 This is Jimmy Powers, ready to bring you another story from the tumult and the shouting. Hi there, this is Jimmy Powers transcribed. Today, Granny Rice, America's late and great sports columnist and poet for more than 50 years, takes us to West Point, where Granny first saw Notre Dame and met a young coach named Newt Rockney. That meeting started a friendship between two of the most colorful figures of the Golden Twenties. Now, with a salute to the spirit of Granny Rice, and in first person, I take up his narrative from the tumult and the shouting. Ring Lardner, a keen Notre Dame and Midwestern router, went with me to West Point in the fall of 1920. We ran into John J. McEwen, the big Army assistant coach who was loaded with confidence. I understand, said Lardner, that Rockney is coming in again with that kid named Gip. Who emblazes his Gip, snorted McEwen. You'll find out at 10 minutes to 2 tomorrow, replied Lardner. McEwen did. With Army leading 17 to 14 at halftime, Gip put on a second half one-man rodeo as the Irish pulled out the game 27 to 17. How'd you like Gip as a football player? I asked McEwen after the game. Gip is no football player, reported McEwen. He's a runaway son of a gun. Self-reliant as a wild mustang, George Gip came out of the iron ore country near Calumet, Michigan. At times he even baffled Rock. A former Notre Dame star and assistant coach told me this story during the intermission of that historic 1920 Army game. Being behind by three points, Rock was really laying it into the boys, he said. He had about finished and Gip, standing nearby, asked me for a drag of my cigarette. Rock looked up and spotted Gip leaning against the door, his helmet on the back of his head, puffing the cigarette. Rock exploded. As for you, Gip, he crackled. I suppose you haven't any interest in this game. Listen, Rock, replied Gip, I've got $500 bet on this game. I don't aim to blow any $500. Rock was younger then. Later, not even Gip would have gotten away with it. One of Rock's greatest squads was his 1924 team that featured a veteran array of backs functioning behind a powerful line. In the fall of 1923, Army met Notre Dame at Ebbott's Field because the World Series between the Yankees and the Giants was taking place at the polo grounds. I preferred the football game. That afternoon, I took along Brink Thorn, Yale's great 1925 captain. We had only sideline passes, so Brink and I watched from the rim of the playing field. In one wild end run, the Irish backfield swept off the field over the sideline. It's worse than a cavalry charge, I said to Brink. They're like a wild horse stampede. That thought occurred to me a year later at the polo grounds when the same backfield beat Army 13-7 en route to an undefeated year and the four horsemen emerged on my copy paper. Down the years, they tell me this particular lead of mine has become famous. Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the four horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore, they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction, and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stulldreyer, Miller, Crowley, and Leiden. They form the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the polo grounds yesterday afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down on the bewildering panorama spread on the green plain below. A cyclone can't be snared, it may be surrounded but somewhere it breaks through to keep on going. When the cyclone starts from South Bend where the candlelight still gleams through the Indiana sycamores those in the way must take to the storm cellars at top speed. Yesterday the cyclone struck again as Notre Dame beat the Army 13-7 with a set of backfield stars that ripped and crashed through a strong Army defense with more speed and power than the warring cadets could meet. Yes, they were an amazing four men. Fullback Elmer Leiden, better than a 10-second sprinter weighed 164 pounds and was the heaviest of the lot. Quarterback Stulldreyer at 154 pounds was the lightest and the halfbacks Miller and Crowley were in between. Fast and shifty, the four horsemen had a brand of rhythm that was beautiful to watch. They were a hardy lot and were seldom hurt. They could all block and tackle and carry the ball. The memory of them made me scoff a little during the days of platoon football with offensive and defensive specialists cluttering up the premises each Saturday afternoon. Jimmy Crowley was one of the wittiest men I ever knew. In practice one day Rock said to Jim after he had muffed some play what's dumber than a dumb Irishman? A smart swede, Jimmy replied. No further conversation was necessary. Granny said Don Miller to me recently, Rock put us together in the same backfield but the day you wrote us up as the four horsemen you conferred an immortality on us that gold could never buy. Let's face it, we were good, sure, but we'd have been just as dead two years after graduation as any other backfield if you hadn't painted that tagline on us. It's 29 years since we played. Each year we run faster, block better, score more touchdowns than ever. The older we are, the younger we become in legend. Another thing, in business that tagline has opened more doors, has meant more to each of us in associations, warmth, friendship, and revenue than you'll ever know. Well that's as nice a compliment as a fellow can receive. And now, as Jimmy Powers again, I'd like to introduce Jimmy Crowley, the silent one of the fabulous four horsemen. Crowley, it's good to see you're looking so prosperous. I like the sound of that word, Jimmy, even though prosperous seldom alludes to me. You played college football during a particularly wonderful era, the Golden Twenties. That's a period that will always remain a vibrant part of the American heritage. And two of your closest pals, Granny Rice and Newt Rockney, lived a vital role in those times. What was the first time you recall meeting Granny? Well, Jimmy, I'm very glad that you coupled Granny Rice's name with Newt Rockney because I met Granny Rice up in Newt Rockney's room. In 1923, after we played the army at Ebbets Field, I came back to the hotel with Rockney and I was very fortunate because Granny Rice was waiting there to talk to Rock and that was my first meeting with that grand man. I noted where Granny Rice pegged the four horsemen as one of the lightest of backfields and I know Rock became quite touchy about the sports riders questioning the program weights ascribed to you for. Well, that's true. The riders thought that Rock was taking a little poetic license with his program weights. So Rockney called in all the riders before the Princeton game in 1924 and he made his way stripped right in front of them. And I recall the weights very well, Jimmy. If you'd like them, I'll give them to you. The Stooldryer weighed 158, Leiden weighed 162, Don Miller weighed 163 and I weighed about 162.5. But of course Rock didn't care too much for size because his attack was built on speed and deception. Scientific football, if you will. Rock went for the long gainer and didn't like to grind them out but that's one thing that our backfield did have was speed. Jimmy, what game would you say was the four horsemen's toughest game? Well, we only lost two games in three years and both of those games that we lost were to the University of Nebraska. I would say that in 1922, our Southmore year in 1923, our junior years against Nebraska were probably the toughest games although the Army games were always tough and the Georgia Tech game of 1922 when they had a veteran team and hadn't been defeated on their home field in 11 years was a game that stands out in my mind as being one of the ruggedest games that I ever played in. Jimmy Crowley, what did you do following your graduation from Notre Dame? After graduation I went down to Athens, Georgia and the University of Georgia is located and I became a backfield coach there. I was a backfield coach there for four years and in 1929 I became head coach at Michigan State College in Lansing, Michigan. I was there for four years and then in 1933 I came to New York where I coached Fordham University for nine very pleasant years. The war of course came in 1941 and I joined the Navy and had the distinct honor of being on the staff of Admiral Halsey out in the South Pacific. And now, as you probably know, Jim, I am the boxing commissioner for the state of Pennsylvania. What about the other three horsemen, Jimmy? Do you see much of them? Well, I see quite a lot of them, Jimmy, particularly in late fall when everybody is having their victorious banquets at the end of the season. We are invited as a group. I would say that we get together about six or seven times a year as a group and then of course I see them individually on my travels or when they come through the part of the country where I'm located. Jimmy Crowley, it's been wonderful having you with us and our sincere thanks. Now this is Jimmy Powers transcribed saying so long until next time.