Category: Irish Lore

[Ad] NEW BOOK: “American Coach: The Triumph and Tragedy of Notre Dame Legend Frank Leahy”

Headlines, Irish Lore
Golden Dome in Bright Sunlight
“Award-winning sportswriter Ivan Maisel brings the … legend of #NotreDame head #football coach #FrankLeahy back to life, based on rare and complete access to #FightingIrish football historical archives and the Leahy family.
When Frank Leahy retired from Notre Dame after the 1953 season, he had the second‑best record in the history of the game (107‑13‑9, .864), second only to #KnuteRockne, his college coach and mentor. Seven decades later, he still does. Rockne created the image of Notre Dame, then a small Catholic university in a remote town in northern Indiana, as the premier college football program in the nation. But it was Leahy who secured that image, with six undefeated seasons and four national championships in an 11-season span. ….”

NEW YEAR’S DAY FOOTBALL: When Notre Dame Played a Regular Season Game on New Year’s Day — 8 Years Before the First Rose Bowl

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Notre Dame’s first New Year’s Day football game was not the 1925 Rose Bowl, when Knute Rockne, the Four Horsemen and the Seven Mules beat Stanford to cap off a 1924 National Championship season.

According to the Notre Dame Football Media Guide’s game-by-game history, Notre Dame’s first New Year’s Day game was on January 1st, 1894, in a regular season game rounding out the 1893 season.

A Notre Dame team that did not even have an officially listed head coach traveled to, of all places, Chicago, to take on a University of Chicago team coached by the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg.

That was eight years before the first Rose Bowl, which would not take place until January 1, 1902.

For the record, the Chicago Maroons won, 8-0, handing Notre Dame their only loss of an 1893 season when Notre Dame went 4-1 and Chicago finished 6-4.