What they say about Knute Rockne | |
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Elmer Laydon says:
"I remember Rock best in the aftermath, he was interested in us, not only as football players but also as men".
Don Miller says:
"Rock never forgot his athlets after they departed from the school. And that to me is a sign of a great football coach".
Jess Harper says:
"He also had one other great ability. He could really fire a team up to herd so it would be sure to go to town".
Unknown Horseman says: "He was probably the softest touch, he was the softest touch I´ve ever know".
Bert Metzger (an All-American guard who played in 1930) says:
"You not only took what Rock dished out to you but you sort of looked forward to getting blasted by him. If Rock gave you his undivided attention like that in front of everybody, you were somebody! You´d been noticed. We thrived on it. Maybe that sound strange, but that´s the way we felt about him".
Tom Hicky from South Bend, a friend and neighbour of Knute Rockne and his family for years says:
"When I was a neighbour, I knew Rockne or Rock as we always called him as a friend and neighbour in every sence of the word. I surely remember Rock as a tremendous person, great personality, a very tremendous sense of humour, always ready with a quick remark. Many people wonder Rock´s attitude, reaction after a football game, whether he was high on victory or low and depressed in defeat was not true. He loved a win, as we all do, but took his defeat in stride.
Jess Harper says:
"I expect I knew Rock as well as anybody in the United States, except possibly his lovely wife. He was captain of my 1913 team, and he was my assistant in football from -13 to -18 and headcoach of track."
"Unknown" says:
"He was a wonderful teacher. He went into every detail, and had the ability to teach the boys on the field, to do what he wanted them to do and in the exactly way he wanted it done. He also had one other great ability, he could really fire a team up before going to town".
Ruth Falkoner (who later became Mrs H. Watts Eicker was Knute Rockne´s secretary from 1925 and til his death in 1931. She said in an interview "The boys would do anything for him, they idolized him, because he was just a fine person".
Mrs Eicker recalls how she felt when she first met Rockne. "It was a pretty awe-inspiring experience for a young girl. I was pretty terrified because i´ve heard so much about him, and what an important person he was. The driving energy of Knute Rockne was demonstrated by the schedule of his working day. Mrs Eicker continues "During a football season a typical morning would be to start taking dictations, and there would probably be 15-20 interruptions of people coming to see him, and telephonecalls, so there wouldn´t be much work there. And at noon time he always had a lecture. He would come back in the afternoon hoping to get to his dictations.
And there would be the same thing again, there would be students, out-side people, officials, of course he had the administration work of the athletic association to handle. And of course at 3 o´clock when school was out he went on the field, and there was always clarification of things to be done. And under football season the dictations would be done in the evening".
The thing Mrs Eicker remember most about Rockne was "he always had time for a person. If a perfect stranger would come into his office, he had time for him. Because he figured if they had taken time to bother to drive maybe 500 miles, or 200 miles to come out there to pay their respect to him he owed them the courtesy.
"Rockne was a highly intelligent man, very few people know it, but he was a professor in chemistry there from 1914 til about 1920. Boys who took chemistry from him have told me that he was one of the greatest professors that they came in contact with during their four years there. He had a dynamic personality, he was a hard-driving coach, very aggressive, but he killed this aggressiveness with human kindness. If you had a sprained ancle, it was Rockne who taped your ancle. If you had an infected hand, it was Rockne who got a bucket of hot water.
And it was Rockne who grabbed you by the wrist and dumped your hand and held it into the hot water. It was Rockne who carried out the sweatshirts, the sweatsocks etc etc. He was at once your dad, your pal, your friend, advisor and coach. Rockne was a great dressing room psychologist, and the two factors that made him a great dressing room psychologist, in my opinion, were these: First he was a great orator, and secondly he was a marvellously actor, yes a great actor".
Patrick Kenny:
Not all of Rockne´s friends were great athletics stars. He liked and helped boys for what they were, not for the use he might make of their athletic abilities. Patrick Kenny, now an attourney for a railroad in Cleveland, was just a boy who wanted an education. Knute Rockne encouraged him to go to Notre Dame, and gave him a job as custodian of athletic equipment. He was with Rockne in the great teams of the middle 1920s.
Kenny tells: He had the quickest brain I think of any man I ever saw, and I´ve been practice lawsuits for 25 years, and he was good in any thing he undertook. It wasn´t just football, it was speech making. For instance before he became a coach he started go that he couldn´t speech, nobody listen to him, he´d put you to sleep, but he worked hard, studied hard himself, and learned to be a great orator.
And on the field he was a great man for details. I´ve seen him when I was out there, we had four scrimmages going on at the same time, and that would be 18th, in the four corners of the field, we had a big practice field at the time, bigger than it is now. And he´d stand, sort of in the center and watch, A and B team playing North-East corner, and he would watch a play and pick out 4-5 defects, of four different players, in just on play. That would be when he turned his head around and see the fellows in the other corner. He´d watch a play and he pick out 3-4 there. And the same things with the teams on the South-end of the field.
I´ve seen him call these teams out for practice, and he would start at the center, and he would pick these boys out by names, either first name or last name. He would go center, right-guard, left-guard, right-tackle, left-tackle, right-end, left-end, quarter-back, full-back, left-half and right-half. And never make a mistake. In six teams!"
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