Coaching football for more than four decades at the college and high school levels has provided me the opportunity to work with thousands of young men and coaches. I want to thank every young man competing under my guidance and every associate coach working on my staff over the years for their tireless preparation, commitment to excellence, and ability to succeed. I am privileged to have coached young men from the Michigan high schools of Corunna, Lansing Resurrection, Lansing Monsignor Gabriels, East Lansing, and St. Joseph Lake Michigan Catholic, and at Alma College and Eastern Michigan University.
Special thanks go to my close friend Jim O'Malley for encouragement and critiquing the manuscript at various stages and our friend John Rubleske for editing the original manuscript. Thanks to John Madill for his professional photography of former Lake Michigan Catholic football players reenacting old formations.
Guidance from professional writers Gordon Beld and Pen Campbell, along with prolific author Jill Culby, was greatly appreciated. While researching, I met so many wonderful people willing to help. I would like to recognize special university staff including: Jennifer Starkey, Alma College Librarian; Elizabeth Swift, Wabash Archivist, and Johanna Herring, retiredWabash Archivist; Daniel Meyer, Associate Director and University Archivist at the University of Chicago's Special Collections Research Center, Assistant Director, Julia Gardner and her associates at the University of Chicago's Special Collections Research Center; Brian Kunderman, Information Director, St. Louis University, John Waide, St. Louis University Archivist; Katie Sanders, Carroll College Archivist and Rick Mobley, Sports Information Director, Carroll College; Craig Hicks, Denison University and Anthony J. Lisska, Granville Historical Society, Denison University; Sharon Sumpter, Assistant Archivist, Elizabeth Hogan, Photo Archivist, the Archives University of Notre Dame, and Charles Lamb Photograph Curator, the Archives University of Notre Dame.
Thanks also go to Frank Maggio at Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP Firm in Rockford, Illinois, for introducing me to James Jim Harper, born December 4, 1918. Jim has become a great friend and an invaluable resource. I am proud to honor and credit his dad, Jesse Clair Harper, for his role and impact on intercollegiate football.
I offer all my love and appreciation to our children Mike, Julie, Patti, and Therese, their spouses Wendy, Dave, and David, our eight grandchildren Tiffany, Bonnie, Philip, James, Jodie, Angie, Jennifer, and Jacqulyn for their love, support and sacrifice. My deepest love and indebtedness go to my wife Rose. Her unending support, lifetime commitment, and unconditional love will always be cherished.
I also wish to thank the staff of Westholme Publishing and its publisher, Bruce H. Franklin, for his insight and enthusiastic interest in this story.
Bibliography
ARCHIVES
Alma College Library Archives, Alma, Mich.
Alma Public Library Archives, Alma, Mich.
Denison University Archives, Granville, Ohio
St. Louis University Archives, St. Louis, Mo.
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center, Chicago, Ill.
Amos Alonzo Stagg Papers
University of Notre Dame Archives, Notre Dame, Ind.
University of Notre Dame Athletic Director's Records, Notre Dame, Ind.
Wabash College, Robert T. Ramsey, Jr. Library Archival Center, Crawfordsville, Ind.
Jesse C. Harper Papers
PRIMARY SOURCES
Alma College Academic Catalog
The Alma Record (Alma, Mich.)
The Almanian
The Bachelor (Wabash College Newspaper)
Cap and Gown
The Cavalier Daily (Charlottesville, Va.)
Chicago Daily Tribune
The Dome (University of Notre Dame)
The Echo
Kansas City Star
The New York Times
The Notre Dame Magazine
The Notre Dame Scholastic (magazine)
The South Bend Tribune (newspaper)
The Wabash (Wabash College Magazine)
The Waukesha Freeman Newspaper (Wisconsin)
The Weekly Almanian (Alma College Student Newspaper)
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law
BOOKS
Alma College 1972 Football Fact Book
Baker, DR. L. H. Football: Facts and Figures. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1945.
Beach, James, and Daniel Moore. The Big Game. New York: Random House. 1948.
Beld, Gordon. Scores from Yester Years. Alma College 1972 Football Fact Book. St. Alma, MI: Alma College Archives, 1973.
Cohane, Tim. Great College Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House Publishing, 1973.
Danzig, Allison. The History of American Football. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1956.
Danzig, Allison. Oh, How They Played the Game. New York: Macmillan, 1971.
Dorais, Charles (Gus) E. Forward Pass. Chicago, Ill.: Athletic Book Company Publishers, 1927.
Haughton, Percy D. Football and How to Watch It. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924.
Heisman, John W. Principles of Football. St. Louis, Mo.: Sports Publishing Bureau, 1922.
Mac Cambridge, Michael, and Dan Jenkins. ESPN College Football Encyclopedia. New York: ESPN Publishing, 2005.
Pope, Edwin. Football's Greatest Coaches. Atlanta, Ga.: Tupper and Love, 1955.
Schoor, Gene. ND's Biggest Game. 100 Years of Notre Dame Football. New York: William Morrow, 1987.
Schoor, Gene. A Treasury of Notre Dame Football. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1962.
Stagg, Amos Alonzo, and Wesley Winans Stout. Touchdown. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1927.
Steele, Michael R. Knute Rockne: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.
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PUBLISHED SOURCES
Abolition of Football or Immediate Reforms. The New York Times, November 28, 1905.
Alma Wins Again. The Weekly Almanian, November 19, 1907.
Almanian, VIII, No. 3, 1906.
Army Wants Big Score. The New York Times, November 1, 1913.
Around the Campus. Almanian VIII, No. 2, November 1906.
As to Football. The Bachelor, November 6, 1909.
Athletic Notes. The Notre Dame Scholastic, September 27, 1913.
Athletic Notes. The Notre Dame Scholastic, October 4, 1913.
Athletic Notes. The Notre Dame Scholastic, November 22, 1913.
Athletic Notes. The Notre Dame Scholastic, November 29, 1913.
Athletic Notes. The Notre Dame Scholastic, February 16, 1918.
Athletics. The Notre Dame Scholastic, November 25, 1911.
Athletics - Football. The Wabash, April 1911.
Athletics - Football. The Wabash, November 1911.
Baseball Report. Cap and Gown, 1904-1907.
Beld, Gordon. Scores from Yester Years. Alma College 1972 Football Fact Book. St. Alma, MI: Alma College Archives, 1972.
Brilliant Forward Passes Overwhelm the Army. The Notre Dame Scholastic, November 8, 1913.
Camp on Princeton Game. Chicago Daily Tribune, November 18, 1906.
Career Winning Percentages. College Football History Leading College Coaches, www.hickoksports.com/
Champion of Indiana. Notre Dame Scholastic, November 2, 1912.
Chicago Defeats Iowa - 42 - 0. Chicago Daily Tribune, October 8, 1905.
Chicago is Champion. Chicago Daily Tribune, November 1, .
Chicago's Notable Victory, Michigan's First Defeat. The New York Times