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The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame comprised a winning group of American football players at the University of Notre Dame under coach Knute Rockne. They were the backfield of Notre Dame's 1924 football team. The players that made up this group were Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley, and Elmer Layden.〔http://www.und.com/trads/horse.html〕 In 1924, a nickname coined by sportswriter Grantland Rice and the actions of a student publicity aide transformed the Notre Dame backfield of Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller, and Layden into the most fabled quartet in college football history, the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. Quarterback Harry Stuhldreher, left halfback Jim Crowley, right halfback Don Miller, and fullback Elmer Layden had run rampant through Irish opponents' defenses since coach Knute Rockne devised the lineup in 1922 during their sophomore season. During the three-year tenure of the Four Horsemen, Notre Dame lost only two games; one each in 1922 and 1923, both to Nebraska in Lincoln before packed houses. ==Naming== The foursome needed some help from Grantland Rice, a sportswriter for the former ''New York Herald Tribune'', to achieve football immortality. After Notre Dame's 13–7 upset victory over a strong Army team, on October 18, 1924, Rice penned "the most famous football lead of all-time":〔Maraniss, 1999 pg. 35〕
George Strickler, then Rockne's student publicity aide and later sports editor of the ''Chicago Tribune'', made sure the name stuck. He had pitched the idea out loud at the halftime of the Army game in the press box as a tie in to the 1921 Rudolph Valentino movie ''The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.''〔Dufresne, Chris - When they were riding high. Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2007〕 After the team arrived back in South Bend, he posed the four players, dressed in their uniforms, on the backs of four horses from a livery stable in town. The wire services picked up the now-famous photo, and the legendary status of the Four Horsemen was assured.〔 "At the time, I didn't realize the impact it would have," Crowley said later. "But the thing just mushroomed. After the splurge in the press, the sports fans of the nation got interested in us along with other sportswriters. Our record helped, too. If we'd lost a couple. I don't think we would have been remembered." After that win over Army, Notre Dame's third straight victory of the young season, the Irish were rarely threatened the rest of the year. A 27–10 win over Stanford in the 1925 Rose Bowl gave Rockne and Notre Dame the national championship and a 10–0 record. As it usually is with legends, the Four Horsemen earned their spot in gridiron history. Although none of the four stood taller than six feet or weighed more than 162 pounds, they played 30 games as a unit and only lost to one team, Nebraska, twice. They played at a time when there were no separate offensive and defensive teams. All players had to play both sides. Once a player left the field, he could not come back into the game. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Four Horsemen (American football)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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