When Knute Rockne was five years old he hoped he would someday be the ski champion of Norway. Like other Norwegian boys, he thought skiing was the most exciting sport of all.

But before that year was out Knute had some new ideas. Norway was now far away, for the Rocknes had moved to America. Pa liked the United States and wanted Knute and his sisters to grow up there. They settled in Chicago, where there was no skiing at all, and boys played strange and fascinating games called football and baseball.

It didn't take Knute long to become an American. Once he made up his mind, he was persistent. Soon he had learned English and made friends with the neighborhood boys. Soon he was playing all the American games, but, from the first, football was his favorite. What if he was small for his age? What if football in the 1890's was a bruising game even for big boys? Knute was strong and very fast, and he could always invent plays that made up for his size and made the most of his speed. He was determined to be a good player, if he had to practice and practice! He exhausted his friends, but Knute was never too tired to try to perfect his plays.

But then Ma and Pa decided this game was too rough! Knute had to give up football.

They said he might play baseball, however, so the young athlete put all his energy into baseball–until he broke his nose at it! How he thought up a scheme to persuade his parents to reconsider—how he at last convinced them he should play football—how he made the high-school team—how he became captain of his college football team—what happened in one exciting game after another: these are thrilling high spots.

This story by Guernsey Van Riper, Jr., the author of popular books about Lou Gehrig and Will Rogers in the Childhood of Famous Americans series, shows clearly the way boyhood experiences developed the man who became one of Notre Dame's honor graduates, captain of her famous 1913 team and finally the most successful and best-loved coach in American football history. It shows, too, how the boy's ingenuity, energy and keen understanding of others came to change the whole game, with the forward pass and new open style of play, with insistence on perfect teamwork.

"Rock" taught his boys to be All-Americans in character as well as athletics. He believed that playing hard and clean, constantly striving for perfection, was the best training for American boys. His wide influence on them and his high ideals for sports have earned him an honored place among the famous men of America. 

From the dust jacket