With Rockne at Notre Dame

Jac Fitz-enz

With Rockne at Notre Dame
by Eugene J. Young
G P Putnam (1951)
ASIN: B0006ASU06

I found a rare book about Rockne recently. Once I got into it I couldn’t put it down. It is a special treasure for Notre Dame family.

With Rockne at Notre Dame, signed by the author Eugene (Scrapiron) Young Nicknamed by Rock, Scrapiron chronicles his thirty years at ND starting in 1920 with a broken leg that ended his football aspirations and led to Rock picking him to be ND’s sports trainer.

Published in 1951 the book is an endless series of heart warming and comical anecdotes about Rockne’s coaching career and the players off field antics as told by an insider. Many game stories include the 1925 Rose Bowl victory over Stanford, games against USC and against midwestern and eastern powers such as Minnesota (Bronco Nagurski), Pitt, Army and others.

It describes the shock and mourning within the ND family at Rock’s death including how he happened by chance to be on the plane that went down.

It covers Hunk Anderson’s tenure, Jess Harper, Hugh Devore and on to Leahy. Sixteen photographs showing many of ND’s immortals: Brill, Carideo, the Four Horsemen, Jumpin Joe Savoldi, Marchy Schwartz, Elmer Layden with Will Rogers, Leahy as a player and coach and many more plus a picture of Rock and his wife Bonnie.

Also, photos of the original Cartier Field and the “new stadium” and campus as it was when we were there in 1951. 300 pages of priceless ND lore written in very simple, matter of fact, first person style.