This month's edition of Reflections From The Dome features reminiscences of George Gipp from the memoirs of Chet Grant. The information was excerpted from Chet's weekly newsletter "Under The Hat with Chet Grant." This material was provided to Irish Legends by the University of Notre Dame Archives.

In an introduction to his first weekly newsletter that was written in the late 1940s, Chet gave the following account of his familiarity with Notre Dame football:

"My background for rendering such a service dates back to the time of the fabulous Red Salmon [fullback, 1900,'01,'02,'03] who would rate a spot in the greatest of Notre Dame backfields, all-time.

I've fanned, reported, played and coached Notre Dame football. I played under Knute K. Rockne when he was an assistant coach in 1916, again in 1920 and 1921 when he was head coach... Many of my teammates of 1916, 1920, 1921 became nationally famed coaches on their own...as did the Four Horsemen and Seven Mules and many of their alternates, all of whom were freshmen in my senior year...Harry Stuhldreher was my roommate...When Elmer Layden returned to Notre Dame as head coach in 1934, I was sports editor of the South Bend News-Times (in passing). Elmer figured from the way I wrote I intended, to help him run the team from downtown; so he made it official by putting me on his staff. I. passed the ensuing seven years behind the scenes.

My football experience includes playing on an Army camp team, coaching in high school and small colleges, and scouting in professional ball. I live and have lived for many years less than two miles from Cartier Field. I have never lost contact with the football situation."

Gipp from the memoirs of Chet Grant:

George came to Notre Dame in 1916, my first year of football eligibility. Contrary to to report, Gipp was not discovered accidentally. At least, I have been informed directly by one of Notre Dames' athletes who came from George's home town that he played while in high school. At any rate, he was a member of the freshman team of 1916, and gave indication of by his style of having had high school  experience in football. He ran with his legs straight - I mean by that, he did not bring his knees up even normally high for a football player, but he had great speed, which he demonstrated occasionally when we gave the ball to him as a freshmen. My first, last and only memory of Freshman Gipp involved a prophetic performance...Freshmen were given the ball on the varsity ten yard line. Gipp was at left half. My perspective was the safety point of a flat diamond secondary defense. I still can visualize the six-foot Gipp, modeled like a greyhound and as swift, circling our right flank by sheer speed, scoring without my hand or anybody else's laid on him...

As I recall, he registered with us as an unusually swift runner, rather than as an unusual halfback...His chief title to attention that year was a 62-yard drop kick against Kalamazoo; he was just that kind of fellow: with one spectacular burst of ability he attained more notice than Grover Malone, a great halfback perfectly schooled in the fundamentals of running with the football, blocking, and tackling, gained in three years of varsity competition. Grover remembers Gipp this way: "The thing that made Gipp different was his head. I liked to carry the mail as well as anybody. But he had me blocking for him and liking it...He didn't ask much, though...Just a split-second screening."  Chet recalls that "In the '20 Army game I'd noticed in Gipp's off-tackle slants and cutbacks he didn't drive after being hit." Grover replied that "Gipp took care of himself. Hit firmly, he relaxed and went down...He  was like a boxer who perfects his  art so he can hit without being hit...George figured it was stupid to knock himself out for an extra yard when he could get it back, more too maybe, the easy way -- next time."

Gipp broke his leg in 1917, and did not play much before the accident occurred, so I understand. I think he played the whole 1918 season, the year of the S.A.T.C. (Students' Army Training Corps) He was a dominating figure in 1919, even among the many returned war veterans, despite the disability mentioned above. In the fall of 1920 Gipp reported but once or twice before the opening of the season, scrimmaged once and ran for a touchdown through the freshmen on the first and only play he was in ---not an especially notable feat, except that it was Gipp who did it. What caused Rock to remove him from practice immediately after that play is a question; whatever it was, to know it would throw considerable light on Rock's character. I suppose now we may designate it as showmanship; certainly to have left Gipp in would have been anti-climactic...Another master stroke occurred in the 1920 Purdue game, the occasion of Notre Dame's first Homecoming. Gipp, along with the rest of the varsity, entered the game at the beginning of the second quarter. The varsity recovered the ball on the 20-yard line. Brandy called Gipp back to punt formation on the first play, and George ran 80 yards for a touchdown. Rock pulled him out immediately. Whether he was saving him for the Army, or building him up for the press, presents still another question, the answer to which would undoubtedly enlighten us greatly. As a single example, it would appear as accidental showmanship. Viewed in association with many like causes, it may be represented as a piece of deliberate pattern. (Again, the run in itself was not notable. It became notable as having been executed by the much heralded Gipp, and by reason of his immediate withdrawal, which tripled the significance of the play. Again it is a question, then, whether Rock doubted Gipp's physical stamina or was dramatizing. If the latter, was he still consciously or unconsciously striving for effects?)

Gipp combined rare physical qualifications (impaired by an enervating disease) with supurb poise. Rockne apparently had implicit confidence in him, permitted him indulgences which granted to another would have recked team morale. Throughout the season he did not appear for more that two or three practices a week, at the outside. The players did not seem to resent it--accepted it perhaps as the exception which proves the rule. As a matter of fact, with the infection already eating away his vitality, Gipp could not have stood up under the grind and grill of daily practice. Perhaps he sensed it; Rockne at any rate, was sufficiently sold on him to let him get away with murder.

Nothing seemed to faze him. Johnny Mohart was one of the smashingest blockers I've ever seen, and Gipp one of the most restrained.  Yet Gipp would run up to an end, jump into the air, wave his arms, and the end would lose sight of the ball while trying to analyze these unorthodox motions. Gipp, however, was not thought of generally as a good blocker nor as a good tackler. Someone remarked the other day---I think it was Crowley---that he had been told Gipp was wonderful in defense against forward passes. He may have been -- frankly, the forward pass attacks that we encountered at the time were not all that formidable. Anyhow, Gipp's forte was offense, and his greatest asset on offense was a remarkable poise. He strode far and fast, and used the cross-over dodge most effectively according to my memory. (The cross-over dodge is executed as follows: Assuming the ball carrier intends to dodge to the right, when several yards away from a tackler who is waiting for him , he (the ball carrier) fakes to his left with body and eyes and then pivots on his right foot to the right, swinging his left foot across his leg: thus, the cross-over. By the fake he throws the would -be tackler's weight, or at lease his attention to the left, and then he the (ball carrier) changes his course sharply to the right.  

Gipp was missing when practice started in fall of '20--under suspension for scholastic irregularity. He had forfeited the captaincy, been replaced by his arch-rival for leadership, Little Willie (6-3. 220#) Coughlin, tackle. Knute Rockne saw in Gipp a genius so rare it transcended normal rules. Gipp wasn't indispensable to the '20 team. John Mohardt. his alternate at LH, was a great passer and runner. But Gipp was an added feature to any ball game; he contributed a special something the artistically sensitive Rockne was first and foremost to recognize and equally resolved not to lose.:::.Rock exerted his combined prestige as an already successful coach and esteemed faculty member to arrange for some skipped scholastic tests which he knew Gipp could pass if persuaded into wanting to. Then he had to find Gipp. He had no idea where he was until he received a telephone call from a Chicago friend. who'd been tipped off by Carl Zievers, manager of the Simmons professional baseball club of Kenosha.

Rock set out immediately for Kenosha, where he'd been advised there was an outfielder on the Simmons club name of Gipp. Carl Zievers told me recently Gipp had expressed positive preference for baseball; he was determined not to return to ND for his fourth football season. He was a good prospect, said Mr. Zievers; hastening to add, apparently in protection of Gipp's amateur status, he'd been on the bench so far. It took hours of Rockne's best salesmanship, with the stubborn supporting counsel of George's brother Louie, to change his mind.

Thus reluctantly did George Gipp commit himself to the final reach of his course to football immortality. To Rockne, this tall, slim yet strong limbed, pale young man of 25 was like a fragile specimen of art--to be handled with meticulous and particular care, possession of the rare object depending on a tenuous tie which an awkward touch might break or sever...Gipp seemed to make his own hours on the field.  We'd be catching punts for 20 minutes or half an hour before he'd show up. With a nod, perhaps a little grin and small voiced greeting, but without leave or apology, as coolly and naturally as if by some divinely given right, he'd take the next kick ---the next 4 or 5 kicks in succession with an enviable grace and ease, as we stood back and watched him without resentment. Then he'd take his punting turn and after a few boots he'd say, or indicate by his movements: "Let's go. I'm ready".

Rock attributed Gipp's irregular attendance of practice to a bad leg. Goodhumoredly, we assigned it to the fact that Gipp was Gipp. "He was a great player," said Grover Malone, as close to Gipp as anyone. "But George took care of himself."

I saw a lot of Gipp in my five minutes on the football field with him. He ran only once, but with characteristic slash; he passed twice beautifully if unsuccessfully; he punted once high and far. He exhibited a flexible flair for leadership; an effort to dictate my play-call failing, he succeeded with persuasion . He had gambled on the game and in losing displayed a basic trait of the true gambler he was said to be, a cool and unresenting acceptance of the occasional and inevitable bad turn of the cards -- a quality that distinguished him as a football player in the form which was recognized as his unshakable poise.

In 1920 I was sent into the last five minutes or so of play with the instuctions to hold safe the 16-7 score we held against Nebraska at Lincoln.  It was my first football game since 1917, and my first Notre Dame game since 1916. [Editors note: Chet was in the Army for most of that time.] My backfield consisted of Gipp, Wynne and Barry. By some Nebraska inadvertence we recovered the ball shortly after I was sent in, on the Huskers' 10-yard line. I sent Gipp off tackle for five yards first crack. It was my intention to duplicate, or shoot Wynne over the left side on a split buck. Before I could put my intention into execution, Gipp said, "Let me have it!" Simultaneoulsy, Barry said, "Let me have it!" It was my first contact with them under fire and I dared not yield to either of them; The precedent would impair my future authority as director of offensive play. To fan my resentment a guard named Hunk Anderson, a miner lad from Gipp's home town who fairly worshipped the great halfback, turned around and growled, "Let George have it." Thereupon I determined to let none of them have it -- not even Wynne, although he had not opened his mouth,  as a lesson. What to call? I decided while I was at it to make it a big one -- play #77, a forward pass to the end off a split buck, strategically a mad choice in our position because if the pass dropped over the goal-line we lost it on the second down, wheras we had three downs in which to pierce a rather crumbly Nebraska line in safe running plays. At the same time, mad thought the play was -- rather the play was just mad enough to succeed with ridiculous ease. [On this play, we used no shift; the signal was called, the QB snapped "Hike," took the ball direct from the center, faked to hand it first to one back then another, and then ran back and threw a pass to the right end drifting into a sure open spot to the right, the two backs to whom he had faked in handing the ball to, in the meantime were plunging into the line and concentrating attention there.]

I knew the temper of my men well enough to realize that when I gave the signal, they would check it by yelling, "Signals!" To foil them, I decided to follow the signal so swiftly with the command of execution (Hike) they would automatically swing into the play before they had the time or notion to check it ...This of course was the matter of only a few seconds' reasoning ...."49 - 32 - 47 Hike! ..."Signals!" "Signals!" "Signals!" They tried to check it, but Mehre passed the ball to me, and I turned to make my fakes to the backs, to discover them holding fast in their tracks. Running back, I jostled against Barry, temporarily lost control of the ball, recovered it, and sighted Eddie Anderson far in the clear behind the goal line. In my anziety not to pass over the end-line, I threw too short and the play fizzled. Oh-oh! "What's the matter?" asks Gipp of Anderson, over my head. " I don't know," returns Eddie, with a shrug that indicates his belief that the QB is nuts. "Ask George what to do," enjoins the helpful Mr. Hunk Anderson. And so on, and so on...Remember, I was a stranger in a strange land... Time was taken out. My course was clear: play it safe, protect our lead, make no passes.

Gipp: "Let's pass." I: "No. I'm in here with instructions to play it safe." Gipp: "Listen, I've got friends in South Bend who've bet we'll win by two touchdowns. We've got to pass." "I: No pass. I'm taking no chances." Gipp: There won't be any chance. I'll be careful." I (at last): "All right, George, We'll pass, but safety first is the watchword." I yielded when he promised to throw long, so that an interception would be the equivalent of a punt. Time-out ends, play is resumed.

Gipp threw a long pass, intended from Eddie Anderson: it dropped a few feet past him. Eddie: "Sorry, George. I should have had it." Gipp: "My fault, Eddie, I led you too far. Better luck this time." I knew Rock was apostrophizing me as a half-wit or a madman, wondering what perverse devil had posessed me. But I volunteered to give Gipp another chance to prove I wasn't such a bad guy. Another long pass failed the same way. Center Harry Mehre said, "We came in here to play it safe -- remember?" The next time I tried a safety play; Gipp did not complain: he'd done his best to make good for his friend: time to forget it. A moment later he punted us out of the danger zone.

From his point of view he had good reason to feel a little bitter towards me. There was no trace of such a feeling when he invited me to have a coca cola with him and a couple of the others at the hotel drugstore when we came in from the game. Secretly my crest had fallen very low as the result of my bad pass and the misinterpretation which I knew would be be placed on my choice of the goal-line play. I think I was greatful to Gipp for not rubbing it in; otherwise, I would not have accepted coca cola, which I dislike utterly.

The incident is my first, last, only and not uneventful spell of grid duty with George Gipp. What impressed me most was a demonstration of the hero-worship he apparently had aroused in one of the roughest and readiest Notre Dame guards of all time. As we dropped back to form our defense, after my unorthodox and unsuccessful resort to play 77, one "Hunk" Anderson (later head coach at Notre Dame and famous line coach for the Chicago Bears), who is at least six years younger than I, moved into pace with me and said out of the corner of his mouth, "Ask George what to do, kid."  ....If I had it to do again, Hunk, maybe I would.

The week of the Army game I was standing in Claffey's when Gipp came up to me and said, "give me a dollar," handing me at the same time a slip of paper. He was operating a lottery, expenses for the Army trip (or the equivalent in cash) the prize. Any other than Gipp would have said, "Will you take a chance on the Army trip?" No one on the football team save Gipp could have got away with my dollar, for which I had many other pressing uses. 

Gipp spoke in short, clipped sentences -- in rushes. I thought of him as a very busy young fellow, rather grudgingly giving to football and football trips time which might be better spent on other and more important matters. He seemed always to be just dropping in for a practice or a class, enroute to to the scene of other and mightier concerns...He had a few big plays in him for use against the weaker clubs of 1920, and one big game. Gipp knew the Army game represented his day. Knowing it, he acted accordingly. He had no inhibitions. He felt that he was "on," so he demanded the ball of the quarterback. What quarterback would deny the ball to a man who clicked off five yards at least every time he received it? Brandy (QB) gave it to him, Gipp made good. I don't think he could have repeated the performance ever. I think he knew that, too. Gipp was a gambler, off and on the field. He saw his break, and he plunged. That night he was enrolled in the lists of the highest; in one game he mounted to a pinnacle reached by no other Notre Dame athlete except Rockne.

In the '20 Army game Gipp's percentage philosophy was memorably demonstrated, on and off the field...though I've never heard or read an allusion to the occasions...Fast and fancy Walter French, the great Army fullback, ran a Gipp punt back for a touchdown in the first half. At halftime, Rock blasted his defense...Eddie Anderson had been flanked when French reversed his field. Others had an equal chance at him, or better. Eddie started to explain, only to be flayed unmercifully by Rockne. Rockne didn't want to get specific. The guiltiest of the guilty was Gipp...I see him yet -- on his rump at midfield, calmly watching French fly down the sideline, conserving his energy for the next Irish push. All he needed to complete Picture of Non-Partisan Spectator at Ease was a cigarette.

Rockne didn't expect Gipp to save the game by his defensive tackles. That's why he generalized--let each man make the application privately....Gipp sat mum in dressing room -- smiling faintly, unruffled by what couldn't be undone (the score was ND 14 Army 7); not indifferent, as might be inferred from some Gippography, but coolly concerned with problems ahead; confident of the outcome. Both player and coach knew it was Gipp Day with the ball.

Competing for the third and last time (no Army game in '18) against ND's traditionally toughest foe, in the season's whitest light of publicity, Gipp attained heights of personal performance worthy of this climactic spot in his career. [Editor's note: Notre Dame won 27-17. Gipp's statistics were: 150 yards rushing, 123 yards passing, and 112 yards on punt and kick-offs for an incredible 385 total yards. All of this was against one of the greatest teams of the era. For a full account of the game, see the Semper Victurus column.

An interesting sidelight on the game was the time-honored custom, in the days when we went to the Plains at West Point, to bet our dough even Steven with the cadets. All placed their money with a spokeman, and he turned over the money to the Steakholder, always without odds no matter the relative strength of the teams. After the 1920 game, which we won, Gipp learned that one of the player had had no money to place, and consequently was flat. Immediately he instituted a collection. He did not ask for contributions -- he assessed them. He said, "Did you bet on the game? Yes? Well, give me five bucks for So and So. He was broke and couldn't bet." You gave him five without a murmur. Probably because you knew that Gipp himself had put in ten dollars-- or probably just because it was Gipp.

A week later Indiana stopped him cold. He came out of the game finally with an injured arm, leaving his team licked 10-0. It was a humiliating spectacle; mighty Achilles fallen. A substitute halfback went in (Johnny Mohardt) and where Gipp had failed he succeeded, brilliantly. The substitute snatched our cause from the brink of defeat, put us on the road to victory, and then, because Gipp was Gipp, Rockne bound up his injured arm, taped it from shoulder to wrist, and sent him to ram the ball across the line for our first touchdown and to participate in the glory of the second and winning score by pulling off a trick play in partnership with Joe Brandy.

Northwestern a week later was a sieve on defense, and we won with great ease. it was no credit for a whole man to romp through the Purple, with the result that Gipp's injury was a boon to him so far as publicity was concerned. The crowd wanted to see Gipp, and when late in the game he went in to throw a few passes it was in response to loud and concerted public demand. His entry gave the game its one dramatic touch, and the fact of his injury made several passes he threw to completion appear a spectacular feat. He was not called upon to advance the ball by running; consequently, the physical strain upon him  was very slight. The last play of Gipp's career -- the last of that game also, I believe -- was a short punt which he attempted to catch. He was tackled at just about the moment the ball touched his hands, and he fumbled. At that time the football sun at Northwestern was very dim, and their football teams correspondingly anemic. After every play of this farce of 1920, three or four Northwestern stars would be laying flat on the ground. Then, with story-book gameness, they struggle to their feet with heronic effort-- painfully pushing themselves up first to kneeling position, then to a half-kneel, and finally to staggering erectness. We had a lot of fun out of what we called their pink-tea excercises...Later on, at some winter social function in Chicago, the young man who tackled Gipp on that last play was heard to explain to a young woman beautifully enough to be worth impressing, if possible with one's primordial muscle: "George Gipp's death was a particular shock to me. You see, I tackled him on that last play. I can never forgive myself for tackling him so fiercely."  This tiger in human form thought, or affected to think, the terrific impact of his tackle had caused Gipp to fumble and had contributed to his death. I heard Gipp's version of that fumble immediately after the game; to me, thinking of Gipp as one of the finest poised football players the game ever had, that explanation is significant. "I could see that guy bearing down on me" (out of the corner of his eye, you may be sure, because even a wounded Gipp would not forget the first rule of punt receiving, which is "keep your eye on the ball.") "and I aimed to pivot just as I caught the ball." In a situation like that, a successful pivot would have been a remarkable feat, and but for an unconcious favoring of his bad arm, Gipp would been a 5-3 shot to succeed. Only two other Notre Dame men I know of would have a similar chance of executing that particular play successfully -- Gus Dorais and Jim Crowley.

Shortly after the Northwestern game the annual civic testimonial dinner was tendered the squad at the Oliver Hotel. Gipp sat across the table from me. During the course of the dinner, he asked for a handkerchief, which I was able to provide. I noticed that he was not eating much. Before the speech making began, he got up and went to speakers table, where he stopped to speak to Rock before passing on out of the room. I remember thinking that he probably had an engagement which to him was more important -- at least, less boresome than a civic testimonial banquet. I never saw Gipp again. He had excused himself to Rock because he was not feeling well. A day or two later he was in bed. The day we wound up our season -- with the Michigan Aggies on Thanksgiving Day at East Lansing, Michigan -- he was reported critically ill.

Rockne recognized Gipp's greatness. Perhaps it was a case of genius recognizing genius and permitting it a latitude which smaller minds would have shrunk from.

When I returned after my Army service ended in mid-fall of '19, George had already become virtually a living legend. In 1920 I returned to school. "So you played with Gipp," fans exclaimed. "Yes," I answer. "About five minutes." In the five minutes I played with Gipp, he ran, passed, punted, exhibited his leadership, exerted his charm and revealed his poised, calculating approach to competition. I think I saw the whole Gipp in that packed interval. But to me there remained to the end an unreality about his coming and going, an impersonality in his very presence, that gave him, indeed, a legendary aura even as he performed his most tangible feats on the football field.

An advertising blotter from an Iowa coal company in the twenties

For further reading on George Gipp, I recommend Patrick Chelland's excellent biography: One for The Gipper. Click here to order or read a synopsis of the book.