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Show BEVERLY HILLS.-Well all I know ia Just what I read in the papers. pa-pers. Been so much calamity here the last week or so that Its hard to dig much cheerful n o u r-lsliment r-lsliment out of the news prints. Poor Knute Rockne so upset up-set everybody thatwe Just cant get over it, especially those of us who had the good fortune for-tune to know him. The more you think of him the more remarkable be becomes. I think his greatest teat was his last game, that was out here with University of Southern California. Here wa thought out here we had the greatest team that ever represented repre-sented the coast, tremendous Stadium Sta-dium filled, Notre Dame hadent lost a game in two years, and this was their last, it was the last tor a lot of tbelr big Stars who were graduating. grad-uating. Rockne was touted to lose. The night before over the radio be admitted that he dldent have much of a chance. "Savoldl is out; be was our mainstay. Then on the way out we loat our fullback by illness. ill-ness. We have gone through a tough season, and we just couldeut stay on edge so long. The Boys had to have a let down. I have asked too much of them this sea son with the terrible schedule they bad, and it just Is not in human beings to keep up their pace till now. We have got to lose, and we want to lose to you in preference to anybody else. Its a long train trip , out here. Its -much warmer here than back Lome, and the heat Is against the boys, but we will Just give you the beat we got." Now what other coach on earth could give such a straightforward talk as that, and not have every . word swallowed hook, line and slnkerT Then get this last line he gave us that night before, "Now there Is going to bo a lot of heartaches heart-aches tomorrow afternoon after that game. Great big strong young men are coming into the dressing rooms and break down and cry. But my boys can take it a little easier because they dont expect to win, they have steeled them- selves to the defeat." Weil here we are all packed In the stands, really pitying those poor boys from back there, and hoping that the California boys wouldent seriously hurt any of Uiem runnlfig over them on the way to the goal posts. Well on the very first play California fumbled. fum-bled. Well from then on it was just too bad. Yod never saw a team beaten so cool and deliberate like, Notre Dame huddled for a change, and when they come out of it they would walk as slow to their places, and that got Cal's goat. They finished fin-ished by Notre Dame beating them 27-0. It wasent the score, it was the deliberate and mechanical way they did it. . And here was a great thing he did, as each one of his Stars that would be taken out of the game in the last half and It was their last game for Notre Dame, he would jump up from the bench and go out and meet him and hug him, you could just see the affection that he' had for each one, and it was conveyed con-veyed to that whole audience. I will never forget when little Carl-deo, Carl-deo, (perhaps the greatest field General that ever played football) left the field. He had played a whale of a game, handled bis team uncanny. There is a lot of drama la a player like that leavine the field for his last time as a College player. I think Rockne pulled him out just to get him that great hand . as he left the Stadium. Well when old "Rock" went out and put his arms around that little Carideo and walked him off the field It wasnt an ovation, it was hurricane. We dident know then what we was looking at We thought it was the exit of another great Quarterback. Quarter-back. But we was looking at L"-K!53r "3 V tbe exit of WMA-. WMA-. Knute - Rockne. plW-g lie was hugging fev- 'W his last Player, -i J fine young men y-SJyVJ all over the U. . fi S. can feel back A and che.sh the SjC-V , hug they got on F -T1 their last game 51- y from "Rock." v f , But it waa little :y f JfT Carideo that got hbJ ,: the last hug. Here he was right on the crest. He had beaten the Coasts great team for a two year no defeat record for Notre Dame. 1 But the whole of California loved him, for that night on the radio he apologised for the size of the score . and said, "I had to make it big for Coach Jones will make It bigger lean that against me next year." One lone Ranch Hand in Kansas was supposed to have been the sole witness to Rockne's passing. But Ifiata not so, eighty thousand of rr aw his passing out, his last tarnt, and It will stick with us tnrougU life. 1931. McMaufiu Srr.dict. lac) |