Oh, Say Can You See, Elmer Layden
The National Anthem before Thanksgiving Day, Detroit vs. Green Bay, 2007, Ford Field. Image via Dave Hogg.
When you hear the “Star Spangled Banner” before a National Football League game, think of Elmer Layden.
Of all the players who emerged from Knute Rockne’s indomitable football system at Notre Dame, it was the speedy 160-pound fullback who ran alongside Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley and Don Miller as a member of the immortal Four Horsemen backfield that carried his fabled mentor’s torch into Notre Dame coaching infamy.
Born in Davenport, Iowa, Layden’s offensive accomplishments with the Four Horsemen earned him All-American honors his senior season in 1924 and overshadowed slick defensive skills Layden flashed on the other side of the ball. Most noteworthy were two interceptions Layden ran back for touchdowns in Notre Dame’s 27-10 victory over Stanford in the 1925 Rose Bowl, his final collegiate game.
Layden hung up his spikes in 1926 for a coaching job at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. The next year he moved to Pittsburgh to take over the coaching helm at Duquesne. In seven years at Duquesne, Layden’s teams racked up a 48-16-6 record, and capped off the 1933 season by winning the Festival of Palms Bowl, the precursor to today’s Orange Bowl.
The Festival of Palms bowl win on New Year’s Day 1934 was Layden’s final victory at Duquesne. Three years after Rockne was killed in a plane crash on March 31, 1931, Notre Dame brought Layden back to take on the dual role of head football coach and athletic director.
After taking over a Notre Dame football program that had suffered from sagging ticket sales since Rockne’s death, Layden was appointed commissioner of the NFL in 1941 and left the Notre Dame athletic program with football ticket receipt totals that had nearly doubled since he took over,
Layden guided the NFL through the World War II years, a span that saw teams using many players with inferior professional football skills while the game’s regulars were fighting in the war. Layden allowed some teams, most notably the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles, to merge due to lack of manpower, and he once conducted an investigation into a betting scam without advising the owners.
Once the war was over, Commissioner Layden called on all of the league’s teams to play “The Star Spangled Banner” before the kickoff.
“The National Anthem should be as much a part of every game as the kickoff,” Layden proclaimed. “We must not drop it simply because the war is over. We should never forget what it stands for.”
(Excerpt from “Rockne of Ages” and “As God’s Witness: The Death of Knute Rockne.”)