Critical Analysis of Rockne’s Commandments

There is a lot to discuss when you read the list of “Commandments” that Knute Rockne commanded his players to obey while they played football for the University of Notre Dame. A lot of them are fairly simple and straightforward. They usually consist of one word or a short phrase, and then a sentence of explanation. But what does this list of “Commandments” tell us about the man himself. What were Rockne’s sticking points? What made him tick? What did he really care about? The answers might just be found by reading into the content of his laws.

If you just glance at the list, the first thing you might notice is that rules number 22 and 23 have the longest explanation by far. Their placement and length are interesting to mote. You might be able to surmise that Rockne put the quality of being a god loser over that of being a good winner, simply because he made “Losing” number 22 and “Winning” number 23. One thing is for sure, he had a lot of thoughts about both winning and losing, and the proper way to handle those situations. For a guy who only lost 13 games in 12 seasons with Notre Dame, he was sure passionate about both sides. If you read his thoughts, they don’t really convey traditional wisdom on winning and losing.

Tomorrow we will dig deeper into the mind of Rockne. Until then you can get Notre Dame Fighting Irish tickets at StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on June 21, 2007 - Post a comment