Notre Dame’s Dorais Passed On a Legacy

Forty-five years ago today, a college football legend was laid to rest.

And with the death of Gus Dorais, an important chapter in the evolution of football was closed.

In 1913, you did two things with a football: You ran with it or you kicked it.

For reasons largely lost to history, hardly anyone passed, and those quarterbacks who did, did so underhanded.

But not Dorais, a 5-foot-7 quarterback for Notre Dame, a little-known Midwestern school in 1913.

In the summer of 1913, in Sandusky, Ohio, Dorais practiced throwing overhand passes to his end, Knute Rockne. Then he planned a surprise for the toughest team on Notre Dame’s schedule that fall, Army: football’s first all-out air attack.

Dorais completed 14 of 17 passes against a bewildered Army on Nov. 1, 1913, and Notre Dame won a shocker, 35-13.

Footnote: One disappointed Army player was sidelined with an injured knee that day--Dwight David Eisenhower.

Also on this date: In 1980, the Los Angeles Rams beat Tampa Bay, 9-0, to earn their only Super Bowl appearance. . . . In 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was assaulted by a man who hit her on the knee with a steel rod. An investigation showed a rival, Tonya Harding, her husband, Jeff Gillooly, and three others were involved. . . . In 1957, Willie Mays, who hit 36 home runs for the New York Giants in 1956, signed for $65,000.