GEORGE GIPP "THE GIPPER" - (February 18, 1895 – December 14, 1920)

 

George Gipp Grew up in Laurium, Michigan and was a natural athlete. He was an avid sportsman on the track, as well as hockey, sandlot football, and organized baseball however prior to his arrival at Notre Dame College he had never played high school football.

Notre Dame Football was part of the most successful and widely followed college athletic program in history and no other athlete epitomized more the sporting ethos than George Gipp.

George Gipp was never bested in the school's glorious history.

Gipp's college football career lasted for four years in which the Gipper scored 21 touchdowns in Notre Dame's amazing run of 27 wins, 2 losses, and 3 ties while defensively no one completed a single pass against his protective zone.

Then on November 20, 1920, during a game against Illinois, George Gipp contracted a serious infection of the throat which in his final game at Northwestern took a turn for the worst.

Knute Rockne Notre Dame coach visited Gipp in the hospital and on his death bed George told Rockne that whenever the boys were behind he said, "just tell them to "win one for the Gipper."”

George Gipp died on December 14, 1920 from pneumonia and streptococcal infection.

The George Gipp Award was first given at his high school, Calumet High School, in 1934 and is awarded to the most outstanding senior athlete.

Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne said of his protégé

"I felt the thrill that comes to every coach when he knows it is his fate and his responsibility to handle unusual greatness...the perfect performer who comes rarely more than once in a generation."
The captain of the 1920 Notre Dame football team Frank Coughlin said "George Gipp was the greatest athlete I have ever known. He will be forever remembered as a friend, a student, an athlete and a gentleman, for to know him was to love him."

While Grantland Rice eminent sports writer of the day said of him.

"His kicking and ball carrying was about as fine as anything I have ever seen on a football field."

Gipp was inducted into the Michigan Football Hall of Fame, the National Football Hall of Fame and the Upper Peninsula Hall of Fame.

George Gipp was also Notre Dame's first member of the All-American team.