Knute Rockne, Notre Dame, and the Eucharist

Dave Hartline reports:

As College Football Season Gets Underway, Few Know The History Of How Knute Rockne A Norwegian Lutheran Came Into The Church. It Was His Players Devotion To The Eucharist

One of those stories one may never hear since it describes the faith of Knute Rockne. Though his wife and children were Catholic, Rockne never felt compelled to convert until the mid 1920s. Rockne wondered why some of his players were leaving very early in the morning from their dorms. He thought they might be doing something detrimental to themselves but as the story goes, they were going to early Mass. He asked them why they got up so early. After their response about the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ Rockne started going to Mass. Soon there after he was received into the Church. Again, the faithful witness of some of his players brought him to the Church. A lesson for us all.

Remarks of President Ronald Reagan at the Unveiling of the Knute Rockne Commemorative Stamp at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, March 9, 1988:

... And that inner strength is what Notre Dame and the legend of Rockne are all about. You know, so much is said about Rockne's influence on his ballplayers, but actually he liked to talk about their influence on him. In his autobiography, he described his inability to sleep one night before a big game. So, he was up early in the lobby and saw 2 of his boys come down the stairs and go out, and then others came and followed them. And though he had a pretty good idea of what was going on, he decided to follow along. ``They didn't realize it,'' he said in his diary, ``but these youngsters were making a powerful impression on me.'' And he said, ``When I saw them walking up to the Communion rail to receive and realized the hours of sleep they had sacrificed, I understood what a powerful ally their religion was to them in their work on the football field.''

And after Rockne found -- here at Notre Dame -- his own religious faith, a friend of his at the University of Maryland asked him if he minded telling him about it. ``Why should I mind telling you?'' he said. ``You know all this hurry and battling we're going through is just an expression of our inner selves striving for something else. The way I look at it is that we're all here to try and find, each in his own way, the best road to our ultimate goal. I believe I've found my way, and I shall travel it to the end.'' And travel it to the end he did. And when they found him in the Kansas cornfield where the plane had gone down, they also found next to him a prayer book and at his fingertips the rosary of Notre Dame, the rosary of Our Lady. Someone put it so well at the time: Knute Rockne did more spiritual good than a thousand preachers. His career was a sermon in right living.

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Annual College Football Kickoff Post