Sticking Point

Jim Gillis is hoping that the great shillelagh donnybrook of 1996-97 has at last come to an end.

On Friday, Gillis, a former president of the Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles, finally turned over to USC football Coach John Robinson a replacement for the famed Gaelic war club that since 1952 has gone to the winner of the annual USC-Notre Dame football game.

USC athletic officials and fans have been miffed since Notre Dame failed to turn over the shillelagh after the Trojans beat the Fighting Irish 27-20 last year at the Los Angeles Coliseum--the first USC victory over Notre Dame in 12 years.

And while it is true that Gillis, a 1951 graduate of Notre Dame and a resident of Toluca Lake for 35 years, didn’t relish the thought of handing over the coveted cudgel, he does want Trojan fans to know the real story behind its extended absence.

“What’s really galled us is that these USC people are saying we refused to give it to them and that’s just not true,” Gillis said Friday in the living room of his Toluca Lake home.

“Everyone has blamed me, but the truth is I didn’t even see the thing until yesterday.”

Gillis said the original shillelagh, which was created by the Los Angeles alumni club 45 years ago, ran out of space for the ruby Trojan heads and emerald shamrocks that are added for each school’s victory in the series. It was retired during a special ceremony after Notre Dame’s victory over the Trojans in 1995 and is now displayed in the Indiana school’s Sports Heritage Collection.

A new shillelagh--inscribed “Shillelagh II”--was handcrafted this year in County Leitrim, Ireland. It arrived via Federal Express at Gillis’ Toluca Lake home Thursday and on Friday he personally handed it to Robinson.

“It was delivered to Coach Robinson today. We have it, and it’s great,” said USC Associate Athletic Director Ron Orr. “There are quite a few people here, mostly the students, who have been pretty anxious to get it back.”

The controversy erupted earlier this year when a local newspaper columnist, tipped off by USC officials, accused Gillis and Notre Dame’s athletic department of engaging in shillelagh shenanigans. The columnist printed the address and fax number of Notre Dame’s athletic department and invited Trojan fans to make their own inquiries into the whereabouts of the missing trophy.

A flood of angry complaints poured in and Gillis, who had been entrusted by Notre Dame officials with obtaining the new shillelagh, found himself under increasing pressure from both sides.

“The [Notre Dame] athletic department was telling me, ‘Get them off our backs,’ and the [USC] athletic department told me they wanted the trophy for their annual football dinner. They gave me three days. I told them, ‘No way,’ ” Gillis said.

“We told them we would have the new one for the [October] 1997 game. I’m six months ahead of schedule,” he said.

Adding to the controversy was Gillis’ assertion that during the bulk of Notre Dame’s unbeaten streak against USC, the shillelagh remained in the hands of Trojan supporters, even making an occasional appearance at Julie’s, a recently closed restaurant and bar near the USC campus that was a hangout for USC athletes and fans.

By the time Gillis retrieved the trophy in 1995 “from the trunk of a prominent USC alumnus’ car,” he said, “it was in shambles.”

USC officials said they had no knowledge of where the shillelagh was prior to 1995.

“Until last year, 1982 was the last time we beat them and that was the last time I saw it around,” said USC sports information director Tim Tessalone.

The new shillelagh was commissioned by Gillis and his wife, Jane, an alumna of Notre Dame, during a trip to Ireland last fall to see Notre Dame play Navy in Dublin.

“If it wasn’t for Jane, we probably still wouldn’t have the shillelagh,” he said. “We went to Dublin, we went to Cork, we went to Killarney and all the small villages in between and we couldn’t find one. Jane finally found a craftsman who agreed to make it to our specifications.”

Carved from the hard-as-nails limb of a blackthorn bush, the curved and knotty Shillelagh II is mounted on a wooden trophy base. It extends 20 1/2 inches, slightly longer than the original. Because the original ran out of space for medallions several years ago, the new shillelagh already contains those commemorating the last eight matchups--six shamrocks, one Trojan and a combination medallion for a tie.

“Although the shillelagh was introduced in 1952, these little medallions go back to the original game when [Notre Dame Coach] Knute Rockne and [USC Coach] Howard Jones established the series in 1926,” Gillis said, happily pointing out that the Irish lead the series 39 wins to 24. There have also been five ties.

The series was suspended for three years during World War II.

“The shillelagh is part of the fun and ritual associated with the rivalry,” Robinson said Friday after taking possession of the trophy. “It’s not why we play the game, but it is a nice memento and something to sustain the rivalry over the years.”

For Gillis, that rivalry is the greatest in all of sports.

Gillis, 69, who sandwiched a 12-year stint in the FBI into a 30-year career in the broadcasting business, was a 7-year-old living in Huntington Beach when his father took him to his first USC-Notre Dame game in 1934. He briefly attended USC on a baseball scholarship before being drafted into the Army. After his discharge, he enrolled at Notre Dame, where he was captain of the baseball team in 1951.

“We haven’t missed the game in many years,” he said. “Until you get the opportunity to go to South Bend and see one of these games, you’ve really missed something special.”

Despite the uproar over the missing shillelagh, both Gillis and USC officials say the rivalry continues on a friendly footing.

“Really, we’ve had fun with it. It wasn’t an angry thing,” Orr said. “It’s a great rivalry that goes back a long time, and there’s a lot of mutual respect between the fans and the athletes.”

“I told Ron Orr that when they take the shillelagh back to South Bend for the game next year that it’s going to stay there for a while,” Gillis said.

Orr, however, would have none of that.

“We’re displaying it now right in the center of Heritage Hall,” he said. “I think it’s going to stay there for a while.”