Win One for the Gipper

JAM · 2010-09-05T15:00:51+00:00

President Ronald Reagan is tagged fondly as "The Gipper" as the result of his movie portrayal of Notre Dames’ legendary football player. The nickname is so firmly attached to the President that the real Gipper is nearly forgotten. His name was George Gipp. George Gipp's beginnings were humble. He grew up in the rough mining area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, spending most of his time shooting pool and playing semi-pro baseball. On weekends he drove a taxi, shuttling drunken copper miners to the local whorehouse. Three years after he dropped out of high school, Gipp was offered a baseball scholarship to Notre Dame and was accepted as a "conditional freshman." From One for the Gipper: The Original Story: He also frequented the pool halls and other low joints of South Bend. A hangout called Hullie & Mikes became his second home. He once said, “I’m the finest free-lance gambler ever to attend Notre Dame.” “He never gambled with other students, though his crap-shooting skills helped pay the way through Notre Dame for more than a few of his friends. I’ve seen him win $500 in a crap game then spend his winnings buying meals for destitute families in South Bend.” Gipp cut so many classes in 1919 he was kicked out of school. He took a job as a house player at Hullie & Mikes gambling emporium. From Irish Legends.com: "Off the field, Gipp was an incorrigible card player and billiards shark. In an era when billiards was a "gentleman's pastime" played in ornate hotel lobbies, like that of The Oliver in South Bend, IN., Gipp took on every challenger and beat them all. Frequently he'd leave Notre Dame for weeks at a time to play in billiards tournaments, or for marathon card games. From Sports Illustrated: Gipp also lived off campus in a luxurious hotel and earned almost all of his money by gambling on billiards and cards. From Sports Illustrated Vault: Gipp was an extraordinarily gifted athlete who was also adept at poker, pool, billiards and burning the candle at both ends. He had little interest in press reviews or money. It was winning and the brash gambles winning requires that he fancied. One for the Gipper: The Original Story: “Nobody around South Bend could beat him at faro, shooting pool, billiards, poker or bridge. He studied the percentages in dice rolling and could fade those bones in a way that made professionals dizzy. At three-pocket pool, he was the terror of the parlors. What the heck is "three pocket pool"? From CityPaper-dot-net, A Protracted Legend From an Era Before Sports Writers Got Nasty: Open up any sports page and every columnist is screaming about how the world of sports has turned into a cesspool. Each athlete is depicted as a semi-literate greedhead with one hand on a crack pipe and the other hand down the pants of his teammate's wife. Sportswriters now hide in locker rooms, crouched in a confrontational stance and ready to strike against any perceived moral infraction, like a born-again minister barging in on a circle jerk. The irony is that today's players are no worse than their gambling, drunkard athletic forefathers who were protected and mythologized by sportswriters. The disgruntled nature of modern sports journalism is inexplicable. Why are these writers so angry? As part of his scholarship, Gipp waited tables in Bronson Hall. This job, however, merely covered room and board. To meet his other expenses, Gipp earned money shooting pool in downtown South Bend. Pool became so lucrative that Gipp quit his piddling waiter's job after one semester. Eventually, he moved off campus to South Bend's Oliver Hotel, a luxury palace known for its high stakes gambling. He would periodically travel to Elkhart, Indiana to relieve railroad workers of their paychecks through either pool or poker. Keep in perspective that these hustling trips occurred in the middle of a glamorous headline-grabbing college career, which is analogous to Rasheed Wallace setting up a three-card monte table in Rittenhouse Square. Gipp's gambling wasn't limited to cards and billiards: He also bet on his own football games, which was then customary in college football. (Funny how you don't hear sportscasters lamenting the loss of this tradition.) Well, I'm just passing the time, I guess, this Sunday morning digging up a little bit of pool trivia I had not read before. Next time I say "Win One for the Gipper," it will definitely put a smile on my face. :D