Win One for the Losers

Wednesday morning I walked into Tutta Bella five minutes early for a meeting with a friend, and found Rob Mohn (Columbia City enthusiast, community developer, all around good guy) sitting at a table poring over the New York Times. "Here," he said when I plopped down across from him. "Read this. It's of historical interest." Obediently, I started in.

Army-Notre Dame Game Stirs Yankee Stadium Ghosts
by Bill Pennington

To understand how universally significant the Yankee Stadium football games between Army and Notre Dame once were, it is worth revisiting World War II’s Battle of the Bulge. During the winter of 1944-45 in Belgium, American troops were surrounded and being infiltrated by English-speaking German spies dressed as American soldiers.

How did the Americans tell friend from foe?

They asked any unfamiliar face to tell them the score of Army’s 1944 game with Notre Dame. Because every G.I. knew that at sold-out Yankee Stadium on Nov. 11 -- then a holiday called Armistice Day -- top-ranked Army had routed No. 5 Notre Dame, 59-0.

Pennington goes on to describe how the Army-Notre Dame rivalry is one of the most storied of any in sports. It all began in 1913 when then-little-known Notre Dame was invited to fill in for Yale, which had dropped Army from its schedule. The Fighting Irish shocked everyone by shellacking the Black Knights, 35-13. "Army won the rematch the next year, and the annual competition was on."

In 1925 the game was moved to Yankee Stadium, where it would remain for decades. Every November, 75,000 fans gathered to watch -- Army vets rooting for the Black Knights, and Notre Dame's "subway alumni" cheering on their fellow immigrant sons. Remember Knute Rockne telling his boys to "win one for the Gipper"? That was in 1928 at Yankee Stadium -- and win they did, holding on to a 12-6 second-half lead, leaving Army at the one yard line as the clock ran out.

On Saturday, the two teams would be playing at Yankee Stadium once more -- at the new one, that is -- for the first time since 1969.

By this time Giovanni had slipped a double tall latte onto the table next to me. I looked up from the paper and gazed at Rob, my brain slowly calculating. You went to West Point, didn't you? Wait a minute...

"Were you at that game in 1969, Rob?"

"Was I at that game? I played in that game."

"You played in that game? At Yankee Stadium? No way! What position did you play?"

"Quarterback. I played quarterback." If you know Rob, you have to imagine him delivering this line in his low-key, offhand, deadpan way, then sitting back to enjoy my reaction.

"You played quarterback? And what happened? Did you win?"

"No." He was full-on grinning now. "Keep reading."

I grabbed the second page of the article. "Are you in here?"

"No, of course not. You know history is always written by the winners."

The friend I was meeting had now arrived, and was waiting for me at a nearby table. I quickly scanned the end of the article:

In 1969, Notre Dame was heavily favored with a top-five ranking, but midway through the first quarter, there was no score.

“I remember being on the field, kind of looking around and thinking that this is where Mantle and Berra had played and Johnny Unitas and Y. A. Tittle, too,” said Tom Gatewood, then a sophomore wide receiver for Notre Dame. “I looked at the huge crowd and stadium and thought, ‘Wow, this is a big deal.’ ”

Soon Gatewood was streaking downfield chasing a long pass from quarterback Joe Theismann.

“As the ball was in the air, the entire crowd was silent,” Gatewood said in a telephone interview last week. “Every eye in the place was watching the flight of the ball, but nobody was making any noise. Then, at the very second the ball touched my hands, there was an explosion of sound. I caught the ball and ran toward the end zone.”

It was a 55-yard scoring pass, the first touchdown in a 45-0 Notre Dame victory.  

"Forty-five to nothing?" I said. "Ouch!"

"It was awful," said Rob, still beaming. "My parents, of course, had come to see me play. And years later, at the rehearsal dinner for my wedding, my father told the story of how they got to their seats, and he was very upset because his view of the field was blocked by this big steel pillar that was holding up the upper deck. But as the game unfolded, he realized what a blessing that pillar was. He didn't have to watch the game!" He looks serious for a moment. "My dad was not a funny guy -- I don't think I ever heard him tell a joke. But that story got plenty of laughs."

That afternoon I had a chance to finish the New York Times story, and I spent a few minutes googling around, looking in vain for more information -- and heck, maybe a picture -- from that 1969 game. No luck. Then, a couple of days later, Rob forwarded me another article, this one from the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, NY. At last, someone had asked the losers for their side of the story.

"We got killed," said Bernie Wall, a 1971 West Point graduate... [He] remembers Notre Dame all-American Mike McCoy destroying Army. "He did nothing but stiff arm the whole side of our offensive line, threw the guys down and did what he wanted to do." One of McCoy's hits took [Army wide receiver Joe] Albano out of the game with a concussion.

Mike McCoy (6'5", 284 lbs) went on to play for the Packers, Raiders, Giants, and Lions -- he and quarterback Joe Theismann (Redskins, 1974-85) were two of nine Notre Dame players that year who would later go pro. This was all very illuminating -- and certainly confirmed Mr. Mohn's relief at not having a clear view of the slaughter. But it was also somewhat confusing, as the article made it clear that Bernie Wall had spent the last 40 years telling people he was the quarterback during that last Army-Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium.

In an e-mail exchange with Rob, Bernie says his wife pointed out to him that the guy in the photograph accompanying the article -- who appears to be trying to get a pass off before #38 flattens him -- is quite clearly not Bernie, but rather, Rob. "I got benched," he told her. "What do you expect when you don’t score?"

Rob wrote back contesting this explanation for the quarterback switch: "Tell her they put me in because they needed you to be available for the rest of the season. Those suckers were BIG! I remember looking over at their sideline and it looked like a collection of giants." (A look at Notre Dame's 1969 roster confirms this assessment; they outweighed the Black Knights by about 20 pounds apiece.)

When pressed, Rob admitted that he probably did have a picture or two from those days. He was gracious enough to dig out a couple of family photo albums for me.  A few highlights:

Rob, center, with sister and father, c. 1951. Arnold Mohn had a promising high school football career himself, but had to quit school in the middle of the Great Depression: his dad had died, and he had to go to work to support his mother and sisters.

Rob in 1959: showing early promise...

Army's two quarterbacks: Bernie Wall at left, Rob Mohn at right.   Says Rob: "Bernie was the starting quarterback. They put me in when they were trying to turn the tide with a passing attack."

There were even a couple of pictures of that fateful game at Yankee Stadium:

Army-Notre Dame, 1969. Rob (#16) has managed to throw a pass, despite having 670 pounds of Fighting Irish bearing down on him. 

Army-Notre Dame, 1969. Says Rob's 91-year-old mother (whose view of the game was not, alas, obstructed by the pillar): "You had such a great arm, honey -- but they just couldn't give you any cover."

So there you have it. History, it turns out, isn't always written by the winners. Sometimes it's recalled hazily by losers, related over coffee to inquisitive admirers, clarified by e-mails and phone calls to mothers, and conveyed via scanner and blogger to fans and friends everywhere. This little tale may or may not take the sting out of Saturday's pummeling (sorry, Army), but it feels an awful lot like victory to me.

Thanks for the story, Rob!