The Gipper -- Part Two: (The End of the Gipp Saga)

By J.J. Parker

In January 1920, George Gipp seemed to have it all: a beautiful and brainy girlfriend, one more season as America's finest gridiron star, and enough gambling skill to support his lavish off-campus lifestyle.
But by the year's end, he'd been expelled from Notre Dame, lost his true love ... and lost his life.
How could the existence of All-American footballer Gipp -- the puckish opposite of Jack Armstrong, the All-American boy -- have gone so wrong?
Read on, to discover the true, historical Gipp, and learn how his tragic denouement need not have ended as calamitously as it did. For as Shakespeare wrote in "Julius Caesar,"
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 5, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462842254

J.J. Parker

N/A

Book preview

The Gipper—Part Two

(The End of the Gipp Saga)

J.J. Parker

Copyright © 2009 by J.J. Parker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Beatsheet

for The Gipper—Part Two

The Gipper—Part Two

Act V, Scene 1

Act VI, Scene 1

Epilogue, Scene 1

EPILOGUE, SCENE 2

EPILOGUE, SCENE 3

Setting

Notre Dame, Ind., and South Bend, Ind.;

also, Chicago, Indianapolis, New York City, and West Point, NY.

Time

April 1920 to November 1928.

Beatsheet

for The Gipper—Part Two

Act V, Scene 1

In April 1920, six weeks after the previous scene, in Fr. Burns’ office, George Hull tries to influence the ND president that the recently expelled George Gipp should be reinstated. Burns says he’s trying to establish ND as a premier academic institution, and the antics of Gipp, a reknowned class cutter and poor student, have run counter to that goal. But Hull convinces Burns that Gipp loves ND, and will behave himself in the future, if he’s allowed back in. Also, Hull points out that an Irish football team without Gipp—beloved in South Bend—is bad business for ND, because the townies won’t attend as many home games nor otherwise support the university. Hull also stresses how charming Gipp can be and how harmless he truly is. Sighing, Burns agrees—with misgivings—to give Gipp one more chance and let him re-enroll.

Act V, Scene 2

In June 1920, Gipp and Pete Bahan show up late to play baseball for the Buick 12 team in a tough semi-pro league in Flint, Mich. Gipp explains to the manager that he and Bahan were celebrating Gipp’s reinstatement at ND. The manager, Joe Swetish, wants to see if the college boys can play in the league studded with pro prospects. Gipp plays well in a game but is out of shape from continual drinking and smoking. But he tells Bahan he plans to star on the football field in his final year of eligibility at ND.

Act V, Scene 3

On July 4th, at a lakeside amusement park in Flint, Gipp befriends Penelope Promise Radford, a pretty blonde woman as iconoclastic as he. They enter a dixieland dance contest, and win a trophy and $5 dancing a Charleston; then, winning a dance-off with another couple, Gipp and Promise win a diamond ring (for her) and a gold watch (for him). Later, she tells him he should go back to ND and earn his law degree, to show Fr. Burns and Gipp’s detractors that they were wrong about him not being a good student. Gipp admits he has a true love in Indy, and Promise urges him to contact Iris, and not dally with a good time gal like her.

Act V, Scene 4

In early August, assistant coach Gus Dorais visits Rockne in his office. Rockne tells Dorais that Gipp—still sore at having been expelled—is flirting with enrolling at the University of Detroit and playing football for that school. Rockne gives Dorais the mission of bringing back the wayward Gipp, ND’s best player. Rock tells Dorais to emphasize to Gipp that George knows no one in Detroit and that all Gipp’s gambling and drinking buddies are in South Bend.

Act V, Scene 5

The next afternoon in Detroit, Dorais arrives and meets Gipp, practicing with the Detroit team in a field. Gipp, surprised, admits he plans to play for Detroit that fall. Dorais makes clear to Gipp he is not only needed but wanted at ND. Dorais also makes Gipp homesick by mentioning the attractions of downtown South Bend. Gipp is convinced to return to ND, especially since he’d then be closer to his girlfriend, Iris in Indianapolis.

Act V, Scene 6

A few days later, Gipp phones Iris in Indy. Her mother answers and tells Iris, who says Gipp doesn’t know that Iris has been dating another man. Iris and Gipp talk on the phone, but Iris seems preoccupied and not happy to hear from him. Still, he says he’s in Indy and wants to take her dinner. She agrees.

Act V, Scene 7

That night, at dinner at the Bamboo Inn, Gipp is happy and witty, hardly letting Iris speak. She, though, finally breaks the news that she’s no longer his girlfriend. He jokes, not letting on he’s hurt, and says he still loves her. She cries because she doesn’t love him, but likes him, and then tells him to find another girlfriend. Iris reminds Gipp that they’ve known each other for only half a year anyway. Outwardly, he remains upbeat, joking and saying he plans to graduate, except he doesn’t know what year. Iris says that for a husband, she wants a man who’s stable and respectable, things Gipp isn’t. But Gipp states that he plans to buckles down with his studies, so he can become a lawyer as she wants. She grudgingly accepts his plea for an engagement, but says they’ll marry only if he graduates and becomes a lawyer. She seems to be reconciliated to him, but as they stand and hug, they knock over their table, drawing the other diners’ attention.

Act V, Scene 8

In O’Brien’s Pool Room in Laurium, in early September, Gipp tells Hunk he won’t arrive at ND for fall practice on time. Hunk realizes Gipp is back to being cocky, which is what got him expelled. Hunk admonishes him to think of the team instead of himself, since the team has a chance to be national champions—if Gipp is ready to play by the season opener. All Gipp admits is that he will try hard at school that fall, because he must succeed academically to get Iris to marry him, and because he’s in love with her.

Act V, Scene 9

On Sept. 28, 1920, Gipp visits Dr. Roche in Laurium for a checkup before riding a train to South Bend. Gipp complains that, though he’s often had sore throat problems, they’re getting worse. Dr. Roche determines that Gipp’s tonsils are infected, and should be removed. Gipp, afraid of operations, even simple local anesthetic ones, refuses to cooperate. Dr. Roche warns him that, left untreated, the toxins from his tonsilitis could seep into his lungs and cause severe respiratory problems, or pneumonia or tuberculosis. Gipp nonetheless says he’s late already for fall practice at ND, and claims he’ll have the tonsillectomy around Christmas. Doc Roche offers to do the surgery that afternoon, but Gipp, frightened of the knife, chickens out. The doctor, as Gipp leaves, indicates he’s worried that Gipp may not live long enough to see him again.

Act V, Scene 10

The next afternoon, at Cartier Field, Gipp arrives for practice. Rockne is irked that Gipp’s three weeks late. Gipp makes a lame excuse, which Rockne sarcastically dismisses. Then, as the other players depart, Rock asks Gipp why he’s a loner, why he gambles, and why he broods. Gipp turns serious and admits he’s troubled: he’s 25 years old yet nowhere near earning a degree, in love with a girl who doesn’t seem to love him as much, and with a painful throat condition that worries him. Rock infers that Gipp lives the high life to distract his mind from his inner conflicts.

Act V, Scene 11

On Oct. 16, in Lincoln, Neb., the Irish play the tough Cornhuskers on a cold, drizzly afternoon. Both teams are undefeated, with national title aspirations. Nebraska’s players are bigger and stronger, but ND’s are small, quicker, and faster. Nebraska is favored to win, and plays before a S.R.O. crowd of 10,000. ND is behind in the second quarter, and backup FB Chet Wynne is playing poorly. Rockne wants to substitute for him, but Gipp overhears and convinces Rock to give Wynne another chance, that being pulled could wreck the youngster’s confidence forever. Wynne stays in the game and helps the Irish score a TD. In the fourth quarter, Gipp completes a long pass to Wynne, leading to a trick play in which Gipp scores the deciding TD after an Irish player fakes an injury. After the game, Rock admiringly tells Gus Dorais that Gipp was right for talking him into not removing Wynne, because it not only helped the young man’s confidence, but helped ND triumph.

Act V, Scene 12

The Tuesday night following the Nebraska game, Gipp misses Iris so much he phones her from his Oliver Hotel room. Iris’ mom answers, but Iris doesn’t want to speak to Gipp because she’s become engaged to another man, Bill, whom she’d been dating. Gipp is joyful talking to Iris, but she’s restrained. The lovestruck Gipp is oblivious, though, and invites her to see him play football in Indy in November. She hems and haws, but says she’ll try to attend. He is too in love with her to realize she’s no longer in love with him, if she ever was. After they hang up, Gipp, overjoyed that he’ll see his true love the next month, writes a letter to his friend Paul from Calumet. Gipp reads his letter to himself, ending it by saying that for once in his life—with gridiron, academic, and love life success looming—everything appears to be looking up.

Act V, Scene 13

Oct. 29, 1920: The Friday night before the Army game, in a bar in upstate New York (where the football match will be played), sportswriters Grantland Rice and Ring Lardner, and Army asst. coach John McEwan—after establishing that they’re from the South, Midwest, and East—discuss, over drinks, the big game of the morrow. Rice describes Gipp as ND’s secret weapon, but New Yorker McEwan—who thinks Midwesterners are inferior—isn’t impressed. Midwesterner Lardner, irked, bets the chauvinistic McEwan that ND will win. Cutting to the visitors’ barracks at West Point, we see Gipp gathering money from his teammates so he can lay down a collective bet on the Irish later that night; an Army player is doing the same with his teammates, and Gipp and he will lay their money down with a third party soon. We cut to a seedy street in a nearby town. Gipp appears, and enters a shoe store run by a German immigrant, Mr. Schellenberger. Gipp leaves $800 with him, which matches the $800 an Army player had dropped off earlier with Schellenberger. The shoe store owner reveals that the odds for the game are 5-1 in favor of Army. Gipp is happy, because, he says, that means he and his fellow ND bettors will reap $4,000 should ND win. Gipp says he’ll return after the game to collect his winnings, minus 10 percent to Schellenberger for being the bookie. The store owner marvels at Gipp’s confidence, but marvels even more at the wad of bills Gipp leaves behind as he departs.

Act V, Scene 14

The next day, at West Point, Army and ND tangle in one of the top football games of the 1920 season. The overflow crowd is audibly excited (though chilled by the icy weather) about the matchup, which features possibly the two best teams in the country. Before the opening kickoff, Gipp, showing off, stuns the crowd by dropkicking two 60-yd. field goals in each direction from midfield; the fans explode after he makes the last one. Once the game starts, the play is rough. Hunk gets kneed in the crotch, and Gipp nearly comes to blows with the Army player who played dirty. Gipp helps the Irish to a one-TD lead in the second quarter, but Army’s own great back, Walter French, ties the score with a long punt return, during which he fakes out Gipp, drawing Rockne’s ire. At halftime, Army leads by three points. Rockne lights into his languorous troops in the locker room. As he sternly rebukes them for ND’s performance, he spots Gipp, smoking in the back of the room and appearing unconcerned. Rock questions the Gipper’s determination, and Gipp says he has too much money bet on the game not to give 100 percent. Some Irish players snicker, defusing the tension. Rock challenges all his players to fight, like the Irish should, in the second half, and, aroused, they charge from the locker room.

Act V, Scene 15

In the second half, Gipp runs back a kickoff for a TD as the Irish move ahead. In the last quarter, Gipp is a virtual one-man show as he makes a long punt return, completes passes, and breaks off chunks of yards running the football, leading to the decisive TD in a 28-17 upset. With time running out, Rockne pulls Gipp from the game. The crowd stands in silent awe, staring at the exhausted and pale Gipp as he trudges to the Irish sideline. After the game, as fans and players mingle on the field, Ring Lardner encounters Army asst. coach McEwan, with whom he’d bet. Lardner taunts McEwan, who bitterly pays off his bet because the team he’d wagered on had been trounced largely because of the man he calls a runaway sonuvabitch.

Act V, Scene 16

Late that afternoon, Gipp returns to Schellenberger’s shoe store to collect his winnings. The store owner gives Gipp a few thousand bucks, while teasing him for being a college man who gambles. Gipp says that, pursuing a college degree or not, he craves action, which gambling and athletic competition symbolize for him.

Act V, Scene 17

That night, in a New York City speakeasy, Gipp and Hunk, lubricated by illicit booze, relax and rehash that afternoon’s pivotal game. Drunk, they talk loudly and slam the bartop, attracting attention from other patrons. Privately, they joke about ND and their status as students; Hunk wonders if they’re really students or just jocks. Gipp encounters Chet Wynne, one of that afternoon’s heroes. Gipp reveals he misses Iris (who, unknown to Gipp, ironically doesn’t miss him). Rockne appears to enforce curfew; as other ND players scatter, Gipp drunkenly asks Rock the meaning of life. Rock is angered that Gipp appears to be having a midlife crisis, but softens as he realizes Gipp is lovelorn.

Act V, Scene 18

The next evening, a Sunday night at the South Bend train station, the victorious ND football squad arrives before hundreds of boisterous fans. The ND band plays the Victory March, and the fans scramble to see Rockne and Gipp alight. But the shy Gipp avoids the crowd—which would demand a speech by the Army game’s hero—by debarking at the rear of the train. He sidles up to Bonnie Rockne, the coach’s wife, holding her baby son. Rock gives a rousing speech, citing Gipp as the game’s star, and the coach searches for Gipp; a boy points him out to the crowd. Flustered, Gipp darts off as his fans follow him. He dashes into a cab, which speeds away just as his admirers arrive.

Act V, Scene 19

A week later, at Gipp’s Oliver Hotel room on Saturday night, Gipp, exhausted from that afternoon’s Purdue game, sips gin when Hunk arrives. They discuss the game, the first homecoming in ND football history, in which past greats like Red Salmon—like Gipp as one of the Irish’s greatest stars—looked on. Hunk and Gipp spar verbally as Gipp makes jokes when Hunk is serious about Gipp’s place in ND lore. They then discuss Gipp’s ultimate future when he retires from sports: he plans to take the bar exam to become a lawyer as he’s promised Iris. Little does he know that she doesn’t love, or intend to marry, him.

Act VI, Scene 1

Friday Evening, Nov. 12, 1920, at the Claypool Hotel in Indy, on the eve of the football match between ND and Indiana University, Gipp greets John Welch, a recent ND graduate and chum of Gipp’s. Welch offers to help lay off bets for Gipp, who seeks to bet hundreds of bucks on the Irish concerning the next day’s game. Gipp’s been having trouble finding takers because ND is a heavy favorite. So Gipp tells Welch to take bets that Gipp will outscore the whole IU team by himself. Later, walking in downtown Indy with Hunk, Gipp discusses the prospects of finding enough hicks dumb enough to take what he considers a sucker bet in puritanical, Klan-ridden Indy. Encountering a drunk, who tells them suckers are to be had in the bar he was just ejected from, Gipp prepares to enter to lay off the rest of his bets—anonymously, because the toper tells them the patrons inside hate Catholics. Gipp, though not Catholic,