(4 of 10)
"Dear Sir." The nation's best-known football foundry is a Johnny-come-lately to the game. The University of Notre Dame was barely out of the log-cabin stage when Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate football game in 1869. The Fighting Irish had a school cheer in 1879 ("Rah, rah! Nostra Domina"), but they did not have a team to cheer for until 1887—eight years after the famed Golden Dome of Our Lady first cast its glint across the Indiana plains. It wasn't much of a team at that; in two years, Notre Dame lost three straight to Michigan, prompting the coach to dash off a plaintive letter to Yale's Walter Camp: "Dear Sir: Will you kindly furnish me some points on the best way to develop a good football team?" Whatever Camp's advice was, it worked: the Irish were unbeaten m 1892 and 1893; and in 1903, they ran up 292 points to their opponents' zero.
They also began to run out of opposition. Schools in the Intercollegiate Conference (today's Big Ten) flatly refused to play them, and the frustrated Irish had to content themselves with belting the likes of Franklin (64-0), Loyola of Chicago (80-0) and St. Viator (116-7). In 1913, casting around for games. Coach Jesse Harper hooked a whopper Old Rivals Harvard and Yale had dropped off Army's schedule because the Cadets refused to sell tickets to their games. Desperate for a "filler" Army agreed to a $1,000 guarantee, and Harper's eager Irish headed East. Undefeated in four games, Army was a powerhouse—and there were chuckles all around when somebody discovered that the visitors had 18 players but only 14 pairs of cleats. Army was the overwhelming favorite: its line outweighed Notre Dame by 15 lbs. per man. and fans were so sure the game would be a slaughter that only 3,000 bothered to turn out.
The Rock. It was a slaughter all right—just like David and Goliath. In those days football was a mannerly game: teams were expected to punt on first down inside their own 20-yd. line and never, never throw a forward pass. The upstarts from Indiana punted only on fourth down—and passed the Cadets goggle-eyed. In one fantastic flurry. Quarterback Gus Dorais completed 12 in a row. His main target was a balding bandy-legged end named Knute Kenneth Rockne, who at 5 ft. 8 in. and 145 lbs. was probably the smallest man on the field. Army defenders could not help admiring Rockne's courage; the game had barely started before he was limping noticeably. Late in the first period, with the ball on the Army 30 Dorais dropped back to pass. Nobody noticed Rockne, hobbling painfully down the sideline. Suddenly, the limp disappeared; he was running full tilt toward the Army goal, reaching up for the pass. Touchdown! Before the long afternoon was over, Notre Dame's passing attack had clicked for 243 yds. and two TDs, and the unknown Indiana school had upset mighty Army 35-13.