The Stories 3 | |
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The stories about Knut Rockne are good and many of them are amusing to read. My opinion is that these stories shows just why he was such a great coach and such a great human personality.
The stories:
Rockne, the stubborn man.
The stupid one. The Swede - Anderson. The dumb Irishman. Rockneīs brilliant mind. Rockne hurling his thunderbolt.
The right cross from Rockne. The annoying teenager in the park. Rockne psycology 7. Some stories in memory of Knute Rockne:
Teaching the Rockne way... In 1929 Notre Dame were due to face Southern California, and Rockne, despite his illness, came too, no doctor being able to stop him. He had been advised that if he would stay in bed for three weeks he might walk around by Christmas.
"The seasonīs over in three weeks", he replied, "and thereīs nothing worth walking to then".
He came to the game, or rather he was carried to it.
"I wouldnīt miss this game if I had to stay in bed all winter", he said.
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Rockne one time had a boy whom he drilled for weeks and weeks on end. It did no good, for the boy continued to make the same mistakes. Rockne was heard to say: "I can tell you one thing twelve times. After that, youīre on your own. There are some dumb people, then some dumber ones, then you come next".
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Rockne was always surrounded by well-wishers, and one of these muttered something about the dumbness of that Swede; Anderson.
"Never Mind That", snapped Rockne, rolling his sigar between thumb and forefinger, with a gesture that was most characteristic of the manīs nervous, restless temperament. "Never mind that at all. I know something infinitely worse than a dumb Swede. Itīs a smart Norwegian!".
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(I think itīs one of the four horsemen telling this story). "I remember I was out there one afternoon, and Rock had an Irish guard that pulled more bloopers than you normally would excuse, the guard pulled out when he should have stayed in, stayed in when he should have pulled out, and finally Rock climbed all over him and said:
"You are possibly the dumbest Irishman Iīve ever seen in my life. Can you tell me anything or anybody that could be dumber than a dumb Irishman?"
The kid look back with a grin: "Sure Rock, a smart Swede!"
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Rockneīs brilliant mind. One time in his office, some friends of Rockne were debating the distance between Tucson, Arizona and Los Angeles. They looked for a railroad guide when Rockne interrupted with his estimate. The guide being found just about then, he asked us to look it up. It showed heīd missed the exact figures by five miles. "Los Angeles had probably extended itīs city limits that far since the last time they measured that distance", he apologized. Back to the top.
Rockne hurling his thunderbolt.
Knute Rockne often brought the players with him home. They were comfortable with him, even when he was laying on a cutting edge of sarcasm for a missed block, or blasting a back for hitting the wrong hole. At moments like those he was Thor hurling a thunderbolt, except that the bolt was wrapped in velvet. Back to the top.
The right cross from Rockne.
"Once when Rock was a young playground director in South Bend, a guy much bigger than him was smoking near some kids, and challenged Rock to make him stop. Not another word was exchanged. Just a beautiful right cross from Rock, and that was that". (Told by a former Notre Dame quarter back Chet Grant.) Back to the top.
The annoying teenager in the park.
Former Notre Dame quarter back Chet Grant remember this story which happened when Knute rockne was assistant coach. He tells: "Rock got a summer job as a city playground director, where I first met him. By coinsidence I was back at the park a few days later and witnessed a scene in which a big, tough eighteen-year-old youth was annoying the younger children and a girl assistant director. When Rockne told him to shove off, the lout came at him with a huge stone. In a flash, Rock had him flat on the ground without even hurting him.
Calmly, Rock said to me: "Take that thing out of his hand".
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Rockne psycology 7.
Notre Dame had one game left, against Nebraska, of the 1916 season. It was to become the first of many dramatic series of games against the Nebraska team, and Harper wanted wind up on a big note of triumph. Word had reached South Bend that Jumbo Stiehm, the Nebraska coach, had been making disparaging cracks about the Irish, some of which were aimed at promoting personal discord in the Irish ranks. - "Iīd like you to talk to the men on Saturday", said Harper.
- "Sure Jesse. Iīd be glad to", said Rockne.
On the Saturday, just before the game, Rockne looked out at the serious young faces before him, and started slowly. He opened up calmly and innocent about the new opponent the Irish would be facing today and on future schedules. There was no great reactions in his players faces. Suddenly there was a clap of thunder, as though Jehova Himself was cleaving boulders with the sound of his voice. The atmosphere sizzled and cracked, and mouth fell open and eyes widened as the Notre Dame squad listened, spellbound, to the young assistant coach.
Rockne pounded on, outraged, incensed over the Nebraska coachīs pre-game polemics, which had questioned Notre Dameīs fitness to play the game, and even included some supposed reference to Nebraskaīs "fish-eating" opponents.
- "Okay", said Rockne, winding up, "here we are on their own field, and weīll pound their words right into their own turf, right?"
Jesse Harper watched in awe as his troops tore out of the dressing room to an 20-0 win. "Nice speech, Swede", he said softly to Rockne, shaking his head. "I think you really fired īem up".
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Remember, there are no alibies.
After two undefeated seasons, it was predicted that the upcoming season was going to be undefeated again. Though there were no George Gipp who had died. Buck Shaw and Norm Barry had both graduated. Besides this, the team were the same as in 1920. It seemed like everybody, the fans, the media, maybe the players too were expecting the season to be undefeated again. They started off great, with two trounching victories, but when they played Iowa in the third game they received a surprice setback of 7-10.
Rockne said after the game: "Remember, there are no alibis. We lost to a good team and thatīs all there is to it. This defeat will do all of us a lot of good, especially our followers who thought that we couldnīt be beaten. This setback will bring them back to earth. We can make up for it through the rest of the schedule".
They did make up for it! They won all the rest of the game that season. To show you the real caliber of the Notre Dame spirit when Rockne and his team tried to sneak back into town after the Iowa defeat, the train station were full of students and townspeople. Rockne and his players were cheered as though they had won the game. The same happened in 1925.
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The Notre Dame spirit.
The same remarkable spirit was shown when Rockne and his boys tried to sneak back to the campus ashamed of the 0-27 defeat handed out by the Army team. But they werenīt allowed to hang with their heads. Instead they got fantastic support and the cheering thundered up to greet them. If you were a casual bystander, you might have thought that Notre Dame had won instead of losing. Rockne was overcome by this display of spirit. He gave in to the clamoring call of "speech - speech" and stood up on the station platform to answer them. But he didnīt get far in that speech. His emotions got the better of him and choked back the words he tried to say. Tears ran unashamed down his cheeks. At last he managed to say: "Words fail me. I just want to say that a team canīt help working itīs head off for you people. I will stay at Notre Dame as long as they will have me". Back to the top.
During the periods of 1925, -26, -27 and -28 Rockne had to depend on the linesmashing and running game once more. The caliber of material was responsible for the play used. During this era, the opponents began somewhat to understand the Notre Dame system. Rockne often told that their system was more or less based on the strong side and that we had no weak side strength.
"But as long as the opponents donīt find this out and we continues to go places, why worry about the weak side?" Finally, the opposition began to find it out. They over-shifted their defence to Notre Dameīs strong side, which called for a change of tactics again. Accordingly, Rockne developed the weak side for the 1929 and -30 season by putting in the spinner plays.
"Let them over-shift to our strong side now, and weīll show them a thing or two. They probably had an idea we didnīt know how to put on weak side stuff. But now, watch our smoke".
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Some stories in memory of Knute Rockne:
Teaching the Rockne way... Nordy Hoffman tells this story: "A few years ago I was coming out of my office in Washington DC. There was a woman standing on the sidewalk just in front of me. I was so busy and feeling so important when i came out, that I walked right by her and jumped in a cab and rode away. On the ride I started thinking about the woman and about Rockne and about how this was not what heīd thaught me. I realized that I was such a jerk. I told the cabdriver to get back to my office and he did. I found the woman and asked her what sheīd been trying to tell me.
- "I havenīt been eating in a week", she said.
I gave her some money and she promised to repay me. I said she already had!
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