Knute Rockne-signed Letters
GUEST:
So these are some items that my dad had from Knute Rockne. My dad went to the University of Notre Dame in 1927 to '31. In his junior and senior year he was in charge of athletic equipment for Rockne, and he lived his junior and senior year in a little small room in the gymnasium. And these are letters that Rockne wrote my dad, giving some instructions what to do. And my dad was written up in the Scholastic magazine at Notre Dame one time in 1930.
APPRAISER:
Okay. And tell me about one of the favorite stories about Knute Rockne.
GUEST:
My dad was really a fan of Rockne, obviously, and said how kind he was to the different people, including some football players that got hurt, and that he had told my dad to give these football players a job so they could stay in school because they couldn't pay their own way through school. And in one of those guys that was hurt, Rockne didn't think he was really injured, he thought he was just kind of faking it. But then a few weeks later, he found out from the X-ray that he really did have a fracture, and he publicly apologized in a banquet in Notre Dame just actually the year before he was killed.
APPRAISER:
Knute Rockne was killed in an airplane crash in 1931, right after they won the national championship in 1930.
GUEST:
Right, and they won the national championship in '29, too.
APPRAISER:
'29 as well.
GUEST:
Both were undefeated teams, yes.
APPRAISER:
And he played at Notre Dame.
GUEST:
He did.
APPRAISER:
And then coached at Notre Dame. You brought along a publication that has your father pictured there in the center. That's the Notre Dame Scholastic. That would have been from about, what, 1926 or so?
GUEST:
I think that was 1928, I think.
APPRAISER:
'28. Well, the first letter, the closest to you, has some great content where Rockne is telling your father that he's in charge for now while he's out of town. That one at auction would sell for $2,500. The one closest to me has a little shorter signature, a little less content to a different player. That one at auction would sell for $1,800.
GUEST:
Terrific, thank you very much. Of course we don't plan to ever sell them, we'll pass them on to our kids.
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