The Gipper ~ Paperback ~ Jack Cavanaugh

The Gipper ~ Paperback ~ Jack Cavanaugh
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Win one for The Gipper. Has there ever been a better-known and more widely-used exhortative phrase in sports? Not likely. But who was the "Gipper," this seemingly mythical athlete whose nickname has aroused, in turn, awe, wonderment, curiosity, and amusement since the second decade of the 20th Century, and whose death while still a student plunged the Notre Dame campus, the city of South Bend, Indiana, and indeed much of the country into collective grief? More than eight decades after his death, George Gipp is still regarded by football historians as Notre Dame's best all-around player. And it was Gipp and his legendary coach, Knute Rockne, who were largely responsible for putting Notre Dame, then a small Midwestern all-male Catholic school, on the map. But their names were to resonate well beyond that era as they each attained immortal status, both because of their football achievements and their distinctive, albeit vastly different, personalities - Gipp, the enigmatic and undisciplined loner and Rockne, the charismatic, highly organized and disciplined coach, famous for his stirring orations to his players and his ability to bring out the best in the insouciant Gipp. Exhaustively researched and meticulously reported, "The Gipper" is the definitive examination of the enigmatic Gipp, his larger-than-life coach and a bygone golden era in sports and American culture.Author BiographyJack Cavanaugh is a veteran sportswriter whose work has appeared most notably on the sports pages of The New York Times, for which he has covered hundreds of assignments. He is the author of Giants Among Men (2008), and Tunney (2006), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in biography. In addition, Cavanaugh has been a frequent contributor to Sports Illustrated and has written for Reader's Digest, Tennis and Golf magazines as well as other national publications. He is also a former reporter for both ABC News and CBS News. Cavanaugh is currently an adjunct writing professor at Fairfield University and lives with his wife, Marge, in Wilton, CT.