Gus Dorais

Charles Emile "Gus" Dorais (July 2, 1891 in Chippewa Falls, WI – January 3, 1954 in Birmingham, MI), was a football player and coach at the collegiate level and a coach at the professional level. Dorais developed into one of football's foremost students and tutors, a man possessed with untiring devotion to the sport. Although he and Knute Rockne would be recognized as one of the finest passing tandems of all time (during their time at Notre Dame), it would be as a coach, not as a player, that Dorais would gain election into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Collegiate career

Dorais, who arrived at Notre Dame from Chippewa Falls, Wis., in the summer of 1910, started four seasons for the Irish at quarterback, but it was during his senior season that he became part of college football history.

During the summer of 1913, Dorais and his Notre Dame teammate Knute Rockne worked as lifeguards and busboys at Cedar Point Resort in Sandusky, Ohio. During their free time there, the story goes, the duo practiced passing on the beach with Dorais throwing to Rockne, an end.

"We mastered the technique of catching the football with hands relaxed and tried to master the more difficult feat of catching it with one hand," Rockne later wrote.

The Irish, 17-1-3 in Dorais' first three seasons as a starter, outscored their first three opponents in 1913 by a margin of 169-7. On November 1, 1913, the Irish—still known mainly in the Midwest at the time despite just one loss in three seasons—traveled to West Point to face heavily-favored Army with a roster size of only eighteen players.

Although Dorais and Rockne are often credited with inventing the forward pass that day against the Cadets, the maneuver had been legal since 1906—and had been used effectively as a weapon in several less high-profile situations and at less high-profile programs. In 1952, Dorais himself was trying to set the record straight, telling the United Press that "Eddie Cochems of the St. Louis University team of 1906-07-08 deserves the full credit."^[1]

Dorais first completed a pass to Rockne two seasons before. But on that day, Dorais, an Irish co-captain and the first Irish player named consensus All-America, completed 14 of 17 passes for 243 yards and three touchdowns. At the time, his 40-yard pass to Rockne was the longest pass ever completed, and after taking a 14-13 halftime lead, Notre Dame pulled away from a confused Army team for a 35-13 victory that changed the landscape of college football and lifted the Irish out of obscurity.

From that point forward, no longer was the forward pass an obscure weapon, or a little-used gimmick to be used when trailing late in games. "The press and the football public hailed this new game, and Notre Dame received credit as the originator of a style of play that we simply systematized," Rockne said.

In addition to playing quarterback, Dorais was also the team's placekicker.

Coaching career

He and Rockne were roommates at Notre Dame, and in their coaching days, Dorais served as an assistant under Rockne. Dorais became head coach at Loras College 1914-17, assistant at Notre Dame 1919, head coach at Gonzaga 1920-24 and the University of Detroit 1925-42, with an overall record at Detroit of 113 wins, 48 losses, and 7 ties.

Dorais was the college team coach for the 1937 College All-Star Game, in which college seniors played against the NFL championship team. With Sammy Baugh at quarterback, this was the first All-Star team to beat the pros. He also coached the Detroit Lions 1943-47.

His real name was Charles, but he was always called "Gus."

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