Jim, Birthday Boy, 1931
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1931 - Jim turns 10, November 28 and
Knute Rockne Dies in Plane Crash March 31
It was 1931, and coming up on Jim's tenth birthday. Jim's baseball coach, Jack Yelland, at Holy Name School, an alumnus of Notre Dame and the Rochne team, was influencing Jim's dad on the wisdom of sending his son to Notre Dame, the famous Catholic College. For a proud Irish Catholic parent, it didn't take much convincing. As a surprise, and way of introducing his son to a father's dream, Jack and his brother Lester took Jim to the Notre Dame vs. University of Southern California (USC) football game on November 21, 1931. Jim's birthday was the 28th. What a birthday present. The game turned out to be one of the most famous in all of college football. Notre Dame had won and astonishing 26 straight games under the coaching leadership of Knute Rockne. Rockne had died in a plane crash the previous March, but rest assured, the team was still playing under the Rochne spell. There was six minutes left in the game, and Notre Dame was ahead 14-0, on their way to win number 27. Then the impossible happened. USC scored two touch downs and the game was tied with one minute remaining. USC's guard, John Baker, kicked a field goal to win the game at 16-14 for USC, ending the winning streak started by Knute Rockne three years earlier. USC won the National Championship that year. A curious link would form between the boy celebrating his tenth birthday and John Baker the hero of the day. Not only would Jim play football in that same stadium in South Bend, Indiana, but fourteen years later (1945), he would find himself being coached by John Baker when he played football for the Fourth Air Force Flyers.
See famous dates in Notre Dame Football. Jack and his brother Lester drove Jim to South Bend in a 1931 Hupmobile.
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