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Loyal Sons: The Story of the Four Horsemen and Notre Dame Football's 1924 Champions

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Jim Lefebvre's description of teamwork, sportsmanship and relentless perseverance exhibited by the team members of the 1924 Notre Dame football team in his book Loyal Sons far exceeded my expectations of what I thought was going to be an interesting historical read about four football players on horseback, a famous Coach, an undefeated season and an invitation to the Rose Bowl.
This is a great book about football...and so much more.
Jim captures the interwoven essence of strong character, devout families, hard work, integrity, selflessness and coachability that made this unpretentious team of young gentlemen "raise the bar" for those who followed.
Mr. Lefebvre's accounting of Knute Rockne and his coaching staff's ability to balance priority of education with a season of unprecedented athletic success and snowballing national recognition for Notre Dame revealed to me a non-compromising dynamic of Rockne's success.
Coach Rockne instilled in his players two important lessons: 1, sacrifice, dedication and hard work yield results; and 2, there is life after football
Don't miss the Epilogue.

Sparky Aldridge

I bought this book as a gift for my father-in-law about a month before his birthday, and ended up thumbing through it, and thumbing through it. I enjoyed it so much that I bought a second copy for myself. Great storytelling. Wonderful photos. There is obvious tradition with "The Four Horsemen," of course, but what the author has given us here are the thoughts and deeds of an entire generation surrounding TFH. Beautifully told, this book has depth that is well worth the money ... even twice.

Award-winning journalist and sports historian Jim Lefebvre presents Loyal Sons: The Story of The Four Horsemen and Notre Dame Football's 1924 Champions, the first book-length look at the famous Notre Dame football team and its 1924 victory over Army. Reconstructing the daily life of team members, and taking an especial note of how the competitive team became a source of pride for Catholics across America, Loyal Sons is an engaging read for anyone curious about what university football was like a century ago. Especially recommended for football enthusiasts with a passion for the history of the sport.

FINALLY...THE REAL AND ACCURATE STORY OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF NOTRE DAME.
EVERY AGE NEEDS ITS' HEROES AND THE FOUR HORSEMEN WERE THE ONES WHO FIT THE PICTURE FOR SEVERAL YEARS. A GREAT BOOK WITH A REAL STORY OF A TIME IN OUR COUNTRY WHEN HEROES WERE NEEDED!

Enjoyed the book cover to cover. The amount of research that went into the book jumps off the page with the detail that is involved, especially in describing the action of each game. The writing style takes on the character of the sportswriters and reporters that were around to see the Four Horsemen. It's definitely worth reading for any nostalgic football fan, especially Notre Dame fans.

Fans of leather-helmeted football, graduates of Notre Dame, and those curious about one of the greatest football coaches of all time, Knute Rockne, will like this book, but I doubt non-football fans will find much to like. Except for a couple of rare instances, author Lefebvre doesn't give us much of a look at what it was like in the twenties, other than that people had big families, and if one son went to Notre Dame, they all did. That was the case with Horseman Don Miller, who had several brothers star for the Irish before him.

Lefebvre gives us a blow-by-blow account of the 1924 season, Notre Dame's first national championship year, and highlights of several games prior to that year. He also gives us capsules of some of the players, namely Adam Walsh, the center, and Miller, Layden, Crowley and Stuhldreher. Several other famous names play prominent roles. Pop Warner (who coached Jim Thorpe at Carlyle) was the coach at Stanford, the team the Irish played in the Rose Bowl, and Ernie Nevers played in that game. The Irish didn't play Illinois that year, but 1924 is the year that Minnesota upset them and maybe the greatest college player ever, Red Grange.

Probably the most significant mention of anything outside of football was the Ku Klux Klan demonstration at Notre Dame. According to LeFebvre 500,000 Hoosiers belonged to the Klan, and they hated the Irish and Catholics almost as much as they did blacks. Rockne and the players managed to avoid a confrontation.

One annoying aspect of the book is that Lefebvre doesn't go into any detail about who played what position on defense. Adam Walsh obviously played on the defensive line, but Lefebvre refers to him only as a center on offense. The horsemen also must have played in the defensive backfield as the biggest weighed only 161 pounds, but it would have been nice to know who played what position.

Lefebvre also includes several Appendices which show the stats for each player during the season. Don Miller gained 763 yards rushing in nine games, but the only member of the Horsemen to make consensus first team all-American was quarterback and ferocious blocker, Harry Stuhldreher.
I also didn't know that Elmer Layden coached the Irish for several years in the thirties and forties and that Stuhldreher was coach and athletic director
at Wisconsin.

This book could have been written by the Notre Dame publicity department; I can't think of one negative thing Lefebvre had to say about Knute Rockne; it also contains some of the worst poetry I've ever read. There is, however, an extensive picture section, so we lovers of oldtime football finally get to see what the Horsemen looked like.

Lefebvre's "Loyal Sons" is a fluid yet detailed account of Notre Dame's famed undefeated 1924 football squad. Lefebvre relates how Rockne's young publicist, George Stickler, influenced sportswriter Grantland Rice's tabbing the Notre Dame backfield "The Four Horsemen" and narrates the events surrounding Strickler's posing Crowley, Miller, Layden and Stuhldreher for perhaps the most famous photo in all of sports.

Of particular interest is Notre Dame's struggle to achieve national prominence against the backdrop of the Ku Klux Klan's re-emergence with their anti-Catholic rantings during the Roaring Twenties. The point is driven home in the author's narration of the Nebraska-Notre Dame rivalry during those early years.

Aside from the charismatic Knute Rockne, readers will learn of other colorful coaching personalities during the period including Stanford's Pop Warner, Carnegie Tech's Wally Steffen and Army's John McEwan.

The book gives a game by game account of the season and finishes with the Irish squad's prolonged round trip to and from the Rose Bowl - a trip that took over three weeks and while Lefebvre doesn't mention it, influenced the university's "powers that be" to decline bowl game invitations for nearly 50 years.

A great read for the serious Notre Dame fan!

A nice informative story of one of college football's greatest teams.IT not only gives game details,but shows the everyday stuggles of the players and coaches.It also gives a keen look at life on the Notre Dame campus.I must read for every ND FAN

The '20s were a breakout period for the University of Notre Dame in general, and none-the -less for the Fighting Irish football team.
The feeling and energy of the time was captured dramatically in the book... and the stories from ND men who were there added the
lively excitement. An awesome read for all who enjoy sports and friends of Notre Dame

Jim Lefebvre's research for this book was unrelenting. I know, I spent some time kicking around the cold, snowy streets of Green Bay, Wisconsin (Jim's hometown as well as that of "Sleepy" Jim) giving him a small hand pulling together information on the "Crowley quadrant" of the legend of the Four Horsemen.

Jim did not hesitate to go where the story took him. But after the facts are gathered, the task of assembling them into a compelling narrative remains. Jim Lefebvre has scored big on both counts--the research and the writing. This award-winning book is a great read--whether you are a fan of Notre Dame, Notre Dame football, U.S. history, college athletics, or the human spirit.

Nice job, Jim! What you have created here is a classic piece in the annals of the history of "The Irish."