Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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42 JUNE/JULY 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED IRISH ECHOES JIM LEFEBVRE W hen Paris hosts the Olym- pics this summer, it will join London as a three-time site of the prestigious Games. After the modern Olympics began with the 1896 Games at Athens, Paris at- tracted four times the number of athletes for the 1900 Games. In 1924, Paris became the first re- peat host of the Games, and again set records with more than 3,000 com- petitors — including former Notre Dame football players Gene Oberst and Tom Lieb, both of whom returned with bronze medals in their events. It was a crowning moment for a track and field program that was the pride and joy of coach Knute Rockne. During Rockne's younger days grow- ing up in Chicago, his first sporting love was track and field (or athletics, as some simply called it). He was a versatile participant, competing at one time or another as a hurdler, half- miler, pole vaulter and shot putter. In fact, it was the propensity of Rockne and some of his pals to skimp on schoolwork while prepar- ing for track meets that led to the principal of Northwest High School to ask them to find other academic homes a few weeks short of gradua- tion in 1906. (Rockne declined to go elsewhere, and came to Notre Dame in 1910 needing to take an exam to make up for the lack of a high school diploma.) During the four years of 1906-10, Rockne kept sharp on the track, com- peting for the Chicago Athletic Club. There, he crossed paths with and emu- lated Olympians such as James Light- body, six-time medalist in distance running. He was coached by Michael "Dad" Butler, one of the leading track mentors of the era. While football eventually became a major factor in his life, Rockne was con- tinually involved with track, and upon graduation in 1914 he became Notre Dame's head track coach, along with assisting Jesse Harper in football. Over the next decade-plus, Rockne would oversee numerous outstanding Irish track and field athletes. Among them were several men he would also guide on the gridiron. Gus Desch was a speedy reserve half- back from Newark, N.J., on the 1921 and 1922 football teams and a hurdler in track. At the 1920 Olympics in Ant- werp, Belgium, he was part of a three- man American sweep of the 400-meter hurdles, winning the bronze medal. The following year, he won the NCAA 220- yard hurdles, the AAU 440-yard hurdles in 53.4, and the Penn Relays' 400-yard hurdles in 53.8. One of his teammates was Oberst, as unlikely a Fighting Irish standout as there has ever been. Oberst grew up as the youngest of 11 siblings in the Mark Twain- like river town of Owensboro, Ky., where he got the nickname "Ken- tuck." He grew up handicapped by severely deformed feet and ankles. As a youngster, he spent part of one year with an older brother at a mon- astery in St. Louis, where doctors operated and equipped him with painful metal braces. On his own, he crafted a set of more comfortable wooden and leather braces, and eventually developed the leg strength to no longer require them. He had grown to a massive 6-foot-5, 203 pounds. He longed to attend Notre Dame, but after sending seven of his older brothers to col- lege, his father was retiring. The clay used in the family's brickyard busi- ness was depleted. They could only afford to send Gene to one semester in South Bend. That's when Rockne stepped into his familiar role as surrogate father to yet another Irish student-athlete. He took Oberst under his care, hir- ing him as athletics director for the Minims — the grade-schoolers at Notre Dame. "Big Gene" coached four sports and became "the idol of the Minims." On the football field, he was a team- mate of George Gipp in 1920, missed the 1921 season due to injury, then started at right tackle in 1922 and 1923, while the Irish backfield — not yet nicknamed The Four Horsemen — developed into a formidable force. As the javelin thrower on the track team, Oberst would travel with Rockne to major meets such as the Penn Relays and Kansas Relays and be the only Irish athlete competing. Thus, the two be- came close, and Oberst spent the rest of his life honoring Rockne's memory. Oberst was the 1921 NCAA javelin champion, with a throw of 191 feet, 2 Tom Lieb captured a bronze medal in the discus throw at the Paris Olympic Games. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME 1924 Paris Olympics Showcased Top Notre Dame Track Stars