Posted on 06/06/2004 7:39:00 AM PDT by doug from upland
Gipp, George
Football
b. Feb. 18, 1895, Laurium, MI
d. Dec. 14, 1920
Notre Dame sports historian Francis Wallace called Gipp "a most peculiar kind of saint" and sportswriter George Trevor compared him to a meteor because of his brilliant football career and short life.
After graduating from high school, Gipp played sandlot baseball and drove a taxi for three years, then accepted a baseball scholarship to Notre Dame in 1916. He was casually kicking a football on a practice field that fall when Knute Rockne, then an assistant coach, spotted him and talked him into playing for the freshman team. In one game that season, Gipp dropped into punt formation on his own 38-yard line but, instead of punting, he drop-kicked a 62-yard field goal. Gipp quickly became known as a maverick. He defied Notre Dame rules by staying in a South Bend hotel instead of using his dormitory room, and he earned extra money by playing pool and poker. In September of 1917, he left the school to enroll at the University of Wisconsin, but Rockne caught up to him and brought him back.
Gipp started at halfback that fall but suffered a broken leg in the sixth game and missed the rest of the season. Rockne succeeded Jess Harper as head coach in 1918. That was an abbreviated season because of World War I and it didn't count against eligibility, so Gipp still had two years to play.
He came into his own in 1919, when Notre Dame went undefeated. After Army took a 9-0 lead in the first half, Gipp completed passes for a total of 75 yards to put the ball on Army's 10-yard line, then scored on a 7-yard touchdown run. Late in the game, he threw a long pass to Eddie Anderson to set up the winning touchdown. Later that school year, Gipp was to be expelled for cutting classes. Rockne intervened with school authorities, who allowed Gipp to take a special examination. He passed and was allowed to remain in school. However, in the fall of 1920, Gipp again left campus, this time to attend the University of Michigan, and again Rockne had to persuade him to return to Notre Dame.
After scoring on runs of 95 yards against Purdue and 70 yards against Nebraska, Gipp turned in a spectacular performance against Army. He rushed for 124 yards, passed for 96, and ran back kicks for 112 yards in a 27-17 victory.
A dislocated shoulder forced Gipp out of the Indiana game but, with Indiana leading 10-6 in the closing minutes and Notre Dame 5 yards from a touchdown, he talked Rockne into letting him go back in. He scored the winning touchdown on his second carry. The following week, Gipp had a bad cold, and he was on the bench at the beginning of the game against Northwestern. With Notre Dame fans chanting his name, Rockne sent him into the game for a few minutes--just long enough to throw a 45-yard touchdown pass. The cold turned out to be a streptococcus infection and the weakened Gipp contracted pneumonia. He converted to Catholicism and, with Rockne sitting beside him and the entire Notre Dame student body kneeling in the snow outside his dorm to pray for him, he died in mid-December. He was posthumously named to Walter Camp's All-American team.
But Gipp was to haunt Army one more time. In 1928, Notre Dame had lost two games while Army was unbeaten. They played a scoreless first half. In the dressing room, Rockne told his players that Gipp, on his deathbed, had asked him to exhort the Notre Dame players to "win one for the Gipper" when they were involved in a tough game. Notre Dame did just that, scoring two touchdowns to win, 12-6. The deathbed scene, whether it happened or not, was re-created for the 1940 movie, "Knute Rockne--All American," in which Pat O'Brien played Rockne and Ronald Reagan played Gipp.
I think 'win one for the Gipper' should become a theme of this campaign.
Vote George Bush- Win one for the Gipper!
It would send the liberals into a frenzy..........I like it.
WIN ONE FOR THE GIPPER!
Awesome thought!
Ping...
Reportedly, the intra-net on the USS Ronald Reagan is called the "Gippernet". Fitting.
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