ESPN Digs One For The Gipper

“I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy.”

This deathbed pep talk from Notre Dame football player George Gipp to his legendary coach, Knute Rockne, is one of the most famous speeches in sports and national history. Well, it was bastardized by Presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan a couple of decades ago, but most of us choose to forget that event and remember the lore surrounding Gipp’s passing.

But if Reagan’s propaganda caused Gipp to turn over in his grave, how would the Gipper feel about being exhumed 87 years after his death so his stalker can write a better book and sports tabloid station ESPN can pump up a new show?

Despite protests from living relatives, Gipp’s corpse was exhumed in Michigan recently. One distant cousin, Karl Gipp, told the Associated Press that, “it’s absolutely ridicilous and uncalled for,” while another cousin described it as a desecration. But a friend of some of Gipp’s other relatives got this done without needing a court order – as long as it comes on high authority, right? I mean, my mailman is a friend of my neighbor’s niece, but I’m not sure she would want him tearing her grave open in a century or so.

Par for the course, ESPN filmed the exhumation to help market a new show that debuts on October 16 on ESPN XXIV. Even though Gipp’s relatives are shocked and offended, and amidst speculation that ESPN played a role in the events, ESPN maintains that it was only there to document the festivities. Hey, as long as it can give Chris Berman some original material for the first time in 15 years, ESPN is on board …

The Minneapolis-St Paul Star-Tribune reports that author/historian Michael Bynum has been studying Gipp’s life for the past 30 years, and a book he is releasing on Gipp was delayed pending DNA testing made possible by the exhumation. So Bynum’s obsession with a long-dead college boy has apparently resulted in him wanting to stalk the poor bastard’s grave? Is there any gene anomaly that could be found that could justify grave-robbing in Michigan against a family’s wishes?

Fans should keep in mind that this is one of the most famous players in college football history. Gipp was Notre Dame’s first All-American, scoring 83 touchdowns and setting a Fighting Irish rushing record that stood for half a century. Reagan portrayed Gipp in the 1940 movie, “Knute Rockne, All-American,” so we can’t blame him for an exhumation, but we can certainly nail him for disturbing Gipp’s dirt nap. One legend posits that Gipp contracted pneumonia after breaking curfew one night, finding his dorm door locked and being forced to sleep outside. Another tale said that he got sick after staying after his final game to give punting lessons in bad weather. Whatever the true story, the facts remain that Gipp died in 1920 of pneumonia and strep infection during his senior year at Notre Dame.

But even though we can wish that the story ended there and that we were left with at least one tall tale to hold onto in this age of investigation and scrutiny, it turns out the “entertainment industry” just ain’t going to let that happen. Fighting Irish fans can only hope that Charlie Weis was on hand to snake Gipp’s heart in an attempt to give his fast-plummeting program some inspiration. But it’s more likely that Sean Salisbury was there to analyze the technique of the shovelers and Stuart Scott was there to make a joke about borrowing one of Gipp’s eyes so he doesn’t look Chuck D.’s cyclopsian doppelganger anymore.

Good job, guys; keep up the good work. Maybe you can have Barry Bonds and Floyd Landis dig up Jim Thorpe next week for your new show, “Inside The Grave: The Bare-Bones Truth About Steroids.”