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Rockne, K

Knute Kenneth Rockne (/kəˈnuːt/ *kə-NOOT*; March 4, 1888 – March 31, 1931) was a Norwegian-American football player and coach at the University of Notre Dame.

Rockne is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history.[3] His biography at the College Football Hall of Fame identifies him as "without question, American football's most-renowned coach". Rockne helped to popularize the forward pass and made the Notre Dame Fighting Irish a major factor in college football.

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Early life

Knute Rockne was born Knut Larsen Rokne,[4] in Voss, Norway, to smith and wagonmaker Lars Knutson Rokne (1858–1912) and his wife, Martha Pedersdatter Gjermo (1859–1944). He immigrated to Chicago with his parents when he was five years old.[5] He grew up in the Logan Square area of Chicago, on the northwest side of the city.[6] Rockne learned to play football in his neighborhood and later played end in a local group called the Logan Square Tigers. He attended North West Division High School in Chicago, playing football and also running track.

Rockne helped to transform the collegiate game in a single contest. On November 1, 1913, the Notre Dame squad stunned the highly regarded Army team 35–13 in a game played at West Point. Led by quarterback Charlie "Gus" Dorais and Rockne, the Notre Dame team attacked the Cadets with an offense that featured both the expected powerful running game but also long and accurate downfield forward passes from Dorais to Rockne. This game was not the "invention" of the forward pass, but it was the first major contest in which a team used the forward pass regularly throughout the game.After Rockne graduated from high school, he took a job as a mail dispatcher with the Post Office in Chicago for four years. When he was 22, he had saved enough money to continue his education. He headed to Notre Dame in Indiana to finish his schooling. Rockne excelled as a football end there, winning All-American honors in 1913. Rockne worked as a lifeguard at Cedar Point in the summer of 1913.

Professional career[edit]

Notre Dame coach[edit]He was educated as a chemist at Notre Dame, and graduated in 1914 with a degree in pharmacy. After graduating, he was the laboratory assistant to noted polymer chemist Julius Arthur Nieuwland at Notre Dame and helped out with the football team, but rejected further work in chemistry after receiving an offer to coach football. In 1914, he was recruited by Peggy Parratt to play for the Akron Indians. There Parratt had Rockne playing both end and halfback and teamed with him on several successful forward pass plays during their title drive.[7] Knute wound up in Massillon, Ohio, in 1915 along with former Notre Dame teammate Dorais to play with the professional Massillon Tigers. Rockne and Dorais brought the forward pass to professional football from 1915 to 1917 when they led the Tigers to the championship in 1915.[8] Pro Football in the Days of Rockne by Emil Klosinski maintains the worst loss ever suffered by Rockne was in 1917. He coached the "South Bend Jolly Fellows Club" when they lost 40–0 to the Toledo Maroons.[9]

Rockne was also shrewd enough to recognize that intercollegiate sports had a show-business aspect. Thus he worked hard promoting Notre Dame football to make it financially successful. He used his considerable charm to court favor from the media, which then consisted of newspapers, wire services and radio stations and networks, to obtain free advertising for Notre Dame football. He was very successful as an advertising pitchman, for South Bend-based Studebaker and other products. He eventually received an annual income of $75,000 from Notre Dame, which in today's dollars is millions.[14]During 13 years as head coach, Rockne led his "Fighting Irish" to 105 victories, 12 losses, five ties and three national championships, including five undefeated seasons without a tie.[10] Rockne posted the highest all-time winning percentage (.881) for a major college football coach.[11] His schemes utilized include the eponymous Notre Dame Box offense and the 7–2–2 defense. Rockne's box included a shift.[12] The backfield lined up in a T-formation, then quickly shifted into a box to the left or right just as the ball was snapped.[13]

1918–1930[edit]

George Gipp

Rockne took over from his predecessor Jesse Harper in the war-torn season of 1918, posting a 3–1–2 record, losing only to the Michigan Aggies. He made his coaching debut on September 28, 1918, against Case Tech in Cleveland, earning a 26–6 victory.[15] In the backfield were Leonard Bahan, George Gipp, and Curly Lambeau. In Gipp, Rockne had an ideal handler of the forward pass.[16][17]

....

Rockne died in the crash of a Transcontinental & Western Air airliner in Kansas on March 31, 1931, while en route to participate in the production of the film The Spirit of Notre Dame (released October 13, 1931). He had stopped in Kansas City to visit his two sons, Bill and Knute Jr., who were in boarding school there at the Pembroke-Country Day School. A little over an hour after taking off from Kansas City, one of the Fokker Trimotor's wings broke up in flight. The cause of the breakup was determined to be that the plane's plywood outer skin was bonded to the ribs and spars with water-based aliphatic resin glue, and flight in rain had caused the bond to deteriorate to the point that sections of the plywood suddenly separated in flight. The plane crashed into a wheat field near Bazaar, Kansas, killing Rockne and seven others.[34][35]

Coincidentally, Jess Harper, a friend of Rockne's and the coach Rockne had replaced at Notre Dame, was living about 100 miles from the spot of the crash and was called to identify Rockne's body.[36][37] On the spot where the plane crashed, a memorial dedicated to the victims stands surrounded by a wire fence with wooden posts. It was maintained for many years by James Easter Heathman, who, at the age of 13 in 1931, was one of the first people to arrive at the site of the crash.[38]

Rockne's unexpected, dramatic death startled the nation and triggered a national outpouring of grief, comparable to the deaths of presidents. President Herbert Hoover called Rockne's death "a national loss".[38][39] King Haakon VII of Norway, Rockne's birthplace, posthumously knighted Rockne, and sent a personal envoy to Rockne's massive funeral. More than 100,000 people lined the route of his funeral procession,[40] and the funeral was broadcast live on network radio across the United States and in Europe as well as to parts of South America and Asia.[40][41]

Rockne was buried in Highland Cemetery in South Bend, several miles from the Notre Dame campus.[42]

Driven by the public feeling for Rockne, the crash story played out at length in nearly all the nation's newspapers, and public demand for an inquiry into the crash's causes and circumstances ensued.[36][43][44]

The national outcry over the disaster that killed Rockne and seven others triggered sweeping changes to airliner design, manufacturing, operation, inspection, maintenance, regulation and crash investigation, igniting a safety revolution that ultimately transformed airline travel worldwide from the most dangerous form of travel to one of the safest.[36]

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