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In rain, snow, hall or sleet Leahy's men can't be beat Sink the Navy! Sink the Navy! Sink the Navy! Y-A-A-A-A-H-H-R-R-R!
With a blood-curdling yell—one that welled and resounded across Notre Dame's practice football field last week—the varsity players broke from 'their huddle and dashed forward to face the "Hamburger Squad," the Notre Dame freshmen. At Notre Dame, the freshmen never play an outside game. Their sole function is to serve as "ground meat for the varsity," a ferociously hungry group which believes in eating''up just as much yardage in midweek scrimmages as in Saturday's big game. The seven linemen—roaring another guttural "Y-A-A-A-A-H-H-R-R-R"*—charged like bulls into a row of freshman defenders, who were specially padded, rather like picadors' horses, to withstand the shock. In the same split-second instant, a long-legged halfback named John Lattner sprang from his crouch, took the deft hand-off of the ball from his quarterback, and cracked through the right side of the line with the power of a runaway steer.
Any reasonably intelligent football scout on the premises could have diagramed the play in less than a minute, and planned a defense against it a minute later. There would be only one difficulty: in the past three years, no defense yet devised has been able to stop Halfback Lattner from averaging 5 yds. every time he has carried the ball. A rawboned husky who stands 6 ft. 2 in. and weighs 195 Ibs., Lattner is admiringly assessed by Backfield Coach Bill Earley as a power runner. "Some guys, when you get a hand on them, they go down. Not John." Head Coach Frank Leahy, who is opposed on principle to singling any one of his men out for special praise, gives Johnny Lattner this citation: "He's our bread & butter ball carrier."
Triple Talents. Lattner is more than a ball carrier. In the two-platoon era of a year ago—when most players were either offensive or defensive specialists, and few ball-carrying halfbacks ever dirtied their hands with a tackle—Johnny Lattner was one of football's rare iron men, a 6c-minute player who enjoyed making a crackling tackle almost as much as he enjoyed lugging the ball. On the offensive, Halfback Lattner was and is a throwback to the days of the genuine triple-threat back; his ability to pass from a running play is a constant threat to the opposition, and his booming kicks travel so high and far that even the slowest-footed Notre Dame lineman can get downfield to smother the receiver. This year Notre Dame's opponents. ' returning Lattner's punts, have averaged less than 2 yds. a try.
For these manifold talents, Halfback Johnny Lattner, as a Notre Dame junior, got the Maxwell Trophy as the outstanding football player of 1952. and he was the only player to make everybody's All-America team. This year, when two-way players are at a premium with the end of the two-platoon system, when football is again producing iron men instead of wooden specialists, All-America Lattner is taking up where he left off.