Now He Tells Me

Photo: Ronald Regan & Knute Rockne.

Jerry McKenna, the sculptor who is the world's foremost authority on legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, is in town for a couple of days. After beers and burgers at Herb's Tavern Tuesday night, Jerry spoke of Rockne and referred to him as Keh-NUTE. He stuck that "k" sound on the front of Knute's first name.

"When did you start calling him Keh-Nute?" I asked.

"I always called him Keh-Nute," said McKenna, "because that's how he pronounced his name."

"How come he kept the pronunciation of his first name a secret?" I persisted. "The world called him 'Nute.' He never corrected anybody."

"He didn't have to correct anybody because they didn't call him 'Nute.' They called him 'Rock.' Everybody did."

You can't argue with McKenna. He has personally known the Rockne family for decades. When we were in high school in the 1950's Jerry boldly walked up to the front porch of Rockne's son, who lived in Lakewood at the time, and pounded on the front door just to meet him. Later Jerry actually visited the site of the plane crash where Rockne died in a Kansas cornfield. He also visited the house where Rockne was born in Voss, Norway.

Last month he hosted a party for two dozen members of the Rockne family who attended the unveiling of McKenna's sculpture of Rockne outside the Notre Dame football stadium. It is McKenna's 28th sculpture at Notre Dame alone. He also did the life-size statue of Rockne at the entrance to the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown South Bend and donated its identical twin to Rockne's hometown in Norway.

"Rock's grandson is also named Knute. He was at the party. He corrects people who mis-pronounce his first name," said McKenna.

Imagine. Rockne died in a plane crash in 1931 and people have been mispronouncing his name for 78 years.

That happens a lot. Take football coach Tom Coughlin. Up in Boston, where Coughlin once coached Boston College, they called him KAWF-lin, which was wrong, but the name stuck wherever he coached.

He told me once that he finally wearied of correcting people. He said his family actually pronounced his name the same as mine, which is COG-lin. Some of my old ancestors varied the pronunciation to CAWG-lin or even COCK-lin, but never KAWF-lin.

Now you ke-now.

Finally, I see the weather report for Friday says rain. Oh, this is great! If I'm not mistaken, this will be the fifth Friday night football in the rain.

That's it for now. Gotta lay out my rain gear.