Today in Notre Dame History

On July 16, 1980 the Chicago Bears organization contacted the University of Notre Dame to ask permission to use The House that Rock Built for their home games during the 1980 season. The Bears were in a contract disagreement with Soldier Field, and they didn't want to play their games anywhere else but South Bend.




Soldier Field is very special to the Notre Dame Football program because it was there in 1927 and 1928 that the Fighting Irish played 2 contests to fund-raise for their new football stadium. Knute Rockne called the 1927 match up the greatest game that he had ever seen, with the Irish edging out the USC Trojans 7-6. It is estimated that 120,000 people were in attendance, however, there were no official records (The 1929 Notre Dame USC showdown at Soldier Field, which the Irish won 13-12 is the largest recorded crowd in College football history with 112,912 in attendance).

The 1928 battle between the two great schools who wear blue and gold again drew an estimated crowd of 120,000 people, and Notre Dame again barely beat their opponent with a score of 7-0. Perhaps the switch to green motivated Her Loyal Sons, as noted in the Scholastic Football Review:

"Mr. K. K. Rockne may, or may not, be a psychologist. But, he did array his Fighting Irish in bright green jerseys for their battle with the United States Naval Academy. Mr. Rockne evidently surmised that garbing a band of native and adopted Irish in their native color is somewhat akin to showing a bull the Russian flag.''

There have been many great Notre Dame games in Soldier Field, and the future is sure to hold more. The Fighting Irish are set to return to the Chicago stadium to play the Miami Hurricanes in 2012.