Manny Vezie, Played and Coached Under Rockne, Dead at 80

Former Notre Dame football player and assistant coach H. Manfred (Manny) Vezie, who played right end for the Fighting Irish under Coach Knute Rockne and later coached under Rockne, has died at the age of 80.

A family member said Vezie died at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood last Saturday of complications from a recent stroke.

Vezie played on Notre Dame’s 1928 team and was in the locker room when Rockne gave his famous “Win One for the Gipper” halftime speech when the Irish played Army.

Born on April 26, 1905 at McDonald, Pa., Vezie became a star athlete in high school and was president of his class for four years. He was captain of the football and basketball teams and earned 13 letters.

He entered Notre Dame in 1925, graduated in 1929 and then stayed on for two more years to earn his law degree. He was president of his senior class. After leaving Notre Dame, where he had served as an assistant coach under Rockne for two years, Vezie was an assistant coach at Loyola Marymount and the University of Oregon.

In 1931, Vezie moved to Southern California, where he worked as president of a San Fernando Valley distributing company for 12 years. But Gold Arrow Camp, which he built in 1933 for children, was his real love. Vezie owned and operated the camp, located at Huntington Lake in the High Sierra, up to the time of his death. Jeanie, his wife of 26 years, will continue to operate the camp.

In addition to his wife, Vezie is survived by a sister, Frances Williamson, sons Tim and Krieg Vezie, a daughter, Diana Bunney, and a stepson, Louis Friedman.

Memorial services will be Thursday, Jan. 2 at 2:30 p.m. at the Rose Hills Cemetery Memorial Chapel in Whittier.