The road to the 1925 Rose Bowl

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Jim Crowley scores at the Rose Bowl.

The 1925 Rose Bowl provided a grand opportunity for the Four Horsemen and Seven Mules, already a smash hit in the East, to strut their stuff out West. They faced Stanford, which boasted a couple of legends itself in Fullback Ernie Nevers and Coach Pop Warner. Nevers was brilliant in the game, running and passing artfully, but his single-handed heroics could not offset the efforts of eleven Notre Damers. The Irish took the game, 27-10.

Rockne was also concerned with getting his squad to Pasadena in peak physical condition. Forewarned by colleagues that a non-stop chug to the coast would weaken the team irreparably, the coach charted a route through New Orleans, Houston, El Paso, and Tucson. Theoretically, this would ease the strain on the players and allow them to get acclimated to warm weather. Practically, the roundabout route meant that practices could be conducted away from prying eyes; and the shifting scenery kept the team from jading during the layoff from competition.

Two days after the game, Jim Crowley nearly died. The team train was bound for San Francisco for a few days of sightseeing when Crowley suddenly turned deathly white, collapsed, and stopped breathing. Father O'Hara, the team chaplain, performed  mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and also administered last rites of the Catholic Church. Momentarily, the halfback was breathing again, and after one day in a hospital he was fit to rejoin the team. His illness was officially termed "acute indigestion." Suspicions linger that he was actuay smitten by a bug known as the Revenge of the Bootlegger.

And the saga of the Rose Bowl would not be complete without mention of Leo Sutliffe. Leo was Notre Dame's student manager, and as such he was responsible for the team's expenses during the trip. When he returned to campus in January he submitted his expense sheet to the university bookkeeper. It read:

Money received: $15,000
Money spent: 14,985
Money returned: 15

This, of course, was an accountant's nightmare. The bookkeeper was outraged. "No good! No good!" he sputtered. You've got to have everything itemized. I need to see receipts. Now get out of here, and don't come back until you can account for every penny!"

Leo tramped out. He hadn't fussed with receipts, and to recollect every expenditure during the three-week trip was an impossibility. He was in a bind. Then he snapped his fingers - the solution was obvious.
Twenty minutes later he walked into the bookkeeper's cubbyhole and slapped down the same expense sheet. The clerk nearly bit through his fountain pen. He'd never met such impudence from a student! He picked up the sheet, fully intending to stick it in an orifice of Sutliffe's body, then looked at it closely, swallowed hard, and slumped back in his chair. "I guess this'll be aliright," he murmured.
What the bookkeeper had seen were the initials "KKR" scrawled across the paper. Leo had gone to Rockne and had him okay the accounting. Checkmate.
Leo Sutliffe, where are you today? The Teamster's Pension Fund is looking for a few good men.


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