Knute Rockne and Easter Heathman

As every good Notre Dame fan knows, Knute Rockne died in a plane crash in a field near Bazaar, Kansas on March 31, 1931. Today is the 75th anniversary of his untimely death.

I made the pilgrimage to Bazaar back in June 1997 and met Mr. Easter Heathman, who was one of the first people to the crash site when he was fourteen. Mr. Heathman was kind enough to drive me through private land out to the monument where Rockne's plane crashed. Apparently, he has done the same for thousands of other visitors over the years. Notre Dame has honored him on a number of occasions, and he has publicly expressed that his involvement with Notre Dame has "changed his life."

While I was in Easter's truck, I "borrowed" a deposit slip from his checkbook, which was sitting on his dashboard. Every time I go to Notre Dame, I send a postcard (anonymously) to the address on that deposit slip, thanking Mr. Heathman for his kindness and service to Knute Rockne and Notre Dame.

If you would like to do the same, you can reach him here (his house is on a rural road, so no street address is required):

Easter Heathman
Matfield Green, Kansas 66862

Let's Kick It

I have been a longtime proponent of the need for quality special teams personnel, especially in the placekicking and punting facets of the game. Recent ND coaches Davie and Willingham seemed resigned to wait for a diamond-in-the-rough All-American placekicker to get lost on their way to soccer practice and end up punching regular 50-yarders for the Irish gridders.

So it is encouraging that Charlie Weis included as part of his recruiting focus securing the services of a well-vetted kicker. It is expected that incoming freshman Ryan Burkhart may challenge for the placekicking duries in 2006, and may as well supplement the punting game.

In bidding farewell to 3-year starter DJ Fitzpatrick, it is appropriate to highlight some of his impressive acomplishments, many even more notable considering he had career starts in only 30 of ND's 49 games during his active tenure. Few will realize the impressive career which Fitzpatrick put together, for a variety of reasons. A coaching regime mired in controversy under Willingham saw few close games go the way of the Irish--5-5 in games decided by six points or less, whereas more negatively footnoted were the 20-to-30+ point losses under T-dub. In a similar vein, with Weis' arrival in 2005 the Irish offense got more headlines for multiple touchdown efforts, and little notice was given to the quiet consistency of the kicking game. Even more ironic, perhaps, was that a late-season injury for Fitzpatrick against Syracuse almost cost the Irish a BCS bid in their win over Stanford.

The skinny on his status in ND's record annals, updated to include all games for the 2005 season:

point-after (PAT) kicks made in a season (52, first)
point-after (PAT) kicks made in a career (103, fifth)
consecutive PATs made (61, streak ended vs. Stanford 11/26/05)
PATs attempted in a season (54, first)
PATs attempted in a career (107, sixth)
PAT percentage for a season (.971, eleventh)
PAT percentage for a career (.971, fourth)
points by kicking in a season (85, fourth)
points by kicking in a career (205, fifth)
points in a season (83, tenth)
overall career scoring (205, tenth)

Thanks for the quiet memories, DJ.