The film also includes cameos by football coaches "Pop" Warner, Amos Alonzo Stagg, William H. Spaulding and Howard Jones, playing themselves.

His son, Knute, saves up his money and enrolls in college at the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana, where he plays football.

After graduation, Rockne marries his sweetheart Bonnie Skiles and stays on at Notre Dame to teach chemistry, work on synthetic rubber in the chemistry lab (under Father Julius Nieuwland) and, in his spare time, serve as an assistant coach of the Fighting Irish football team under head coach Jesse Harper.

Gipp is stricken with a fatal illness after the final game of the 1920 season, and on his death bed, he encourages Rockne to someday tell the team to "win one for the Gipper."

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film "one of the best pictures for boys in years" and wrote that O'Brien conveyed "a valid impression of an iron-willed, dynamic and cryptic fellow who could very well be 'Rock.'

"[5] Variety called the film "one of the best biographical picturizations ever turned out ... Pat O'Brien delivers a fine characterization of the immortal Rockne, catching the spirit of the role with an understanding of the human qualities of the man.

"[8] John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that the story had been "suitably handled for its public of energetic young people and South Bend alumni.