Sport: All-America

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The ride, though free, was sometimes bumpy. To begin with, the youngster who choked up over the Knute Rockne movie was just another member of the Hamburger Squad at a university where All-State halfbacks are almost as plentiful as clerical collars. The impersonal hustle & bustle of college life on the Notre Dame campus-left unassuming Johnny Lattner, like countless freshmen before him, a little bewildered. On the football field, though, he felt at home.

The Beloved Legend. One day, served up as hamburger for the varsity meat choppers, Lattner laid a particularly tooth-rattling tackle on a varsity star. Coach Leahy took time out to compliment Lattner personally: "Keep up the good work, son. There's no telling how far you can go at Notre Dame if you do. You can go as far as you like with hard work." This morale booster was all, or almost all, that 17-year-old Johnny needed. Today, after three grinding years on the Notre Dame varsity, playing under one of the toughest taskmasters in the business, Lattner's loyalty to Leahy is limitless: "He's the best. We wouldn't be anything without him. He works so hard at it, it's only fair that you work hard at it."

Lattner's dedication to Notre Dame, to Leahy, to football and to that indefinable spirit of the Fighting Irish is part & parcel of his first indoctrination the night he saw the Knute Rockne movie. One of the beloved legends at Notre Dame has it that Rockne, at half time in a game the Fighting Irish were losing to Army, gave the boys an effective little talk.

He brought up the name of fabled George Gipp, the great halfback who died of pneumonia a few days after the all-winning 1920 season. Rockne told how Gipp, on his deathbed, asked Notre Dame to remember him. "Let's win this for the Gipper," said Rockne, and the Fighting Irish went out and tore Army apart in the second half.

Halfback Lattner knows the tug of such an appeal. In the spring of Johnny's freshman year he paid many visits to his father, who was dying of cancer. With Lattner on one of the last visits was Notre Dame's varsity quarterback, Johnny Mazur.

Said Quarterback Johnny Mazur to father Lattner: "Your son will score for Notre Dame in his first varsity game, I promise you."

Johnny's first varsity game came the next fall against Indiana. All during the first half, in those two-platoon days. Johnny played on the defense. In the third quarter, Notre Dame moved the ball down to Indiana's 2-yd. line. Coach Leahy looked along the bench. "Lattner," he called, "go in at halfback. Play offense." Quarterback Mazur was waiting. In the huddle he put his arm around Lattner. "Johnny," he said, "this one is one for your dad." On the next play. Johnny bulled into the end zone for his touchdown, carrying two Indiana tacklers with him.