Fans of leather-helmeted football, graduates of Notre Dame, and those curious about one of the greatest football coaches of all time, Knute Rockne, will like this book, but I doubt non-football fans will find much to like. Except for a couple of rare instances, author Lefebvre doesn't give us much of a look at what it was like in the twenties, other than that people had big families, and if one son went to Notre Dame, they all did. That was the case with Horseman Don Miller, who had several brothers star for the Irish before him.

Lefebvre gives us a blow-by-blow account of the 1924 season, Notre Dame's first national championship year, and highlights of several games prior to that year. He also gives us capsules of some of the players, namely Adam Walsh, the center, and Miller, Layden, Crowley and Stuhldreher. Several other famous names play prominent roles. Pop Warner (who coached Jim Thorpe at Carlyle) was the coach at Stanford, the team the Irish played in the Rose Bowl, and Ernie Nevers played in that game. The Irish didn't play Illinois that year, but 1924 is the year that Minnesota upset them and maybe the greatest college player ever, Red Grange.

Probably the most significant mention of anything outside of football was the Ku Klux Klan demonstration at Notre Dame. According to LeFebvre 500,000 Hoosiers belonged to the Klan, and they hated the Irish and Catholics almost as much as they did blacks. Rockne and the players managed to avoid a confrontation.

One annoying aspect of the book is that Lefebvre doesn't go into any detail about who played what position on defense. Adam Walsh obviously played on the defensive line, but Lefebvre refers to him only as a center on offense. The horsemen also must have played in the defensive backfield as the biggest weighed only 161 pounds, but it would have been nice to know who played what position.

Lefebvre also includes several Appendices which show the stats for each player during the season. Don Miller gained 763 yards rushing in nine games, but the only member of the Horsemen to make consensus first team all-American was quarterback and ferocious blocker, Harry Stuhldreher.
I also didn't know that Elmer Layden coached the Irish for several years in the thirties and forties and that Stuhldreher was coach and athletic director
at Wisconsin.

This book could have been written by the Notre Dame publicity department; I can't think of one negative thing Lefebvre had to say about Knute Rockne; it also contains some of the worst poetry I've ever read. There is, however, an extensive picture section, so we lovers of oldtime football finally get to see what the Horsemen looked like.  

Dave Schwinghammer's published novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available used and new at Amazon.com.