100 Years Ago, Princeton's Football Team Hosted Notre Dame Before 40,000 Fans

Princeton, NJ --In the fall of 1923, and again in 1924, Knute Rockne’s Notre Dame football team, with its fabled Four Horsemen, rolled into Palmer Stadium to take on the venerable Tigers of Princeton. ND won both games.

But there are some interesting vignettes about those games, which applied locally, and beyond.

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Rockne had starred as a player in South Bend, famously being on the receiving end of a forward pass from his teammate Gus Dorais in a game where the underdog visitors upset a mighty Army team in 1913.

He went on to coach Notre Dama, and the rest is the stuff of legend -- from George Gipp to the Four Horsemen to Frank Leahy and beyond.

At the time, Notre Dame’s home field didn’t have the capacity to accommodate its growing popularity. So wisely Rock took Notre Dame on the road, scheduling games across the country. So much so that an early tag for ND was the “Ramblers,” prior to becoming the “Fighting Irish” (the official nickname as of 1927).

And that national exposure, in those years, is one reason Notre Dame commands such a huge following. The team’s winning ways helped, as well, lol. Even fans who had no connection to the school became “subway alumni,” that particular moniker given because the Irish played Army every year in Yankee Stadium, and the subways were jammed.

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Here’s the interesting local angle.

Charlie Caldwell, Princeton Class of 1925, was in the stands of Palmer Stadium for one, or both, of those contests. He was so impressed by the intricacy and effectiveness of Rockne’s “box” formation that he used it as a template for the Tigers’ devastating single-wing offense when he later coached Princeton in the glory surrounding the Dick Kazmaier years (1949 to 1951 – Kazmaier’s senior year when he won the Heisman Trophy).

An aside here, not generally known: Charlie was a great all-around athlete, even pitching and playing outfield for the Yankees in 1925. His claim to fame in baseball, though, derives from the fact that, one day in the Bronx, while pitching batting practice, he accidentally beaned Wally Pipp, the starting first baseman. Pipp had to sit out the next game, yielding to Lou Gehrig. The “Iron Horse” and the Bronx Bombers never looked back. To be accurate, while his pitch did “conk” Pipp, other versions relate that the errant pitch occurred a month AFTER Pipp had already been relegated. Take your pick.

Caldwell eventually embarked on coaching career of note, beginning in 1928 at Williams (15 years), then at Princeton from 1945 through 1956, compiling a career football record of 146-67-9. He also coached basketball and baseball at Williams, and baseball at Princeton. Charlie Caldwell was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1961.

On a more personal note, my father saw those two football games, as well. Peter A. “Scotty” Ryan, born in Pennington in 1902, was a top-drawer shortstop and played several years of minor league ball in the Philadelphia Nationals’ organization (that’s what today’s National League Phillies were called back then, to distinguish them from Connie Mack’s American League Philadelphia Athletics). When he gave up baseball, and went back to dairy farming, he maintained an enthusiastic interest in all the popular sports of that Golden Age of the 1920s.

So my father, as impressed as Charlie Caldwell by the finesse of Rockne’s approach, instantly became a “subway alumnus,” even though he was a Rider Moore Stewart College of Business (now Rider University) graduate, Class of 1920. He became so attached to Fighting Irish football that my parents’ extended honeymoon, in the fall of 1934, was scheduled around ND’s games in New York, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. My mother and father DID manage to attend the World Fair in the Windy City, but just as a sidelight.

Growing up on our dairy farm in Pennington, my siblings and I were inveterate Notre Dame fans, an understatement of the first rank.

Thus, it was not surprising that my older brother Pete (Peter A. Ryan Jr.), after graduating from Trenton Catholic High School (where he was an all-state and Little All-American-mentioned guard), then a stint in the Marines, went out to Notre Dame, Class of 1960. And lives in South Bend to this day.

I didn’t go to ND, becoming a Tiger, Class of 1968.

It’s probably a good thing that the Tigers and the Fighting Irish won’t ever face off on the gridiron again. I’d pull for the Tigers, of course, but pray for ND, while Pete would go for the Irish, but make a sign of the cross for Princeton.

Two last items about the PU/ND thread:

Rockne did get his stadium, the design of which he personally oversaw. He was adamant about having the spectators as close to the action as possible. ND’s stadium has been renovated over the years, but has preserved Rockne’s vision. Interestingly enough, when it was decided to replace the old Palmer Stadium with Princeton’s current one, the architect visited South Bend, and incorporated Rockne’s idea here in Tigertown. The running track was moved outside the venue, and the new gridiron is lovely, from a spectator’s viewpoint.

At one point, at the height of his fame, Rockne entered into negotiations with Princeton about becoming head coach. Perhaps the fact that Princeton had played in the very first intercollegiate game challenged him. It never materialized, but it’s intriguing to contemplate -- just one last “connect” between the Irish and the Tigers.

Editor's note: Princeton's first home game of the 2024 season is Saturday, September 28, at 3 p.m. at Princeton Stadium against Howard University.

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