Lentorama 2007: The Non-Canonized Catholic Person of the Day

Today's person is Knute Rockne, who is best known for his stint as the head football coach at Notre Dame, where from 1918 to 1930 he ran up a record of 105-12-5. He won six national titles, and coached the Four Horsemen, George Gipp, and future Notre Dame head coach Frank Leahy.

Rockne is credited with introducing the backfield shift and popularizing the forward pass, which was being used regularly by several midwestern teams. His interest in the pass was evident in his playing days, as he and quarterback Gus Dorias used plays they'd drawn up the previous summer in their 1913 win over Army, who ND bested 35-13.

Rockne died on this day in 1931, when a wing on the Fokker Trimotor came apart in mid-flight. While it was initially thought that the crash was caused when the plane flew through or near a thunderstorm, investigation showed that moisture had invaded the plane's wood laminate wing, weaking the glue holding the pieces together. A wing spar failed, allowing the wing to flutter to the point of coming off the airplane.

The crash led to all US airlines taking the Fokker out of service, which almost put TWA, who operated Rockne's fatal flight, out of business. It also spurred the development of all-metal airplanes (such as the Boeing 247 and the Douglas DC-2), and led the Civil Aeronautics Authority (a forerunner of the FAA) to abandon its policy of keeping crash investigation results secret. So Rockne helped to advance civilian air travel as well as football, though at the highest price.

After his death, a town in Texas allowed its children to vote on whether or not to rename the town after Rockne or Joyce Kilmer. The story goes that all the boys voted for Rockne and all the girls for Kilmer (wonder how many of them knew he wasn't a woman?), resulting in a tie. One of the girls changed her vote the next day, and the town of Rockne, Texas came to being.

And while you wouldn't expect a guy born in Norway to be Catholic, he apparently converted. There a quote saying that he was sick of being the "lone Norwegian Protestant among the Catholic Hibernians," and he apparently converted in time to make his First Communion at the same time as one of his sons.