Rockne

`

Rockne

The Coach, the Man, the Legend

Jerry Brondfield
Introduction by Jay Atkinson

288 pages
1 image

Paperback

September 2009

978-0-8032-2679-1

$19.95 Add to Cart

About the Book

On April 1, 1931, newspapers in all parts of the country announced in giant headlines that Knute Rockne had died in a plane crash in Kansas. Who was Rockne, age forty-three, to receive all this attention? As head coach of the Notre Dame football team, he was a celebrity whose face and voice were familiar to millions through magazines, newspapers, and radio.
 
At Notre Dame, he himself had been a great football player. After graduation, he remained to teach chemistry and coach track and football. At thirty, he was named head football coach for the Fighting Irish, and over the next thirteen years, his team went undefeated five times. Rockne coached stars such as George Gipp, one of the most talented men ever to play the game, and the “Four Horsemen,” the most famous backfield in football history. He raised the status of the coaching profession and helped develop Notre Dame’s nationwide following of millions of Irish and other Catholics, many of whom had never even entered a college classroom.
 
In Rockne Jerry Brondfield has recaptured the magnetism that made Rockne great. In this dramatic and peculiarly American story, he shows how a Norwegian immigrant could gain lasting fame as the coach of an American game at a university founded by Frenchmen and associated with the Irish.

Author Bio

Jerry Brondfield (1914–98) was a radio broadcaster, journalist, sports reporter, and documentary filmmaker. His books include Woody Hayes and the 100-Yard War and Great Moments in American Sports.
 
Jay Atkinson has written five books, including Legends of Winter Hill and City in Amber.

Praise

Rockne is enthusiastically recommended.”—Library Journal

"An inspiring read."—Doc Kirby, Radio Book Bit, WTBF-AM/FM (Troy, AL)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Prologue
1. The Flight of NC-999
2. Time of a Giant
3. Immigrant Family
4. New Boy in Town
5. Dorais-to-Rockne
6. The Assistant
7. Gipp
8. Ambush--and a Weird Affair
9. The Shift
10. The Four Horsemen
11. Picking the Roses
12. Making it Mesh
13. A Very Personal Day
14. Building the Program
15. The Embarrassments
16. The Pied Piper
17. The Ghost of Gipp
18. The Cripple
19. Return to the Top
20. Aftermath

Also of Interest