"Win One for the Gipper"

Knute Rockne and George Gipp are considered, respectively, the greatest coach and greatest player in the history of Notre Dame football.

Their names are inextricably linked in Fighting Irish lore. Gipp played for Rockne during the earliest years of his coaching career, and he led the Irish in rushing and passing in each of his last three seasons (1918, 1919, and 1920). His career mark of 2,341 rushing yards lasted more than half a century at Notre Dame. Rockne is widely considered the greatest coach in the history of football, at any level, pro or college. During Rockne's 13 years as head football coach at Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish won three consensus national championships (1924, 1929, and 1930) and completed five unbeaten and untied seasons. Rockne’s lifetime winning percentage of .881 (105 wins, 12 losses, and 5 ties) still ranks at the top of the list for both collegiate and professional football.

But it was a speech that Rockne gave to his team on November 10, 1928 -- in which he told his players a story about Gipp’s deathbed wish for a future Notre Dame team -- that would bind these names together for all time and immortalize five words that are not only well-known to legions of Notre Dame, but together comprise the most famous rallying cry in all of sports: Win One for the Gipper.

The exact words Rockne spoke at halftime that day in New York’s Yankee Stadium may never be known, but generations of Notre Dame fans have heard or memorized the famous locker room speech delivered by actor Pat O’Brien, in a re-creation of the moment in the 1940 Warner Brothers film, Knute Rockne – All American. Here are those words, as spoken by Pat O’Brien, who played the role of Rockne in the film:

Well, boys ... I haven't a thing to say. Played a great game...all of you. Great game. I guess we just can't expect to win ’em all. I'm going to tell you something I've kept to myself for years -- None of you ever knew George Gipp. It was long before your time. But you know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame... And the last thing he said to me -- "Rock," he said -- "sometime, when the team is up against it -- and the breaks are beating the boys -- tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper... I don't know where I'll be then, Rock", he said - "but I'll know about it - and I'll be happy."

In the film and in real life, the Notre Dame players responded to Rockne’s “Win One for the Gipper” speech. On that legendary November day in Yankee Stadium, Irish halfback Jack Chevigny scored the tying touchdown, and Johnny O’Brien scored the winning touchdown as the Fighting Irish rallied for a come-from-behind victory over Army.

As Chevigny crossed the goal line, he reportedly yelled out, “That’s one for the Gipper.”