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Knute Rockne symbolizes Notre Dame football more than anyone else

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SOUTH BEND – Welcome home, Rock.

Visit the University of Notre Dame campus and you'll get a good sense of what makes Notre Dame, well, Notre Dame.

Enter the administration building where the Golden Dome is located. Light a candle in the grotto. Walk along the two lakes and see the log chapel where Father Sorin founded the school in 1842, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. You'll then tour the football stadium, referred to by many as the “house that Rockne built.”

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Outside the north end of the stadium, within view of the famous “Touchdown Jesus” mural located on the south wall of the Hesburgh Library, stands an entrance gate and a statue of former Irish football head coach Knute Rockne. He was the first in a long line of memorable coaches as well as names and legends associated with the school's legendary football program.

The man who made Notre Dame football what it is today was surely buried somewhere on campus, right? Wait what?

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To visit the grave of Rockne, who died in a plane crash in Bazaar, Kansas, in 1931 at age 43, one had to drive 3.2 miles west of Notre Dame Avenue. There along Angela Avenue, which bisects US 31, and across the Saint Joseph River. Take Riverside Drive to Portage Avenue. Turn right and head north a few miles. You reach the Highland Cemetery.

If you Google the cemetery's website, you'll see not only the site that has been on the west side of Portage Avenue since 1912, but also Rockne's Grave, a plot of land on the eastern edge of the cemetery.

Do Rockne's former Tomb.

WNDU-TV reported Monday morning that Rockne's grave, as well as those of his wife and grandson, were moved the 3.2-mile route to Cedar Grove Cemetery on Notre Dame Avenue on Sunday. The ultimate transfer portal.

It is time.

You can't write the first, second or third sentence about the history of Notre Dame football without the name Rockne. Having Rockne's grave in Highland was like having the Golden Dome in Mishawaka or the grotto in Granger or the Word of Life mural on the side of an office building in downtown Elkhart. It never worked.

Why it took 93 years for him to return to Notre Dame is a matter of debate. Legend has it that decades ago the university actually charged families whose loved ones were buried at Cedar Grove an annual landscaping fee. Rockne's widow/family refused to pay for it, so it was called Highland Cemetery.

Fact or fiction? It would be par for the course for the Notre Dame course – all for a dollar. Even back than. Even for the skirt. Whatever the backstory, this story has its rightful end.

“When my father was alive, he just said 'No!' He was very persistent,” Rockne’s granddaughter Jeanne Anne Rockne told WNDU about moving the gravesite to Notre Dame. “But my brothers and I thought about it for a while and we had a lot of family discussions. And we just decided that this was what we thought was best.”

Football weekends just added another item to Notre Dame fans' to-do list. Come September, hit the bookstore, attend the pep rally, grab a drink at the Backer, and then visit the legendary coach's grave sometime before kickoff on Saturday afternoon (or evening).

Bring him a stadium hot dog (no, really not). Bring him something to drink. Ask him how the Irish could only have 10 men on the field (sorry, that's early) or not make it to fourth-and-1. Sip a cigar, which fans often did at his former resting place, so much so that Rockne's former gravestone reportedly bore burn marks from all the stogies smoked (and left behind) at the site in his memory.

Rockne returning to Notre Dame just feels right, even though he may not be the winningest Notre Dame football coach in Cedar Grove, home of another legend, Ara Parseghian, who died in 2017.

On quiet nights there on campus, you can hear the ghosts of old coaches debating who has the better resume.

Is it Rocknes? A former player (1910-1913) and assistant coach at Notre Dame (1914-17), he went 105-12-5 with three national championships (1924, '29, '30) in his 13 seasons in South Bend. . Or is it Parseghians? In a different era when coaching, winning and sustained success were more demanding and difficult, Ara achieved a record of 95-17-4 with two national championships (1966, 1973) in 11 years.

Rockne? Parseghian? There is no wrong answer.

Expect the debate to get more heated on many frosty winter nights and likely to be moderated by another Cedar Grove resident, noted Notre Dame superfan/alum Regis Philbin. Others among the 50 acres of Cedar Grove who might join in the discussion or keep the peace include Moose Krause, Joe Kernan and Leon Hart.

Legends, every one of them.

One day they will be joined by another in Lou Holtz, who owns property there. Nobody is interested in him moving in yet. Give it a few more years. The place will still be there.

Holtz's wife, Beth, who died in 2020, rests in Cedar Grove.

“It is fitting that I should be buried here,” Holtz often told listeners during his public speeches, “because alumni buried me every week.”

Bah-da-boo. Thank you for coming, everyone.

If we could just move the Indiana Toll Road travel area a little closer to campus. Like Highland there before Portage, nothing can be said about Rolling Prairie Knute Rockne.

Notre Dame does. The Golden Cathedral, the grotto, the basilica, the stadium. Rockne's grave. Everything is alright. Everything feels right.

Finally.

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.

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