Roll Tide Has a Rockne Ripple
Alabama and Notre Dame, two of football’s greatest powerhouses, have a special connection going back to 1919, ft. George Gipp and a remarkable friendship with Frank Thomas.
Learn more in “Rockne of Ages”
Knute Rockne. George Gipp. Bear Bryant...
Bear Bryant?
The link between Knute Rockne and Bear Bryant... Frank Thomas... rolls out a legacy between Notre Dame and Alabama that stands one and two at the top of college football’s powerhouse rankings to this day.
In Thomas, Rockne got a new quarterback admitted into Notre Dame in 1919. And Thomas got a new roommate - George Gipp. Thomas and Gipp were best friends immediately. Like Thomas, Gipp was also an outstanding baseball player, and both played professional baseball in the off-season. Together at Notre Dame, they formed the most frightening backfield to date for any defensive opponent to encounter.
But Thomas’ and Gipp’s fast friendship ended too fast, tragically. In the middle of the 1920 season, Gipp suddenly came down with a severe throat infection. One hundred years ago on December 14, 1920, Gipp died from pneumonia. Thomas was devastated.
“I broke down and cried like a baby,” Thomas said during an interview years later. “It was like losing a brother.”
Thomas was Rockne’s quarterback from 1920 to 1922. Rockne praised his quarterback as “a fine field general” to sportswriters. Following one Thomas-led Notre Dame victory, Rockne reportedly told his assistants: “It’s amazing the amount of football sense that Thomas kid has. He can’t miss becoming a great coach someday.”
Thanks to Rockne’s personal reference, Thomas had his first assistant coaching job waiting in the wings at the University of Georgia when he graduated from Notre Dame in 1923. Two years later, Thomas landed his first head coaching position at the University of Chattanooga, where he led the squad to a four-year record of 26-9-2 that captured the attention of the University of Alabama.
Wallace Wade resigned in 1931 after establishing Alabama as a football powerhouse with three national championships. He hand-picked Thomas to take over a defending national championship team that was losing 10 of its 11 starters to graduation. Thomas’s Crimson Tide rolled off nine wins against only one loss and outscored their opponents by a season-combined score of 370-57.
Thomas followed his initial season with eight wins and two losses in 1932. In 1934, Thomas’s men steamrolled their way to an undefeated 10-0 season crowned by a win over Stanford in the Rose Bowl that sealed a national championship.
Among the players that helped Thomas win his first national championship as a head coach: Paul “Bear” Bryant. When Bryant graduated from Alabama in 1936, Thomas hired Bryant as an assistant and gave the future Alabama legend his first coaching job.
During an era that spanned from 1931 to 1946, Thomas guided Alabama to six bowl appearances, four of which were wins – the Rose Bowl in 1935 and 1946, the Cotton Bowl in 1942, and the Orange Bowl in 1943. Health issues from heart and lung disease forced him to step down as head coach in 1946 after amassing a career record of 141-33-9.
Thomas was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951. After leaving coaching in 1946, he stayed on at Alabama as the school’s athletic director until 1952.
Frank William Thomas was only 55 years old when he died at Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1954. Rockne’s protégé was so beloved as an Alabama football legend, an illustrated book published later that year paid tribute to Thomas with his life story.
“Before heading up the Crimson Tide, Thomas played for none other than Notre Dame…”
Today, the University of Alabama practice fields are named for Thomas and his 1946 successor, Harold Drew. Like his mentor who has several statues erected in his memory, including the Rockne statue at the North Gate of Notre Dame Stadium, Thomas’ bronzed likeness stands alongside the statues of Alabama’s other national championship-winning coaches in the school’s history - Wallace Wade, Gene Stallings, Thomas’s protégé, Bear Bryant, and Alabama’s current coach, Nick Saban.
(Excerpts from the “Disciples” section in “Rockne of Ages”)
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