TV REVIEW : Profile of ‘Rockne’ the Man

Perhaps no figure in American sports, other than Babe Ruth, is more of a mix of fact and myth than Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s famed football coach.

“The American Experience: Knute Rockne and his Fighting Irish” (at 9 p.m. tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28 and at 8 p.m. on KPBS-TV Channel 15 and KVCR-TV Channel 24) diligently tries to separate the man from the myth.

“The real Rockne is an entanglement of fact and myth,” narrator Joe Mantegna says. “Rockne has been credited with the invention of the forward pass, the backfield shift and the T formation. None of this is true.

“But Knute Rockne was a pivotal figure in a huge upheaval in American life. By the time Rockne was done with it, college football was a source of true passion for millions.”

Rockne is shown in film clips delivering his staccato-like fight talks, corny by modern standards but inspirational in the 1920s.

His most famous speech, “Win one for the Gipper”--chronicled in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne: All-American,” featuring Pat O’Brien as Rockne and Ronald Reagan as George Gipp--is, perhaps, once and for all, revealed as apocryphal.

Gipp, an extraordinary athlete, but also a carouser and gambler, died of pneumonia in 1920. Rockne, it is noted, “waited eight years before trotting out the ghost of George Gipp.”

Rockne reportedly told a reporter on the eve of a 1928 game when underdog Notre Dame faced Army: “George Gipp has been gone a long time, but I may have to use him at halftime tomorrow.”

The result, of course, was an emotional Notre Dame team returning to upset Army, 12-6.

Rockne is depicted as a high school dropout, chemistry teacher, football innovator, motivator and self-promoting salesman.

The legendary coach also liked to bet on the horses, drink with sportswriters, and hung out with an underworld figure in Chicago.

The Rockne profile doesn’t stray from facts except that his coaching record--still the best in football--is wrongly upgraded from a winning percentage of .881 to .897.