The
Alcalde Old School
Coach Jack A Notre Dame Boy Who Beat Notre Dame
n the annals of Texas Longhorn football history, the name Jack Chevigny probably doesn’t evoke the hosannas from orangebloods that the names Darrell Royal, Dana Bible, or even Mack Brown do. Truth be told, Chevigny is the only football coach in Longhorn history with a losing record (13-14-2). But mention the name Chevigny in South Bend and witness the Irish faithful genuflect and cross themselves in memory of the half-back who scored the winning touchdown for Knute Rockne’s 1928 team to beat Army and famously “win one for the Gipper.” After an abrupt NFL coaching career with the Chicago Cardinals, Chevigny left pro ball and accepted a job at Notre Dame’s sister school in Austin, St. Edward’s University, before scoring himself UT’s head coaching job in 1934 after Clyde Littlefield’s 1933 team brought Texas its first-ever losing season. In his second game as UT’s coach, Chevigny beat his alma mater 7-6, and went on to lead the Longhorns to a 7-2-1 record. The grateful Longhorn nation presented Coach Jack with a fountain pen inscribed, “To Jack Chevigny, a Notre Dame boy who beat Notre Dame.” Things went downhill for the Notre Dame boy over the next two seasons, and after the 1936 Longhorn squad finished 26-1, Coach Jack resigned. He stayed awhile in Austin, working as an attorney for the State Tax Commission, before
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boredom drove him away from taxes and into the Illinois oil business. When the United States entered World War II, Chevigny joined the Marines and, on February 16, 1945, was one of the first American soldiers to storm the beaches of Iwo Jima. Either by a sniper’s bullet or a direct mortar shell hit, Chevigny was killed in action and buried on the island. Seven months later, as Japanese envoys aboard the USS Missouri took turns signing the peace treaty with the United States, an American official noticed an envoy pull out a fountain pen bearing an English-language inscription. It was the pen the Longhorns had given Chevigny in 1935, and Coach Jack had brought it with him across the world. The American official brought the pen back to the United States, and it was returned to Chevigny’s sister with a new inscription: “To Jack Chevigny, a Notre Dame boy who gave his life for his country in the spirit of Notre Dame.” —Tim Taliaferro