Shenanigans
Notre Dame that year [1916] was ending its
season with the first in a dramatic series of games with Nebraska, and
Harper, having lost to Army, wanted to wind up on a blazing 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.
"I'd like you to talk to the men on Saturday," said Harper.
"Sure, Jesse. I'd be glad to," said Rock.
Rock looked out at the serious young faces before him, some of them really
not many years younger than himself, and started slowly. He opened calmly
and innocently about the new opponent the Irish would be facing today and on
future schedules, and there was no great reaction in his players' faces.
Suddenly there was a clap of thunder, as though Jehovah Himself was cleaving
boulders with the sound of his voice. The atmosphere sizzled and cracked,
and mouths fell open and eyes widened as the Notre Dame squad listened,
spellbound, to the young assistant coach. Rock pounded on, outraged,
incensed over the Nebraska coach's pre-game polemics, which had questioned
Notre Dame's fitness to play the game, and even included some supposed
reference to Nebraska's "fish-eating" opponents.
"Okay," said Rock, winding up, "here we are on their own
field, and we'll pound their words right into their own turf, right?"
Jesse Harper watched in awe as his troops tore out of the dressing room, on
their way to an 18--0 shellacking of the Cornhuskers. "Nice speech,
Swede," he said softly to Rockne, shaking his head. "I think you
really fired 'em up."
* * * * * *
One of Madigan's favorite
stories, of which he has more than Durante, concerns a Nebraska game in
which he, a lightweight center, was having trouble with a tough Cornhusker
guard. Unable to handle the character by ordinary methods, Slip called time
out, turned to Gipp in the backfield, asked: "Did you ever see a
homelier looking guy than this so-and-so across from me?" The general
idea was to provoke the character into some illegal physical display which
would get him tossed from the game.
"It didn't work," Slip would grin. "He stayed right in there
the rest of the way. When the final whistle blew he hauled off and let me
have one on the nose."
* * * * * *
On the day of the game, played
at Notre Dame, Rock started right off with some typical philosophy. He sent
six full teams out to warm up. When the awed Nebraska coach, Fred Dawson,
said, "Which one is your first team, Rock?" Knute shot back,
"All of them."
* * * * * *
Though he was a teacher of
chemistry as well as gridiron tactics, psychology was one of Knute Rockne's
strongest points. Some of his football students learned valuable lessons in
psychology along with guns of gridironology.
Adam Walsh, famed center of the Seven Mules who cleared the way for the Four
Horsemen and now (1940's) coach of the Cleveland Rams, authored one bit of
psychology that had much to do with an Irish victory over Nebraska, in that
day probably the most-hated rival on the Notre Dame schedule.
The Irish were engaged in a hot game with the Huskers when Gordon Locke,
crack sprinter and a truly fine back, was sent into the contest. He made his
entrance as the teams were lined up for a kickoff after an N. D. touchdown.
Walsh turned to his teammates and in a voice distinctly audible in the
grandstands announced:
"Here comes the great Locke." The entire team doubled over in
stitches of laughter, and as for Locke,
his play was far below his usual form, to say the least.
* * * * * *
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