Under the Category, They Don’t Write Like this Anymore - Grantland Rice

Grantland Rice

After reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s article about Pitt’s victory over Niagara on Saturday, I couldn’t help thinking about some of the colorful sports writers of a past era. Following Notre Dame's 13–7 upset victory over a strong Army team, on October 18, 1924, Grantland Rice writing in the New York Herald Tribune, penned the most famous football lead off all-time:

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: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

My late father-in-law, C. Richard Jacob, who played high school football in the twenties, used to proudly point out that he was about the same size as these legendary players none of whom weighed more than 160 pounds.

Four Horsemen