In a black-and-white image, future Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne lines up with six other men on the beach at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, in summer 1913. “Beach patrol” is in large letters on the shirt of a man next to Rockne.
The picture is from a Rockne photo album owned by Andy Nickle ’74J.D. The album contains more than 100 images, many including Rockne, that appear to be mostly from his Notre Dame student years of 1910 to 1914. The album was among Rockne family items sold in a sports memorabilia auction in 1995. Nickle acquired the album in 2025 when it came up for sale at a New York auction.
The album includes 15 beach photos, many of them group shots. In the images, the young Rockne is easily recognizable, but the album contains no captions or identifying information for other people shown.
Rockne and his Notre Dame roommate and football teammate Charles “Gus” Dorais worked as lifeguards in summer 1913 on the Lake Erie beach at Cedar Point — devoting their spare time to practicing the forward pass, an offensive tactic they would begin using that autumn in a game against Army at West Point, New York.
Notre Dame won that landmark game, 35-13. The team’s skill and success with the forward pass drew widespread media attention and put Notre Dame football on the national stage. (The forward pass was approved for use in college football in 1906.)
Rockne met his future wife, Bonnie Skiles, during his summer in Sandusky. He graduated from Notre Dame in spring 1914 and the couple married that July. Rockne started a science teaching job at the University right after earning his degree and became head football coach in 1918. As an immigrant reaching adulthood in Chicago, Rockne applied for and worked a $50-a-month U.S. postal service job to earn money to attend college, Nickle notes. In 1988 — a century after Rockne’s birth — President Ronald Reagan visited Notre Dame to unveil a U.S. postage stamp in Rockne’s honor.
The photo album shows Rockne’s life during his mid-20s. (The future coach was 22 years old when he enrolled as a freshman in 1910 and 26 when he graduated.) It includes carefree group shots on the beach, social outings with other young men and women, and some Notre Dame campus shots.
It contains some sports photos, including one showing Rockne — then the football team captain — on Cartier Field on campus in fall 1913. Another captures Rockne and other members of the Corby Hall student baseball team in their uniforms on the hall’s front steps. Another shows Rockne and other students in shorts and sleeveless shirts to participate in rowing racings on St. Joseph’s Lake. And there’s a portrait in football uniform of Dorais, the Notre Dame quarterback, who would later serve as best man at Rockne’s wedding.
Some of the photos are marked with a white “G-C” in the bottom right corner, which stands for Gibson & Cleaver, student photographers who sold prints to other students.
Nickle has been collecting Notre Dame football memorabilia for 40 years, and he considers the Rockne photo album a prize in his collection. Among other items in the collection are the final telegram Rockne sent to his wife on March 31, 1931 before he boarded the plane that would crash, causing his death, and the wristwatch he was wearing when he died.
Nearly a century after the coach’s death, a major exhibit continues through May 31 at The History Museum in South Bend exploring Rockne’s enduring appeal.
“Rockne is a fascinating sports figure and human being. The more you learn about him, the more fascinating he becomes,” Nickle says. He shares photos and details about items in his collection on a website: Rockne and Early Notre Dame Football History.
Margaret Fosmoe is an associate editor of this magazine.