Knute Kenneth Rockne (/kəˈnuːt ˈrɒkni/ kə-NOOT ROK-nee; March 4, 1888 – March 31, 1931) was a Norwegian-American player and coach of American football at the University of Notre Dame. Leading Notre Dame for 13 seasons, Rockne would accumulate over 100 wins and three national championships. Rockne is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history. His biography at the College Football Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 1951, identifies him as "without question, American football's most-renowned coach". Rockne helped to popularize the forward pass and made the Notre Dame Fighting Irish a major factor in college football. In 1931, at the age of 43, Rockne died in a plane crash. Knute Rockne was born Knut Larsen Rokne, in Voss, Norway, to smith and wagonmaker Lars Knutson Rokne (1858–1912) and his wife, Martha Pedersdatter Gjermo (1859–1944). He emigrated to Chicago with his parents when he was five years old. He grew up in the Logan Square area of Chicago, on the northwest side of the city. Rockne learned to play football in his neighborhood and later played end in a local group called the Logan Square Tigers. He attended Lorenz Brentano elementary school, and North West Division High School in Chicago where he played football and ran track. After Rockne graduated from high school, he took a job as a mail dispatcher with the post office in Chicago for four years. When he was 22, he had saved enough money to continue his education. He headed to Notre Dame in Indiana to finish his schooling. Rockne excelled as a football end there, winning All-American honors in 1913. Rockne worked as a lifeguard at Cedar Point in the summer of 1913. Rockne helped to transform the college game in a single contest. On November 1, 1913, the Notre Dame squad stunned the highly regarded Army team 35–13 in a game played at West Point. Led by quarterback Charlie "Gus" Dorais and Rockne, the Notre Dame team attacked the Cadets with an offense that featured both the expected powerful running game but also long and accurate downfield forward passes from Dorais to Rockne. This game was not the "invention" of the forward pass, but it was the first major contest in which a team used the forward pass regularly throughout the game. At Notre Dame, Rockne was educated as a chemist and he graduated in 1914 with a degree in pharmacy. After graduating, he was the laboratory assistant to noted polymer chemist Julius Arthur Nieuwland at Notre Dame and helped out with the football team, but rejected further work in chemistry after receiving an offer to coach football. In 1914, he was recruited by Peggy Parratt to play for the Akron Indians. There Parratt had Rockne playing both end and halfback and teamed with him on several successful forward pass plays during their title drive. Knute wound up in Massillon, Ohio, in 1915 along with former Notre Dame teammate Dorais to play with the professional Massillon Tigers. Rockne and Dorais brought the forward pass to professional football from 1915 to 1917 when they led the Tigers to the championship in 1915. Pro Football in the Days of Rockne by Emil Klosinski maintains the worst loss ever suffered by Rockne was in 1917. He coached the "South Bend Jolly Fellows Club" when they lost 40–0 to the Toledo Maroons. While many trace Knute Rockne's debut as a Notre Dame football coach to the war-torn 1918 season, or in 1914 when he became an assistant coach under Jesse Harper, his first position was actually for the Corby and Sorin Hall football teams as a student-athlete in 1912 and 1913 These teams represented residence halls on the university grounds that competed against one other in various sports, the most popular of which was football. The term for these competitions is colloquially known as interhall sports. Ironically, while Rockne holds the highest winning-percentage of any major college football coach, his overall record in the interhall football league was a paltry 2–5–4 across two seasons. During 13 years as head coach, Rockne led Notre Dame to 105 victories, 12 losses, five ties and three consensus national championships, which included five undefeated and untied seasons. Rockne posted the highest all-time winning percentage (.881) for a major college football coach. His schemes utilized the eponymous Notre Dame Box offense and the 7–2–2 defense. Rockne's box included a shift. The backfield lined up in a T-formation, then quickly shifted into a box to the left or right just as the ball was snapped. Rockne was also shrewd enough to recognize that intercollegiate sports had a show-business aspect. Thus he worked hard promoting Notre Dame football to make it financially successful. He used his considerable charm to court favor from the media, which then consisted of newspapers, wire services and radio stations and networks, to obtain free advertising for Notre Dame football. He was very successful as an advertising pitchman for South Bend-based Studebaker and other products. He eventually received an annual income of $75,000 from Notre Dame.