.

  Typical of the era, the Notre Dame basketball team was made up mainly of football players, including four of the five starters—Gipp, Joe Brandy, Pete Bahan, and Raleigh Stine. Most of its home games were played in the afternoon, which freed Gipp’s nights for poker and billiard games, and, occasionally, even studying. But basketball still apparently interfered with his lifestyle, since he played in only four games before, for reasons unknown, leaving the team. Notre Dame lost three of those games—the team wound up winning only one of eight games—which could have accounted for the departure of Gipp who had become accustomed to winning. In an era of low-scoring games, largely because rules called for a jump ball after each basket or free throw (which did not change until 1936), Gipp scored 12 points all told for an average of three points a game. Because of the jump-ball rule, Gipp, as the starting center, was forced to jump after every field goal or free-throw. At six feet, Gipp was tall for the era and was an excellent rebounder. Yet, a story about Notre Dame’s first game of the season in the Notre Dame Scholastic said, “Gipp handles the circle job nicely”—meaning the area in front of and just beyond the foul line—“except that he needs to jump a little higher.”

  Just maybe Gipp jumped only as high as he wanted to. At any rate, because he played in only half of Notre Dame’s eight games, Gipp did not earn a monogram, the school’s version of a varsity letter. Given that he seemed to care little about publicity or recognition of his athletic achievements, it is unlikely that that caused Gipp any concern. Still, the four games were more than he would ever play for the varsity baseball team, for which he seemed to make cameo appearances every year or so, to the chagrin of, first, Jesse Harper, and then Dorais, who were the baseball coaches during Gipp’s time at Notre Dame and knew that he was the best baseball player they had, albeit very briefly. Gipp also went out for track that winter, and, considering that he had been timed at ten seconds in the 100-yard dash in full football gear, was welcomed. But after several practice sessions as a sprinter, Gipp never returned and never did compete for the varsity track team.

  “I remember George being in the gym in street clothes when some track guys challenged him to a race,” Hunk Anderson recalled. “George reluctantly agreed and he ran away from the two sprinters in a 100 yard race—with shoes on, no less.”

  It is more than just possible that other sports interfered with his poker-playing and pool-shooting. By the 1918-19 academic year, Gipp had become one of the best pocket and three-cushion billiard players in South Bend and, indeed, probably in the entire Midwest. His earnings, especially from playing pool, had soared, and, as Hunk Anderson was to tell this author years later, it was not uncommon for Gipp to return to campus after a night at the billiards tables with hundreds of dollars in winnings. “George would ask me to put the money in a trunk I had in my room for safekeeping, which I did,” Anderson said.

  Gipp was so good with a pool cue that big-time pool shooters from Chicago and some other Midwestern cities were lured to South Bend to play him in either pocket billiards or the three-cushion game, always for high stakes, usually at Hullie and Mike’s. In such games, Gipp had nothing to lose and a lot to gain, since, apart from often betting on himself, Hull and Calnon and other Gipp fans bet on him to win, which he usually did, and gave him a share of their winnings. The games attracted hundreds of spectators, most of whom bet on Gipp, who had helped enrich many of them with his football exploits and now was doing it on pool tables. Chain-smoking as he played and also occasionally sipping on scotch or bourbon, Gipp was both nerveless and seemingly oblivious of the crowd sitting in chairs ringed around the table as he coolly dispatched such billiards luminaries as John Vermande, one of the best players in northern Indiana and southern Michigan; Ray Fisher, a Minnesota Fats-type character from nearby Mishawaka who weighed well over 200 pounds; and a highly rated player from Chicago known only as “The Greek,” whom Gipp beat in a pocket billiards match at Hullie and Mike’s during the winter of 1919. On March 3 of that year, Gipp dispatched Fisher, whom the South Bend Tribune described as “the best pool player in the South Bend area,” as the Tribune reported the next day, adding that “Gipp has now become recognized as the best.”

  Gipp also engaged in a number of matches against George Hull, the Hullie of Hullie and Mike’s, an excellent player and a big Notre Dame booster who often made bets on the Ramblers for the university students who patronized the restaurant in front. Out of Gipp’s matches with Hull came a friendship that included visits by Gipp to Hull’s home for dinners with his family and perhaps some inside information from Gipp to Hull, who bet heavily on Notre Dame football games.

  “He was a handsome young man, unassuming and so nonchalant,” Hull’s daughter once recalled. “I was only about thirteen or so at the time, but I could see that he was much older-looking than the average college boy and much more mature. He was very shy, and I remember people who were introduced to him at our home invariably remarked later that they were surprised to find out he was really George Gipp.”

  Some of those people also would have been surprised at Gipp’s dexterity with a pool cue. After leading Hullie and Mike’s to victory over the Hotel Oliver—where, ironically, Gipp would eventually wind up as the “house” billiards player—in a twomatch series, he won the South Bend three-cushion tournament before a crowd of several hundred at Hullie and Mike’s in early January. His victim was none other than Elwin “Dope” Moore, his onetime roommate who had taught him the finer points of the three-cushion game
. An account of the match the following day in the South Bend Tribune, obviously alluding to Gipp’s football talents while blending football with golf, said, “Gipp’s end runs were effective and Moore’s putts were too short; hence we find the three-cushion billiards champion of 1920.” The story did not give the size of Gipp’s winning purse, but it was believed to have been substantial, perhaps even more than Gipp had bet on himself, which he no doubt had.

  Even if Rockne actually was aware of Gipp’s gambling and late hours, there was at least one vice, the coach often said, which he was not guilty of—chasing and staying out late with women. “There are a lot of girls who would like to go out with George,” Rockne once said, “but he is much too committed to his football to do so.” To Rockne, it was something of a noble trait for his players to stay away from women while playing football, even the female students at nearby St. Mary’s College. Unfortunately for Rockne—no altar boy himself when he was a student-athlete—more than a few of his players consorted with females, both from St. Mary’s and downtown, unbeknownst to the coach. Rockne and Dorais, like many players after them, were known to violate a campus rule that only permitted seniors to go into town on weekdays. Even at that, they had to be back on campus by 10 P.M. Well into his twenties by the time he was a senior, Rockne had no trouble getting a drink nor did Dorais since they were both well beyond Indiana’s minimum drinking age; in Rockne’s case, he could easily be taken for thirty or even forty.

  As for Gipp, he was no doubt the most eligible, and coveted, bachelor in South Bend. His handsome visage appeared often in the city’s newspapers and elicited a large number of letters from women eager to meet him, which were sent to him care of Notre Dame. Hunk Anderson said he was sure Gipp never answered any of them. That is not to say that he didn’t go out with women. He did, but most of them were working girls he had met in downtown South Bend. One of them, whom he saw frequently, was a blonde manicurist who worked at a salon in the Hotel Oliver. That relationship never became serious, but one with a pretty brunette from Indianapolis would.

  For the second academic year in a row, Gipp’s transcript for 1918-19 was blank, with neither any courses nor grades listed. At the top of his transcript, in longhand, was the notation, “did not take any examinations.” Seemingly, that would have required Gipp to spend the summer of 1919 taking courses or else be expelled. But this was an era when some college football players enrolled in classes for the fall semester and perhaps attended a few and then dropped out of school after the last game of the season only to return to play again the following season. Gipp, at least technically, was always a student, since he at least signed up for courses and stuck around for most of the school year. At Notre Dame, that, it appears, made him eligible to play football (and, albeit rarely, baseball and basketball), even though he wasn’t getting any grades. What he was doing, though, was helping to make Notre Dame a football power and making the university better known throughout the United States.

  Back driving a truck and occasionally a taxi in Laurium, Gipp spent much of the summer of 1919 playing center field for the Calumet-Laurium Aristocrats in a strong semi-pro league of teams from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, whose games often drew thousands of fans and big league scouts, given the talent in the league. Gipp, far and away the best player on the Aristocrats and one of the best players, if not the best, in the league, had a sensational season and was largely responsible for the Aristocrats winning nineteen of twenty games and the league championship. Gipp led the league in batting with a .494 average, which included a home run in his last game of the season that traveled almost 500 feet, the longest ball ever hit at the Aristocrats home field in Calumet. Once again, major league scouts, most notably from the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox, salivated over Gipp’s play, but, again, Gipp showed no interest when they tried to convince him to sign professional contracts, since he was determined to play two more seasons of football at Notre Dame. Whether Rockne had anything to do with Gipp’s decision is unlikely since Gipp, as Rockne knew all too well, made up his own mind about everything.

  A week after the Aristocrats’ last game, Gipp returned to the Notre Dame campus, a week after classes had begun and two weeks before the opening game against Kalamazoo. With him was Percy Wilcox, a close friend from Calumet who had been wounded while serving with the Marines in France the year before. As he had done with Hunk Anderson and Ojay Larson, Gipp convinced Rockne—who knew nothing about Wilcox—to give him a scholarship, pointing out that, in addition to being a good halfback, Wilcox was an outstanding basketball and hockey player. Most likely to keep his star player happy, Rockne agreed to do so even though, as the coach was to find out, Wilcox was a far better basketball and hockey player than he was a halfback, although he was good enough to earn a monogram in 1920. That gave Rockne four players who had gone to high school in Calumet, Michigan, three of whom had been recruited by George Gipp, although Wilcox would not be eligible to play football until the following year.

  By the fall semester of 1919 at Notre Dame, Gipp should have been a senior since he had enrolled in 1916. But not having received any grades during his first two years, he was, academically, a sophomore. However, he was listed as a junior on the team’s roster and at that still had two more years of eligibility since the 1918 season did not count against eligibility. Thus if Gipp stayed around to play through the 1919 and 1920 seasons, he would have spent four years as a varsity player and one year on the freshman team. Not that that was a lot of eligibility in an era when star players like Elmer Oliphant and Chris Cagle played as many as eight varsity seasons at two different schools.

  With a solid nucleus from the 1918 team along with nine lettermen who had returned from military service, Rockne knew that prospects were very bright so long as the returning war veterans were able to adjust to college life again and take football seriously after the carnage some of them had seen on battlefields in France during the Great War. For some it would be easy; for others very difficult, and understandably so.

  11

  GIPP’S BREAKOUT SEASON

  IN ADDITION TO being the year the United States welcomed home most of its war veterans, 1919 was momentous for a number of other reasons: jobs were scarce and thus thousands of returning vets decided to attend college; the U.S. Senate blocked President Woodrow Wilson’s effort to have the United States join the new League of Nations, which Wilson had helped establish; the Prohibition amendment was ratified, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages throughout the nation at a time when many veterans were looking forward to their first beer in a long while; women finally won the right to vote, starting in 1920; Jack Dempsey knocked out Jess Willard to win the world heavyweight championship; Sir Barton became the first thoroughbred to win racing’s Triple Crown; Babe Ruth, in his last season with the Boston Red Sox, hit more home runs than six of the other seven teams in the American League; and eight members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team were accused of conspiring to throw that year’s World Series to the Cincinnati Reds and were later banned from the major leagues for life.

  It was also the year that Father Cavanaugh relinquished the presidency at Notre Dame, which he had held since 1905. That was not necessarily good news for Knute Rockne, since Cavanaugh encouraged the growth of the Notre Dame football program because of the publicity it gave the school, while his successor, Father James Burns, although a former Notre Dame baseball player, was wary about the expansion of the school’s varsity sports programs and more concerned about the university’s academic reputation.

  Father Burns, who had attended Cornell, Harvard, and Catholic University, and was the first Notre Dame president with a doctorate, also was confronted with a monumental housing problem, largely owing to an influx of several hundred war veterans, which was so severe that the university sought through newspaper advertisements to place around 500 students in off-campus rooms, an effort that proved successful. For many veterans going to college was a logical option because of the paucity of jobs as
the country’s economy soured. Unlike after World War II, there was no GI Bill, whereby the government paid for most if indeed not all of a veteran’s college tuition. But at Notre Dame, tuition, along with room and board, remained relatively cheap—$120 a year for tuition, $350 for meals in the campus dining room, and from thirty to fifty dollars for a shared room. For those needing financial assistance, there were usually ample campus jobs. For Gipp, after a very brief stint as a campus waiter during the beginning of his freshman year, he more than covered school expenses with his gambling earnings in downtown South Bend.

  For returning lettermen, including those who had served in the military, and promising recruits, a plenitude of scholarships or financial aid were available, although players had to work during the off season for their room and board and other necessary expenses. From the military, Rockne welcomed back such monogram winners as Slip Madigan, Joe Brandy, Frank Coughlin, Walter Miller, Dave Hayes, Fritz Slackford, Grover Malone, and Cy Degree, most of whom would become starters. Among the newcomers was twenty-three-year-old George Trafton, an Army veteran and an outstanding center who would only last one season because of his refusal to heed Rockne’s order that he stop playing semi-pro football on Sundays. Trafton, nicknamed “the Beast” and once described by Red Grange as “the toughest, meanest, and most ornery critter alive,” went on to become a charter member of the Chicago Bears for whom he played ten years after two seasons with the Bears’ predecessor, the Decatur Staleys. Trafton was discovered by Rockne, who spent part of the war scouting service football teams.

  Also discovered and then recruited by Rockne while playing for a service team was another lineman, Lawrence “Buck” Shaw, who after three years at Notre Dame later went on to be a head coach for four years in the All-America Football Conference and then eight years in the NFL. Others on the thirty-five-man squad were halfbacks Johnny Mohardt—a remarkable athlete and scholar who would later play five games for the Detroit Tigers of baseball’s American League and five years with the Chicago Bears of the National Football League before attending medical school and becoming a physician—and Cy Kasper. Like Rockne, Mohardt and Kapser were products of Notre Dame’s inter-hall football league, an intramural competition among the university’s six residence halls, some of which had squads of as many as forty players. Most of the hall teams, whose games were played on Sundays, were coached by varsity players, and both Mohardt and Kasper had been recommended to Rockne by members of the varsity—as Rockne had been recommended to Shorty Longman by the Brownson coach at the time, Joe Collins, a varsity end. Rockne knew from firsthand experience how good some of the inter-hall teams were. In addition to providing players for the varsity, some of the inter-hall squads played, and beat, some small university teams in Indiana and Michigan. Missing from the 1919 squad, though, was a key player, center Ojay Larson. Larson had dropped out of school for a year because of a family situation in Calumet, but would return in 1920.