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.
