Leading Notre Dame for 13 seasons, Rockne accumulated over wins and three national championships. Rockne is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history. Rockne helped to popularize the forward pass and made the Notre Dame Fighting Irish a major factor in college football.
In , at the age of 43, Rockne died in a plane crash. He immigrated to Chicago with his parents when he was five years old. After Rockne graduated from high school, he took a job as a mail dispatcher with the post office in Chicago for four years. He was admitted to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana to finish his schooling. Rockne excelled as a football end there, winning All-American honors in Rockne also worked as a lifeguard at the Cedar Point park near Sandusky, Ohio in the summer of Rockne helped to transform the college game in a single contest.
Led by quarterback Charlie "Gus" Dorais and Rockne, the Notre Dame team attacked the Cadets with an offense that featured both the expected powerful running game but also long and accurate downfield forward passes from Dorais to Rockne. This game was not the "invention" of the forward pass, but it was the first major contest in which a team used the forward pass regularly throughout the game. At Notre Dame, Rockne was educated as a chemist, and he graduated in with a degree in pharmacy.
After graduating, he was the laboratory assistant to noted polymer chemist Julius Arthur Nieuwland at Notre Dame and helped out with the football team, but he rejected further work in chemistry after receiving an offer to coach football. In , he was recruited by Peggy Parratt to play for the Akron Indians. There Parratt had Rockne playing both end and halfback and teamed with him on several successful forward pass plays during their title drive. Rockne and Dorais brought the forward pass to professional football from to when they led the Tigers to the championship in While many trace Knute Rockne's debut as a Notre Dame football coach to the war-torn season, or in when he became an assistant coach under Jesse Harper , his first position was actually for the Corby and Sorin Hall football teams as a student-athlete in and The term for these competitions is colloquially known as interhall sports.
During 13 years as head coach, Rockne led Notre Dame to victories, 12 losses, five ties and three consensus national championships, which included five undefeated and untied seasons. Rockne's box included a shift. Rockne also recognized that intercollegiate sports had a show-business aspect.
