Super Speeches

Title: Win One For the Gipper
Speech By: Knute Rockne, Notre Dame Coach
Date: November 10, 1928
Location: Yankee Stadium
Occasion: Notre Dame vs. Army
Video Posted: YouTube (Hollywood version)
Analysis:
In recognition of this weekend’s final game of the professional football season, we turn our attention to football speeches.

Football lends itself to inspiring speeches. A well-timed, well-delivered speech by the coach, either before the coin-toss, or at halftime, can deliver the emotional jolt that benefits a football team in a way that would not work for a more dispassionate sport like baseball, with its far longer season.

Of the Top Ten Sports speeches named by Real Clear Sports last Summer, fully half were football related. The highest ranked among those was Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne’s “Win One For The Gipper” speech at the Notre Dame vs. Army game of 1928.

Army was a mighty team that season, coming in undefeated for the showdown at Yankee stadium, before 90,000 spectators. Notre Dame, fighting injuries to key players, had already lost twice. Searching for a way to inspire his seemingly overmatched team, Rockne gave the most famous pep talk in football history.

Invoking the memory of Notre Dame’s most famous player, George Gipp, who had died eight years earlier, of a streptococcus throat infection contracted on the field, Rockne tried to inspire his players. A scoreless tie at half time, Rockne’s speech propelled Notre Dame on to a surprise 12 - 6 victory.

A long and classic series, it was another Rockne team’s contest against Army four years earlier, that gave rise to a sports writer’s famous appellation. As Grantland Rice so famously penned it: “Outlined against a blue, gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.
In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.”

The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame rode on to an undefeated season, victory in the Rose Bowl, and the national championship.

Left halfback Jim Crowley went on to a coaching career, becoming head coach at Fordham University. There, he put together a dominating offensive line whose players were nicknamed the “Seven Blocks of Granite.”

One of those granite lineman was an undersized guard who also did some coaching after college. The trophy that will be awarded to the winning team on Sunday is named in his honor. The Lombardi trophy.

Text:
Rockne, who had been at Gipp´s bedside the night before his death, repeated the young athlete´s last wish to the team.

“I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy.”

Then he continued:

“The day before he died George Gipp asked me to wait until the situation seemed hopeless - then ask a Notre Dame team to go out and beat Army for him. This is the day, and you are the team.”

It was, and they were.

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Luckiest Man On the Face of the Earth

Speech By: Lou Gehrig
Title: The Luckiest Man On the Face of the Earth
Date: July 4, 1939
Location: Yankee Stadium
Occasion: Official retirement from baseball
Length (words): 273
Video Posted: YouTube

Analysis:
When a famous athlete hangs up his spikes for the last time, it’s an occasion guaranteed to generate much raw emotion. That this moment takes place on the hallowed field where he enjoyed such unparalleled success, before a throng of more than 50,000 cheering fans, only adds to the drama. Keep in mind, most retirement speeches are made after the season, before a room full of sports reporters.

Now consider that the retirement is forced by a fatal illness.

As he has on so many other occasions, Lou Gehrig steps up to the plate to deliver for the fans. But he has to be led to the microphone by manager Joe McCarthy. That accentuates how emotionally difficult this moment is for him.

It’s why this speech is not only number one in the Real Clear Sports list of top ten speeches, but was voted number one by the fans in the YES Network’s poll of the top 25 moments in the history of Yankee Stadium. What’s another championship, when you have drama like this?

One of the key tasks for any public speaker is to establish an identity with the audience. This is not the most difficult task on this day. These are, after all, fans who have come to honor him. Yet he makes the most of it. He refuses to wallow in self-pity. Save for the concession that this is a “bad break,” he makes no mention of having contracted a fatal disease. He instead calls himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Then he goes on to involve the fans - “I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.” Even today, via an aged film clip, it seems as if he is addressing each of us personally.

He then goes on to mention those who have played such an important role in his life and career - teammates, owner, managers, parents, wife, even his Mother-in-law.

He does all this in only 273 words. He closes by again referring to his bad break, but asserting “I’ve got an awful lot to live for.” That closing line is interesting, because there is some indication he never truly realized, or accepted, that the disease which now bears his name would be fatal.

Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in a special election, the summer he gave this speech. A player is not normally eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame, until five years after his retirement. Gehrig died a little less than two years later.

Interestingly, it is difficult to find a complete copy of the film footage of that day. The YouTube video posted here is from Ken Burns’ film Baseball. It is heavily edited, which does help enhance the dramatic appeal, but is not anywhere near complete. The text, as posted on the Lou Gehrig tribute site, has a few transcription errors, which I have tried to correct as much as possible. Other clips are available on the internet, but again, none are complete. It seems a shame. This is a good speech.

Text:
For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Today, I consider myself, the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Wouldn't you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine looking men, as are standing in uniform in the ball park today? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I may have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.



From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

You Don’t Live In Cleveland? - 10 Top Sports Speeches

They inspire, stir the emotions, and offer a natural audience identification. They also incite frank, impassioned, even heated, debate. We are talking, of course, about sports. Indeed, the speeches associated with sports are also inspirational, emotion stirring, and provide natural identification with the audience. All these qualities have the makings of a good speech.

The folks at Real Clear Sports, an adjunct of Real Clear Politics, have put together what they feel are the 10 Top Sports Speeches of all time. Several of these are clips of athletes speaking at press conferences. I’m not sure these meet the definition of a speech. One is a poem by Jack Buck in response to the attacks on 9/11. Although it is special, I’m not sure it’s a speech either. While I have some facility with prose, I must confess poetry is beyond my ability to assess.

Number nine on the list raises serious questions in my mind. It is a 14 second clip of Cincinnati Bengals coach Sam Wyche grabbing the stadium microphone, to urge an arena full of angry fans not to throw any more objects at the referees who have just blown a call. It’s not a speech. It’s not even a decent public service announcement, as far as I’m concerned. More than that, his assertion that the fans should behave because they are from Cincinnati, not Cleveland, is incredibly disparaging to another part of the home state of Ohio. But go, take a look, and decide for yourself.

It’s not as if there aren’t other choices. This list neglects other famous locker room speeches. How about Yale football coach T.A.D. Jones’ pep talk before the Harvard-Yale game of 1916, back when both those teams were perennial national power houses? “Gentlemen, you are now going to play football against Harvard. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important.” It inspired his players to a 6-3 victory in what today is known simply as - “The Game.”

Next, we’ll take a look at number one on the list. It’s an oration which truly owns that favored position - Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man On the Face of the Earth” speech.

Real Clear Sports’ Top 10 Sports Speeches

10. Brett Favre - Retirement (First time)

9. Sam Wyche - You Don’t Live in Cleveland

8. Tim Tebow - The Promise

7. Michael Irvin - Hall of Fame Induction

6. Muhammad Ali - How Great I Am

5. Jack Buck - For America

4. Knute Rockne - Win One for the Gipper

3. Herb Brooks - 1980 Olympic Hockey Team

2. Jimmy Valvano - Don’t Ever Give Up

1. Lou Gehrig - Luckiest Man On the Face of the Earth


From The Bully Pulpit - Tom