Rockne of Notre Dame

August 30, 1999
Veteran sportswriter Robinson (Iron Horse, etc.) debunks several myths about the Notre Dame football coaching legend. Knute Rockne (1888-1931), he explains, didn't invent the forward pass (although he did increase its use, both as a player and a coach), and it's unlikely that George Gipp, a Notre Dame player who died in 1920, ever told Rockne to utter the famous words, "Win One for the Gipper." Rockne was one of the products of the 1920s, a golden age for sports in the U.S. that produced such stars as Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. He became a spokesman for Studebaker cars and a confidant of New York Mayor Jimmy Walker. Robinson takes a light hand to this controversial figure, who helped build a nationwide following for his school and college football as a whole, noting that his attitudes and behaviors, such as telling jokes that would today be considered racist and his use of professional players in the college ranks, were common at the time. After a childhood sketch, Robinson briefly touches on Rockne's playing career before devoting most of the book to a game-by-game description of Rockne's 12 years as coach, during which his Notre Dame teams, with the help of Rockne's motivational techniques and coaching tactics, won an astounding 105 games while losing only 12. To Robinson's credit, the book is cleanly written and mainly free of sports jargon. But while he does a good job of describing the football culture of the time and, to a lesser degree, American culture in general, Robinson never quite digs deep enough to reveal the man behind the coach.