San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-12-27
R0CKNE ENIGMA
Of COLLEGE
FOOTBALL
Combines All Coaching
Qualities to Make
Great Success.
BY HERBERT REED
Universal Service staff CORRESPONDENT.

NEW YORK, Dec. 26.-Knute X
Rockne, the center of the little tempest
in the football teapot caused when
Columbia asserted he would coach next
season in the great apartment belt
of Morningsidc Heights. and when No,
tire Dame contended he would continue
at the South Bend institution. can be
rightly called the enigma of football
Just why, for instance. is it con-
sidcred so desirable in some quarters
TO secure his services and in others 10
retain them?
What is there about this big little
man of football fame which made him
the center of the Columbia-N Dame
controversy?
In the first place, he is perhaps the
greatest one-man coaching Institution
in the country and in the history of
the game. Not that he does not have
assistants-he docs--but he is one Of
the few coaches who is both an able
football technician, master of football
strategy, and n good field coach.
CONTACT COACH, TOO.
Those who follow the game closely
in technical sense credit him with
being at once one of the greatest and
soundeSt of innovatorS. while young
enough TO be n personal contact coach.
The combination is desirable in the
extreme. l remember last fall n GER
tain coach telling me that he had Il
splendid theoretical line coach. but not
contact" line coach. Later he found
the contact" man, with startling re-
suits.
1t is sometimes question in my
mind, however. just how far even n
young man can go in the matter Of
contact coaching. Knute Rockne to-
day asks no man TO do what he can
not do himself, within. of course, GER
tain limitations. That is the leader
ship that Rockne has rejoiced in, and
that leadership has had great deal
to do with his remarkable success. He
is also an excellent theorist. What
the largest of the football centers de-
mand these days is the translation of
theory into action. And therein lies
the mastery of Rockne.
However. this sort Of coaching
means wear and tear. The little
and after all not so little-wonder
from South Bend, has found need of
rest every now and then. He has
given all he had TO Notrc Dame. and
he has given Il greGt deal of his store
of knowledge TO other institutions,
gratuitiously.
He is Of the harsh and incisive
school of coaching, and because of his
situation at Notre Dame legends have
been built up about him. In his con
tracts with brother coaches. with ri
val coaches, with reviewers of the
game, with officials. who like him.
and with about all the world he lives
in. he has been constantly on the alert.
Never more interesting man with
whom to talk football, never a man
quicker to dodge any technical foot
ball trap set for bun.
SAVING SENSE OF HUMOR.
Direct argument he has always met.
in my experience, as squarely as any
teacher the game today, with engag-
ing frankness. He has the splendid
quality, / think, of accepting criticism
without resentment, so long as that
criticism is honest. No doubt a sense
of humor, one of the keenest, has
saved him from a breakdown more
than once.
In the course of his playing career
he was the receiving end of one of
one of the greatest forward passing
combinations of all time-Dorais and
Rockne-and he has always been be-
lever in the pass, almost to the point
of fanaticism. But never quite that.
He has had a great influence on the
game throughout the country. And
firmly believe that the money goal is
far from the ultimate ambition of his
life. He is one of those men who gets
a tremendous pleasure out Of work.
and that he will be to the end of his
days.
He is a born teacher. a quality not
always present in some coaches. even,
who have made great records. Where
ever he goes-or stays-he will have
the admiration and encouragement of
the entire football world.
S$e