Knute Rockne was 5 years old when he arrived in America with his mother and sisters from Scandinavia. By the time a plane crash claimed his life at age 43, he was a national hero, “the dominant personality of American sportdom.” He developed and coached the “Fighting Irish” of Notre Dame into a sporting marvel.
Birth of a Tradition
Knute K. Rockne was born in Voss, Norway on March 4, 1888. His father, Lars Knutson Rockne, had a competitive instinct and irresistible urge to develop success, to be on the winning side of the equation—traits seemingly genetically transmitted to his son.“A blonde Viking of a man with handle-bar moustaches and a roaring laugh,” Lars was a carriage-maker. Imbued with an inventive spirit, he had come independently to America, keen to exhibit his works at the World’s Columbian Exposition, in 1893. Lars purportedly won a second-place prize, for his carriage and was offered employment in the United States and sent for his family.
Knute stuck close to his mother Martha’s side on the long voyage across the Atlantic. She was calm and gracious under uncertainty and anxiety, determined to start a new life with her husband and three children in the Midwestern United States. It was a new land, new language, and new start, and, as an impressionable young boy, he soaked it all up.
Knute’s childhood in the Logan Square area of Chicago was fairly typical. At school it was reading, writing, arithmetic, English immersion, as well as games such as baseball and football on the playground and in the gymnasium. At home, there was a warm foundation of laughter and love.
Knute was a formidable adolescent, ruggedly striking in appearance, singular in spirit, and keen in his ability to assimilate and learn. He earned a spot on the football team at Northwest Division High School as a third-string end, a defensive position, despite his less than imposing 110-pound frame, in addition to excelling as a pole vaulter and track star.
After he left high school without graduating, he accepted a series of demanding and dirty jobs, including overnight mail dispatcher in the Chicago Post Office for $100 a month, with an aim on furthering his education.
Notre Dame Days
After gaining admittance to the University of Notre Dame in 1910, Rockne began working as janitor for the chemistry department. Knute excelled in his studies. Not only was he a stellar student, but he was also captain of the football team. As a member of the Gold and Blue, he won All-American honors in his junior year.Upon graduating with honors in 1914, he was appointed as chemistry instructor. And, on top of this, he earned the job of assistant football coach, under Jesse Harper (1883–1961). In 1918, he was selected as head football coach at Notre Dame, replacing Harper.
He first gained widespread recognition in football spheres by coaching Notre Dame’s team through two years (1919–20) without a defeat. In 1924, Rockne led one of the most popular teams in college football history to 10 straight victories and, from 1929 to 1930, fielded yet another back-to-back undefeated team.
A gifted motivator, Rockne introduced new ways of thinking about the game, elevating speed and execution and de-emphasizing brute force. His teams mirrored his makeup: sharp-thinking, vigilant, and analytical.
He was respected as a strategist and theorist—popularizing the forward pass and passing offense—and was of genius in his diligence; the results of his reign are without equal: 13 years, 105 victories, 12 losses, five tied games, and three national championships.
In addition to his gridiron wizardry, there was something much brighter and more profound to the man in how he conducted himself off the field. He was remarkably well liked by his opposing teams, a fondness surpassed only by those who played for him. Indeed, his devotion to his players was singular. Football, to paraphrase Rockne, taught a boy many responsibilities, to himself and his own passions, to his teammates, and to his college, and that the sport was an opportunity to bring out “the best there is in every one.”
One of his former players Elmer Layden (1903–73), once said that Rockne epitomized all that was worthy and decent in football. “It was his integrity, his knowledge, his battling personality—his ability to make a player perform better than he himself thought he knew how.”
His power to inspire the men on his teams to achieve something better than what they believed themselves to be capable was renowned. His pep talks were famously inspirational: the perfect phrase or precise tone could somehow whip the club into an emotional fervor. A psychologist with a clipboard and whistle, he knew what was in their hearts and on their minds.
Immortal of American Sport
At age 43, it had been a good life for Rockne. Few could stake claim to similar honor and glory. There had been work, deeds, fatherhood, and family. Grounded and humble, he never let prosperity lift him up too much or adversity cast him too far down.When the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company, founded and headquartered nearby in South Bend, named Rockne as the spokesperson, there was no need to ask why. He excelled at public speaking, he understood the essence of good promotion, and who better was there to travel around and discuss reliance and dependence and sponsor their cars?
The nation was stunned and stricken, and the expressions of grief and disbelief were many. Even the most eloquent had difficulty putting into words what exactly the loss of Rockne meant to them—and to the country.
Rockne’s status as an immortal of American sport was deeper solidified in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne, All American” starring Pat O’Brien as Rockne and Ronald Reagan as George Gipp (1895–1920), a Notre Dame football player coached by Rockne. Perhaps the movie’s most outstanding moment takes place when a sickly Gipp, who died of pneumonia shortly after the conclusion of his college football career, told Rockne to tell the guys to “win just one for the Gipper.”
Anniversaries of Rockne’s death tended to trigger a deluge of pensive reflections about the man and his meaning, and the humane expressions of Tom Conley, captain of the 1930 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, expressed 25 years after his coach’s death are typical of the ones that people who loved him routinely shared:
“He was a football coach whose love for perfection never forced him to overlook the fact that he was dealing with boys whose future he might be shaping for their lifetimes. He had wisdom and greatness of heart and strength.”
“To hell with the guy who’ll die for Notre Dame—I want men who’ll fight to keep her alive!” That is one of Knute Rockne’s rallying lines. With one of the largest fan bases in college sports, these days, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program without a doubt flourishes. Each victory carries the vestige of a Norwegian immigrant with an uncomplicated appetite for life, who once made great men out of promising boys, and possessed all of the favored qualities to be classified as hero.
