Semper Victurus
Disce Quasi Semper Victurus Vive Quasi Cras
Moriturus"
Modern coaches and the media apparently have
it all wrong. It doesn't matter how good your coach is, how talented your
players are, how big your budget is, how hard your schedule is, or how
long your television contract runs. All it takes to win a National
Championship is a grueling practice schedule - at least thats how it
sounds according to the authors of the following December 12, 1947
Football Issue of the Scholastic. In these days of high paid coaches, big
budgets, talented players and lucrative tv contracts, a little more
attention to the details described in this article might just make the
difference:
Football Games Are Won on Weekdays... By Dave Warner and Chick Slattery Magazines and radio swamp the reading and listening public with the details of titanic struggles that take place each fall Saturday afternoon over the nation. The headlines scream results from Yankee Stadium and the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Yet, a little more than a 20 or 30-word blurb serves to describe the Armageddon staged daily, Monday through Thursday, on the practice fields. The Fighting Irish's greatness has been credited to about everything from the excellence of the coaching staff to the Notre Dame spirit, but it is these daily practice sessions on Cartier Field that supply the real answer. Every year scores of Irish stars are graduated and every year from the laboratory on Cartier, Dr. Leahy produces more monsters to haunt the Friday night dreams of the nation's coaches. Inside the high green fence that circles Cartier Field. the football day starts for Coach Leahy's charges at 3:30 P. M. Most of the players have finished their afternoon classes by that time. When the whole squad hits the field at about 3:30, the calisthenics start. The backs and linemen divide into two groups to go to work under Coaches Crimmins and Ziemba. Meanwhile, the quarterbacks are off to the side with Coach Leahy practicing their fakes and spins, the essential part of a successful T-formation. After the calisthenics the guards, tackles and ends move over to one corner of the field with Coaches McArdle, Krause, Druze and Ziemba. There, the bonecrushers practice their blocks and tackles on inanimate objects such as tackling dummies and two and four-man blocking trays. At times the men go to work on each other. On one of the three gridirons the backs practice running and pass catching. When these rituals have been completed the whole squad is called together for a scrimmage. Before the season and for the first few weeks of the schedule, these scrimmages are run according to game regulations so the players can gain their competitive edge. At other times the scrimmages are more specialized. Punt and pass scrimmages give the squad members a chance to polish the rough edges of their defense against passes and punts. Before games the third and fourth teams are given the opposition's plays to run against the first and second teams. This gives all involved a chance to see what they are getting into on Saturday. All during the practice sessions Coach Leahy and his assistants keep a watchful eye on the proceedings. They do not let one mistake go uncorrected. At times Leahy climbs to his 15-foot green tower so that he can follow the whole practice with a minimum of motion. It is little wonder that hulking 200-odd-pound tackles overtake and pull down fleet opposing backs. All week they are either chasing speedsters such as Jimmy Brennan or Frank Spaniel, or Coach Leahy has them taking laps around the practice field or charging 50 to 100 yards in wind sprints. Barging into such granite-like obstacles as guards Jim Dailer and Jack Connor makes Saturday's work like child's play. When Paul Brown, present head coach of the Cleveland Browns, tutored "Zeke" O'Connor at Great Lakes in 1945, he announced publicly that Zeke was one of the finest ends he had ever coached. The blocking backs don't find their tasks so difficult on Saturdays after they have spent a couple of hours each day trying to move Zeke out of the play. The spirit that keeps these men coming out night after night to absorb most of the punishment and little of the glory can best be seen in the story about gigantic Emil Ciechanowicz, the largest man on the squad. Coach Ed (Moose) Krause, who is only slightly larger than Emil, patted his charge on the head and told him to get in there and "eat 'em up" on the next four plays. Emil nodded his assent and queried, "OK, coach. but what'll I do on the four after that?" Emil's last name was a stumper for the coaches and his teammates when he first joined the squad. Finally, after much mispronunciation and deliberation, the whole group with Emil's approval decided to call him Chicken-sandwich. When the backs bounce to their feet after a hard tackle in Saturday's games, the crowd gives them a big hand for their display of intestinal fortitude. But, to those men it is nothing new, they have been taking knocks harder than that from their own teammates, men like centers Art Statuto, Walt Grothaus or Don Carter. Nobody knows better than the varsity players that at the first sign of a letdown, Tom Saggau, Cliff Wilke, Jerry Begley or Dick Leous will move up to take over the varsity spots. The men on the second and third teams can't afford to coast for a minute because substitutes like Bill Gay and John Sinkovitz are gunning for their spots. Someone has tagged those men you don't see on Saturdays as "hamburgers." At any other school in the country men like Ray Espenan, Joe Fanon, Bill Leonard, Al Burnett, Ed Hudak, Joe Fallon. Frank Gaul and Bill Russell would be received with open arms, not as hamburgers, but as blue plate specials. The price of hamburger would shoot skyward if Russ Skall, John Jeffers and Len LeCluyse were suddenly put on the market. Al Zmijewski, a forgotten man as far as Notre Dame tackles went, made only one appearance away from the Notre Dame Stadium this season. In that one appearance he made sure that the people of Southern California win remember his name. In the closing seconds of the USC game he intercepted a lateral pass and returned it for a touchdown. Besides the hard work of the whole team, some of the individuals have their own struggles which keep them up on top of the greatest collegiate football team of the year. Ziggy Czarobski, an All-American in any man's book, played first string tackle on the 1942 and 1943 teams before he went into service. In those two years Zig played his tackle position as well as any man he faced. Last season he won back his starting berth, but the back-of-the-hand talkers said he talked his way out of more situations than he blocked. Early in the summer he was given an ultimatum to return to school in shape or else. Zig was determined to hold his starting berth, so he went to work with a construction gang in Wisconsin. He often got up at five A. M. to do road work. Back at school in the fall, he frequently sandwiched in a private practice session. The results of his work and determination made him the Notre Dame players', the opposing players' and the coaches' All-American. You have no doubt basked in the warm October sun in stadia like lllinois Memorial, Purdue's Ross-Ade or Northwestern's Dyche and admired the gold-helmeted, green-shirted horde pounding down the ramp onto the veld. All clean, shiny and sleek they look. Here is what you didn't see. Just before the Pitt game, Dr. Leahy prescribed three hours of gruelling calisthenics, scrimmage and miscellaneous head banging. A sudden downpour sent an spectators for cover. Leahy stayed and so did his lads, for five laps around the field. "Can't tell when we might have to play in the rain." he jibed. The locker room is the forum room for the players. Here they talk over all subjects, but mostly their conversation cen- ters around football. Most of the men arrive early to give themselves plenty of time to don their pads. Coach Leahy makes them do laps around the field if they are late for practice. At one end of the locker room Manager Leo Costello lords over an equipment room. If one of the player's T-shirts is ripped or his socks have holes in them he has to argue with Leo for replacements. Leo wins most of the disputes. Across the hall from Leo, Hugh Burns, the team trainer, holds forth in his fully equipped training room. When Hugh is not rubbing stiff muscles or taping swollen ankles, he is matching jokes with Ziggy Czarobski. occasionally Zig will sing a few verses of some Irish ballad for the boys. The consensus of opinion is that Zig is at his best when he is standing under a hot shower. It is all this and more that takes place daily behind Cartier's green walls and in the locker room. These are the men behind the men: like Russ Skall, who likes it better the rougher it gets. Russ bicycles to practice, but there is no one to find him back pedalling in scrimmages. These are the men who make Notre Dame football- the little known guys who work just as hard, just as long as the All- Americans.
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