11/4/2002 - Football
History Of The Navy-Notre Dame Football Series
History Of The Navy-Notre Dame Football Series
This year's football game between Navy and Notre Dame marks the 75th anniversary of the first Navy-Notre Dame Football game played in Baltimore on 15 October 1927. The 1927 game signaled the start of what is now one of the longest-lived intercollegiate football rivalry in the country...a rich football history tradition that hopefully never will be broken.
Roots in Army-Notre Dame Rivalry
The Navy-Notre Dame football rivalry actually had its roots in the Army-Notre Dame rivalry that began in 1913. In fact, the football histories of Army, Notre Dame, and Navy have been closely entwined from the very beginning.
Army, an eastern football powerhouse, consented to play Notre Dame for the first time in 1913 when a date opened up in the Army schedule. Army was shocked by the Gus Dorais to Knute Rockne passing combination in a game that made headlines on every sports page in the country, revolutionizing college football and marking Notre Dame's first football appearance in the "big league."
In the 1920s, the Army-Notre Dame rivalry became a major annual sporting event in New York City and was described by some as a "pagan autumnal rite." In the 1924 game, Notre Dame's "Four Horsemen" were immortalized by Grantland Rice at the Polo Grounds as Notre Dame beat Army 13-6. By the time Army played Navy at Soldier Field in 1926, the "Win One for the Gipper" game was still two years away.
1926 Army-Navy Game.
In 1926, Navy played Army in Chicago in the Dedication Game of Soldier Field. Navy was undefeated and Army had lost only to Notre Dame. For Navy, this was a game that would decide the national championship.
The game was a national event attended by the entire Corps of Cadets and Brigade of Midshipmen. Grantland Rice described the game in an article syndicated across the nation:
BIGGEST CROWD OF MODERN ERA SEES STRUGGLE
More Than 120,000 People Marvel as Two
Great Elevens Fight...
CHICAGO, 27 NOVEMBER: In the most tremendous spectacle in the history of American sport, Army and Navy completed a deadlock at 21-21 as the two teams, like ghostly shadows deep in the darkness of a wintry night, fought to the final play with the skill and courage of the Army-Navy breed.
Something between 120,000 and 140,000 looked down upon the most spectacular struggle in the long history of service football as two great elevens fought with desperation unparalleled in the history of sport.
After playing to an epic 21-21 tie, Navy was awarded the National Championship trophy.
This is where it gets interesting. Rockne's Notre Dame team beat Army and all other opponents in 1926, and suffered only one shocking loss to Carnegie Tech. Where was Knute Rockne the day of the Notre Dame loss to Carnegie Tech? Knute was in Chicago watching the Army-Navy game!
Clearly, it was time for Notre Dame to take on Navy. The game was scheduled the following October 15th in Baltimore.
In the 1927 Navy-Notre Dame game program, Reverend Mathew Walsh, president, University of Notre Dame would later set the stage for the rivalry:
Notre Dame is pleased indeed to begin football relations with the United States Naval Academy. We are very confident the same cordial relations will exist between the two schools that has been so noticeable all these years with the other branch of service at West Point. Notre Dame, Army, and Navy make an ideal group for a football triangle. Their students live on campus, they draw their student body from all parts of the country, and they are strictly men's schools. The outcome of our games with the Navy and with the Army is not so important as that the best feeling of sport and good-fellowship always prevail. We are indeed happy to have Navy on our schedule: we trust it will continue so long and so amiably as to become a part of our best loved traditions.
1927 Navy N Club Dinner, 29 May
In May following the Army-Navy game in Soldier Field, the new Navy National Champions scheduled the first Navy "N" Club Dinner in Annapolis. Only nine days earlier, Charles Lindbergh had taken off from Long Island to fly to Paris, becoming the first man to fly across the Atlantic, alone in his monoplane.
The Navy National Champions chose Knute Rockne as the featured speaker for this august occasion...speaking on the subject of "American football."
The opening page of the dinner program described the mission of the Naval Academy N Club:
During the fall of 1926, Commander Jonas Ingram, director of athletics, and a group of 'N' men stationed at the Naval Academy conceived the idea of banding together all of the wearers of the 'N' in an effort to form an organization to which only Navy athletes, who have won their 'N' would be eligible...
...Let each wearer of the 'N,' with renewed loyalty pledge his whole-hearted support to those things which count for hard fighting, clean sportsmanship, and the 'will to win.'
The head of the dinner committee that evening was Commander W.F. "Bull" Halsey 1904. The General Committee included Tom Hamilton and Frank Wickhorst, both heroes of the 1926 season and subsequently inducted into the National Football Hall of Fame. Tom Hamilton subsequently became the Navy coach in the 1930s, a rear admiral and head of the Pac-10.
Despite the loss of numerous lettermen following the 1926 season and Knute Rockne's speech at the first Navy N-Club Dinner, Navy planned to be ready to play Notre Dame the following October!
1927 Navy-Notre Dame Game.
Knute Rockne returned to Maryland the following autumn for the first Navy-Notre Dame scheduled on 15 October in Baltimore's new Municipal Stadium. In preparation for the contest, a 1927 Stadium Football Trophy was commissioned to award to the game's winner.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the game the next day:
Notre Dame's Powerful Eleven Sweeps to 19 to 6 Victory Over Navy
FATE OF MIDDIES SEALED WHEN CHRIS FLANAGAN IS TURNED LOOSE BY ROCKNE
Youthful Star Shows Real Irish Offense the Way to Victory After Service Eleven Scores on Knute's "Shock Troops" in First Quarter
BALTIMORE, 15 OCTOBER (AP)-For just a little more than two periods, Knute Rockne turned loose a youth named Christy Flanagan on the Navy 11 today and when the dust of the latest Indiana cyclone from South Bend had settled in the Baltimore Stadium, Notre Dame had clinched victory in the first of the season's outstanding intersectional football clashes.
Racing to the rescue of his green-jersied mates at the start of the second period, when Navy had chalked up a lone touchdown lead, Flanagan personally directed the scoring of Notre Dame's first touchdown, brought the ball almost to the sailor goal line, and then retired to leave the polishing off to his teammates.
And to those mates went the glory of piling up the scores after Flanagan, bright shining light in the Rockne offense, had demoralized a promising Navy defense with his blinding hip-shifting speed and general all-round potency behind the sweeping interference of the veteran Notre Dame backs...
Tacoma Youth is Hero of Navy Team
But the hero of the unseasoned Navy crew was neither slippery quarterback, Ned Hannegan, nor bruising 200-pound halfback, Whitey Lloyd, who had been looked upon as the stalwarts in the Navy offense. Out of the Plebe team of last season, making his first bid for fame in a big Navy game, came Art Spring, 18-year old Youngster from Tacoma, WA, with every promise of future stardom.
It was Spring who started at halfback in the place of Lloyd, Navy ace, and stayed long enough to score Navy's points early in the first quarter. It took Navy and Spring less than five minutes to run up the touchdown, aided in the long march from their own 30-yard line by interference with a forward pass that brought the ball to mid-field. From that point, Hannegan, Ransford, and Spring tore through the second string men until Spring finally raced the final five yards around the westerner's left end.
The U. S. Naval Academy yearbook Lucky Bag described the game as follows:
15 October brought clear crisp football weather. On that day the regiment journeyed to Baltimore to see their potentially powerful but green team go down to defeat before the green-clad hordes of Notre Dame, 19-6.
The Irishmen were unquestionably more advanced in all departments, excepting the overhead where Navy outgained them two to one, but the score at the end of the half was: Navy 6, Notre Dame 0, and might have remained there but for one break which tied the score.
The trophy awarded to Notre Dame for victory that day now rests in the trophy case at The Knute Rockne Memorial Building in South Bend.
The Final Years of the Roaring '20s
The following year in 1928, Navy traveled to Chicago to meet Notre Dame in Soldier Field, the site of the 1926 championship game with Army. In the game day program, Edward Kelly, president of the Chicago
South Park Commissioners wrote:
Chicago today salutes you, athletes privileged to wear the "Blue and Gold" of two great schools, meeting again in its midst for the annual tussle that is sure to become, no matter where held, an annual institution. The South Park Commissioners are proud to have two such great schools, renowned in sports annals for true sportsmanship, meeting in peaceful battle on the hallowed ground of Soldier Field, dedicated as it is to the sons of Chicago, the sons of all America, who have given up their lives for the Stars and Stripes.
The athletic traditions of the Naval Academy and of Notre Dame are sufficient guarantee that today will add a new luster to the glorious record of Soldier Field. Great events have taken place here, notable in their influence upon national and spiritual life. Your great game today adds another to the short but brilliant history of this great stadium.
Notre Dame barely beat Navy that day in front of a crowd of 120,000 by a score of 7-0.
Notre Dame returned to Baltimore to play Navy in 1929... without Knute Rockne who was laid up, back in South Bend with phlebitis. Before the game, Knute ordered a special long-distance phone line from his bedside into the locker room where he gave encouragement to each player before the team ran out onto the field. The following year, on 11 October 1930, Navy was selected as Notre Dame's opponent for the formal dedication of Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame was undefeated in both years and named national champions in 1929 and 1930.
The Depression Years
The tragic death of Knute Rockne on 31 March 1931 and the great depression slowed but did not stop college football or the series with Navy. Notre Dame returned to Baltimore on 14 November 1931, a day designated across the nation by the Rockne Memorial Association as Rockne Day. Admiral Thomas C. Hart, Class of 1897, Naval Academy Superintendent, wrote in the gameday program, "It is my privilage to dedicate this program, in the name of the Navy Athletic Association and the Regiment of Midshipmen, to the memory of Mr. Knute K. Rockne." Navy fans will recall that Admiral Hart was in charge of the Asiatic Fleet when the Japanese attacked ten years later.
In 1932, the site of the Navy-Notre Dame game was moved to Cleveland, a site that Knute Rockne had begun negotiations with before his death. The game site then rotated between Baltimore and Cleveland until 1952 with the exception of 1937 when the game was played in South Bend. Navy beat Notre Dame in 1933, 1934, and 1936. There were Navy fans who wanted Navy to break off the Notre Dame series to strengthen the Navy schedule. How times have changed.
America at War
During World War II, the attachment between Navy and Notre Dame grew even stronger. In the 1942 gameday program, Reverend Hugh O'Donnell, president of Notre Dame, quoted an address he had made at the 19th Annual Notre Dame Night earlier that year. He wrote:
TO ADMIRAL NIMITZ-SOMEWHERE IN THE PACIFIC:
My address on the Nineteenth annual Universal Notre Dame Night is a little different. The sons and friends of Notre Dame will not mind if I say a few words to a friend of Notre Dame, the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz '05. He is somewhere in Far Eastern waters. He may be on his favorite submarine, aboard a battleship, or aloft a plane, directing operations against the enemy. Even now, he may be engaged in battle.
Admiral Nimitz, wherever you are, Notre Dame greets you. I send this message on behalf of 15,000 Notre Dame men throughout the world. A thousand of them are in our armed forces. This is in keeping with our heritage of patriotism...
Last fall, Admiral, you gave a Navy Day address in Washington Hall. You had never been on our campus before, but you and Notre Dame were not strangers. We had admired you for a long time, and you knew us and our traditions. As Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, you recommended to the Secretary of the Navy the establishment of the Notre Dame unit of the Naval R. O. T. C.
Did you know that our students have doubled up to make room for a thousand of your boys-future officers of the United States Navy? They are sitting before me now.
Yes, Notre Dame is doing its part. We are in this war as much as you are. But Notre Dame is still operating as Notre Dame. We are training men for America, for today and tomorrow.
V12 Cadets marching at Notre Dame
By 1943, the Notre Dame Football Roster listed the "military status" of each player.
USNR ........ 12
Civilian ...... 4
17-yr old ... 9
USMRC ...... 14
Virtually the entire campus was military with relatively few exceptions...17-year olds too young to draft and civilians frequently classified as 4F. Many believe that Notre Dame would have been closed if it were not for the Navy commitment during the war and that this commitment is the reason that the Navy-Notre Dame football rivalry never will be broken.
By 1945, the Notre Dame Naval Reserve Officers Training Program resulted in over 10,000 trainees being commissioned ensigns in the naval reserve. The Notre Dame Club of Cleveland dedicated the 1945 game day program to Fleet Admiral Ernest King 1901, Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations.
Recent History
We all know the rest of the story. It seemed that it would take a Joe Bellino '61, or a Roger Staubach '65 for Navy to beat Notre Dame again. Navy has not beat Notre Dame since 1963, and the current record is 65-9-1.
In 1999, it seemed the long-awaited Navy victory over Notre Dame would finally take place in Navy quarterback Brian Madden '02's first start. As reported in the South Bend Tribune, "The Irish trailed 24-21 and had the ball on the 28-yard line, in a third and one situation, with 1:39 left to play. Instead of a blast up the middle, Irish quarterback Jarious Jackson rolled out to the right and was sacked for a nine-yard loss...That setup a fourth and ten from the 37. Jackson took the snap, maneuvered through a heavy blitz and connected with Brown. The fifth-year senior lunged for the first down and was close...very close."
Game video replays showed that it really was not close enough. Notre Dame went on to score and win 28-21. Brian Madden commented, "No way they got the first down. They call it the Luck of the Irish."
I know that Navy will beat Notre Dame again one day and I plan to be there...do you? It may be in Baltimore in a few weeks. Navy will "never give up the ship." Stay tuned.
Gerry Motl '68 served in nuclear submarines, and retired as a Naval Reserve Captain. He is currently a CPA, living in Cincinnati. He played football at the Naval Academy, including the 1967 games against Notre Dame, and the 1967 Army-Navy game. He is a big fan of the Navy-Notre Dame rivalry, and has collected all of the Navy-Notre Dame programs since 1927.
