Although born in the New York City area,[2] the group quickly spread to Scranton, Philadelphia,[3] Boston, Chicago and the rest of the country.
[4] In 1913, led by Coach Jesse Harper, Notre Dame football set out to expand past their mid-western roots and scheduled games with national powerhouses Texas, Penn State and Army.
On November 1, 1913, led by quarterback Charles “Gus” Dorais and end Knute Rockne Notre Dame stunned the Black Knights on the Hudson, by a final score of 35–13 at West Point.
In the 1920s, Notre Dame alumnus Francis Wallace popularized the often used nickname of “Fighting Irish” when referring to the team in his New York Daily News columns.
The victory over Army not only focused more attention on Notre Dame but boosted the spirits of tens of thousands of Irish Catholics throughout the country – many of whom had never set foot on a college campus but had become enamored of a team and a university with which they now had a common bond.
The second game, played in Manhattan on October 18, 1924, at the Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants baseball team, attracted a larger crowd, a capacity gathering of 55,000.