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Marion woman remembers father's college triumph

Marion woman returns to scene of famous father’s college triumph

Staff writer

Margie Bennett, of Marion, and her seven living siblings will soon be returning to the site of their father’s greatest athletic triumph.

They are attending the Notre Dame vs. Army football game Saturday at Yankee Stadium.

The youngest daughter of the family, Martha Domont, who lives in San Francisco, bought tickets for the game, but told her siblings that they were purchased by an anonymous donor. She told her brothers and sisters she bought the tickets after everyone agreed to arrange to travel to the game.

“We don’t get together as an entire group that often,” Bennett said. “We’re all spread out all over the country; usually it’s occasions of weddings or funerals that we all get together. The ones who live in California, I’m lucky if I see them once a year.”

They are all meeting in a place none of them live in the memory of their father Jack Elder.

While the most important game for Bennett’s father, Elder, was played at the original “House that Ruth Built,” the ground where the new stadium resides was host to his football triumph.

In the second quarter in the game against Army, the final game of the 1929 season, Notre Dame defensive back and halfback Elder intercepted a pass at the goal line.

The grainy black and white footage of the play shows the Black Knight quarterback faking a hand off to an Army running back and then rolling to his right. With a Fighting Irish defensive lineman pressuring the quarterback with both hands up, the quarterback threw the ball off his back foot across the field.

Taking advantage of the mistake, Elder jumped in front of the intended Army receiver and caught the ball in stride just past the Notre Dame goal line.

Elder, who was also a champion sprinter, raced up the sideline. He dodged one tackler around the 20-yard line, and ran the length of the field without an Army defender in sight. Fighting Irish right guard John Law escorted Elder for the majority of the touchdown run, making sure Elder would go untouched.

The touchdown was the only score of the game, a game the Irish needed to win to claim a national title for the 1929 season. Adding to the lore of the play, the length of the run is disputed. The length of the return was measured anywhere from 96 yards to the entire length of the field.

Regardless, it was the most important score of the season in a season filled with touchdowns for Elder. As a part of the new four horsemen — along with Marty Brill, Frank Carideo, and Moon Mullins — Elder was an important cog in the championship machine for coach Knute Rockne. He scored in nearly all of the Irish’s games that season although they did not play a home game because of the construction of Notre Dame Stadium, which would open in 1930.

The play against Army cemented a championship, something most coaches would hail boisterously. Rockne was unable to roam the sidelines during the game against Army because he was suffering phlebitis. When he saw Elder after the game, he said:

“Fine play Jack.”

“Rockne wasn’t one to hand out compliments,” Bennett recalled her father saying. “He was business-like.”

In today’s world where athletic achievement is heralded, scoring the winning touchdown for a national championship team would warrant a multimillion-dollar NFL contract. In another interaction with a legendary coach, Chicago Bears owner and coach George Halas offered Elder a contract of $100 a game.

“My dad asked him, ‘What if I get hurt’?” Bennett recalled.

“Well, that’s just too damn bad,” Halas replied.

Elder turned down the deal. In another move unthinkable in the current sports climate, Elder also turned down a chance to compete in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Elder competed in the indoor track circuit a year after he graduated from Notre Dame. One of his most memorable track exploits was defeating 1928 Olympic Champion Percy Williams in the 60-yard dash in Madison Square Garden.

“I just wanted to get on with my life,” Bennett recalled her father saying.

“He didn’t just want to play football,” Bennett said. “I admire him for not just doing that.”

For his first job, Elder worked as a sportswriter for the Chicago Herald Examiner. He worked with Rockne who retired from coaching after the 1930 season, also an undefeated national championship run. Elder developed a close relationship with his former coach while they worked together.

“It was so nice to be near him,” Elder wrote in an article about Rockne. “He was a great teacher and psychologist, but he was not a saint.”

Elder saw Rockne the day before the coach died in a plane crash March 31, 1931. Rockne was visiting his son in Kansas City on his way to California to film “The Spirit of Notre Dame.” His plane crashed near Bazaar where a memorial was erected.

Tragedy befell Elder again when the Great Depression struck and he lost his job at the Herald Examiner.

Elder was not a stranger to adversity. Elder’s mother died when he was very young and he was raised by his grandfather.

“He went with mom, in the 1980s, to his home town,” Bennett said. “People really remembered him. They remembered that he never walked any place; he always ran.”

Even at Notre Dame, Elder did not just walk into success. He originally attended the university on an athletic scholarship for baseball. He tried out for football his freshman year but was cut from the team. He eventually got his chance, when Rockne witnessed Elder’s speed in an intramural game.

Elder found a job with the Catholic Youth Organization in Chicago. While working with the CYO, Elder met his future wife, Kay Skeevers.

When World War II erupted, Elder enlisted in the Navy where he worked in supplies. When he returned from England, he started working for Sinclair Oil and the family moved to Indianapolis. Eventually, he became Sinclair’s district manager in Indiana, a job he stayed with until retirement in the mid- 1970s.

Bennett never thought of her father as a football legend.

“He was a good dad,” she said. “He was very funny; he had a great sense of humor.”

An early riser, Elder’s playful humor was evident in the way he would wake up his children. Bennett said he would ring a small bell and say the British were coming or he would put perfume under her nose.

Although he was the head of a middle-class household of 10 children and had to be strict, Bennett said she never saw Elder get angry or become overwhelmed with stress.

“We were never afraid of him,” she said.

She attributes that to her father’s strong faith. A devout Catholic, Elder attended Mass every day. Bennett would often accompany her father to the 6 a.m. services.

Bennett specifically recalls Elder’s faith as a source of strength when her oldest sister, Missy, was involved in a car accident as a senior in high school, leaving her legs paralyzed. Although Bennett could tell that her father was shaken by the experience, he never lost his cheerful demeanor.

Athletics were never far away from Elder. He enjoyed playing games with his children. Bennett said he liked to bowl and golf. After he retired and was living in Santa Barbara, Calif., Elder hit a hole-in-one on a course that inspired a woman he did not know to kiss him on the lips.

“I’ve always wanted to see somebody do that,” Bennett recalled the woman saying.

Although he did not flaunt his experiences as a Notre Dame football player, Elder was a story teller and would not hesitate to bring up stories from his playing days.

One tale involved the team smearing themselves with molasses when they were given slippery new uniforms that made holding the ball a difficult task.

“Rockne hated those uniforms,” Bennett said.

Elder remained a Notre Dame man throughout his life. The family regularly went to South Bend and Elder tried to attend one or two games a year. He was part of Notre Dame clubs in Indianapolis and Palm Springs.

Bennett said Elder died the way he would have requested. He went to communion with the Notre Dame Club in Palm Springs and suffered a heart attack on the way to breakfast. He died at 89 years old in 1992.

“His love and interest carried down his whole life,” Bennett said of Elder’s relationship with Notre Dame.

Although none of his children attended the university he cherished, they will meet this weekend in New York to celebrate his achievements, as a Notre Dame football player, but more importantly they will share memories of his accomplishments as a father.

Last modified Nov. 18, 2010

 

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