Shenanigans
"After
the game," Jesse Harper said, "I went in to see Charley Daly, the Army
coach, and Major Graves, and off in a comer I saw an officer who really
was giving his wife hell. Being a married man, I sidled over to get an
earful. Well, he was telling her, well, you've been hollering about why we
don't play some decent opposition. Now, dammit, are you satisfied?
"That winter I ran into a fellow from Annapolis who climbed all over me.
'We expected to beat Army,' he told me, 'but they came along with that
forward pass you showed 'em and blew our brains out." * * * * * * The 1913 Notre Dame team had a gorgeous 7-0 record, the second such
perfect season in a row, and the Fighting Irish were on their way toward a
meeting with destiny. They were hurried along when Harper made another
intelligent move -hiring Rockne as his assistant coach in 1914. The
combination of Harper and Rockne proved irresistible. Harper guided Rockne with loving paternal care. Rockne learned quickly
and matured even faster. He was at first put to work developing a new pair
of ends, and a Harper story connected with that incident reflected
Rockne's maturing process as a coach. "Rock was a very intense man. He was a tireless worker who lost himself
in any job. He went to work on those ends like it was life and death. He
pleaded, threatened, and did about everything trying to improve those guys
in a hurry .A few days later we had a scrimmage, and the ends were
terrible. Riding home after practice, Rock talked about it, and said he'd
have to work even harder with them. I had a different idea. I told him to
forget the ends for a while and work with the guards and the tackles. " A week later, we had another scrimmage, and the ends looked pretty
good. Rock commented on it right away, so I laughed and told him, 'Yeah,
and if you'll leave 'em alone for another week, we might have a pretty
fair pair of ends.' Rock was pretty upset by that, so I explained what I
was getting at. I told him that his mistake was trying to teach those ends
all he knew in a hurry. He thought he could make 'em as good as he was
overnight. It's just as bad, you see, to over-coach a boy as it is to
under-coach him. In later years, Rock often said it was one of the most
valuable lessons he ever learned. He told the story many times." * * * * * *
"It was during the war (1917) and Army had a great team, while nobody
else had much of anything for a squad ," Harper once remembered. "We had
George Gipp, but he was just a freshman. We had Slip Madigan, the old St.
Mary's coach, who weighed 160, and our right halfback was Joe Brandy, who
weiglled only 140. Army had big Biff Jones at one tackle and Elmer
Oliphant, an AII-American, backing up the line behind him. So we told our
boys to run the other way all day. Before you knew it, we were down to
their seven-yard line, and I think it was third down with goal to go. "I knew we'd never get that close again. I was wondering what we could
do when Gipp first showed me what kind of a head he had. All during his
career, you know, he had a habit of making up plays to fit the situation.
He did it this time. He told our quarterback to fake a play the way we'd
been going, and let Brandy run right at Jones. It worked. The Army was so
surprised by the maneuver that Brandy ran right past them and scored a
touchdown. We won the game; nothing else ever gave me quite as big a
kick." * * * * * * To read previous versions of Shenanigans click below:
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