For Elmer Layden, life was like a series of track-and-field events. Well-prepared with ample practice and preparation, he went to the starting line and when the gun went off, gave the very best of himself to the challenge at hand. Much more often than not, he came home a winner.

Born on May 4, 1903, to an active, community-involved, middle-class family in Davenport, Iowa, Elmer had a strong bond with his parents and four siblings, especially his older brother Clarence. The Layden home was the center of all sorts of activity as young Elmer grew up. The boulevard was split by a length of grass that alternately became the site of football, baseball and other games for the neighborhood youth.

At Davenport High, Elmer starred as a darting fullback, a track sprinter and a basketball sharpshooter. At the famous Drake Relays in Des Moines, Elmer and Clarence teamed with two classmates to set the high school record for the half-mile relay. Everyone figured Elmer for an all-around athlete at the University of Iowa, his father’s alma mater; however, a knee injury during Layden’s senior basketball season caused the Hawkeyes to lose some interest.

Meanwhile, his high school coach, Walter Halas, secured a coveted coaching job by joining the staff of Knute Rockne at the University of Notre Dame.

Rockne, always on the lookout for promising young coaching talent, hired Halas to assist him in football and serve as Irish head basketball coach. Walter’s older brother George was an excellent football player who got involved in organizing and coaching professional teams, including one that became the Chicago Bears. Walter told Rock about the speedy lad he had coached in Davenport, and Rockne, through Halas, told Layden to come on over to South Bend, Indiana. It seemed a long way from Davenport, but Elmer enrolled at Notre Dame.

Layden looked the part of an athlete. Well-proportioned, with a square jaw and coal-black hair parted in the middle, he struck a handsome pose. He was confident on the playing field but forever longing for his family and friends back home. Elmer missed them all.

It wasn’t long before Layden was checking out the schedules of trains headed back to Iowa. Coach Halas sensed his distress and invited Elmer to the coach’s house for a home-cooked meal. Almost on cue, there was a knock on the door, and Coach Rockne appeared. Layden and Rockne started talking and the subject of Layden’s homesickness came up.

“Son, we’ve never lost a freshman from our team yet,” the coach boasted.

Layden thought: “Mr. Rockne, your record is about to be broken.”

Rockne went on to talk about his own path in life, suggesting how lucky Layden was to be able to start college at 18 and not 22. The coach gave his philosophy on the different types of personalities. And what, Elmer wanted to know, was the outstanding characteristic of a Notre Dame player?

“Courage,” came the reply. “At Notre Dame there are no quitters.”

Also urged by his family to stay in college, Layden made his way through his freshman season in 1921. Late in the 1922 campaign, fellow sophomores Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley and Don Miller had settled into major roles as quarterback, left half and right half, respectively. Layden figured he would play out the season with spot duty behind the starting backs.

But on November 18, in a 31-3 victory over Butler at Indianapolis, senior fullback Paul Castner, the captain and star of the Irish team, suffered a broken hip. After the game, Rockne came to Layden and told him to get ready to play fullback the next week against Carnegie Tech.

“But Rock” Layden pointed out, “I only weigh 162 pounds.  And we already have two other fullbacks.” Rockne convinced Layden he was a new type of fullback – sleek and swift, able to gain yardage on quick opening plays.

The backfield that would be named The Four Horsemen was born. As juniors in 1923, the four ripped through the opposition seemingly at will, and the Irish racked up a 275-37 scoring advantage en route to a 9-1 record. Layden rushed 102 times for 420 yards and 5 touchdowns.  

Layden and his teammates came into the fall of 1924 brimming with confidence. In the third game, against rival Army, Elmer played a huge role, his numerous punts continually kept Army bottled up in its own territory. He bulled his way into the end zone from the 1-yard-line to give Notre Dame a first-half, 6-0 lead. And his second-half interception set up the Irish for the winning score in what would be a 13-7 victory.

In his typical modesty, that week Elmer wrote his romantic interest at the time that “against the Army, I played a few minutes, and was fortunate enough to score a touchdown.” Later, when Layden and the other three backs were coaxed onto work horses that had been led onto the Notre Dame practice field for a quick publicity photo, the fellows’ fame was cemented for all time as The Four Horsemen.

The Irish plowed through every challenge the rest of the season, then met Stanford in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1925.

Elmer had an afternoon for the ages. In the second quarter, he put Notre Dame ahead for good with a 3-yard touchdown run, then extended the lead to 13-3 with a 78-yard interception return. All afternoon, his punting put Stanford in difficult field position. He completed a number of passes, and gained yards rushing. But it was on defense that he etched a legacy never to be forgotten. In the fourth quarter, with Stanford again threatening, Layden intercepted a desperate heave by Ernie Nevers at the Irish 37, and summoned the energy to return it 63 yards for the final score in a 27-10 Notre Dame victory. Elmer was an easy choice as Player of the Game.

Graduating from Notre Dame with a law degree in 1925, Layden followed Rockne’s path in coaching, first with Columbia of Iowa (today’s Loras University) then on to Duquesne in Pittsburgh, where he led the Dukes to their greatest run of success. He was chosen over several former ND players to become Notre Dame head coach in 1934.

Over seven seasons, he led the Irish to a 47-13-4 record, with finishes at No. 8, No. 9, No. 5 and No. 13 in the first four years of the AP Top 20 (1936-39). Among the victories was the epic fourth-quarter comeback at Ohio State in 1935, when the Irish wiped out a 13-0 deficit to defeat the Buckeyes, 18-13.

Moreover, Layden’s years saw the football program represent the school with class and purpose. He stood for “the spirit of Notre Dame.” Described this way: “You laugh at it for two years, but it grows on you, like ivy. They don’t hand it to you when you enroll; they don’t give a course in it, but everybody gets it.”

As athletic director, Layden oversaw a great expansion of the sports offered by the school.  He worked closely with alumni across the nation to strengthen the program. As one writer noted, “He has, in a quiet way, taken up all of Rock’s duties as an ambassador of good will, and a morale builder….Layden’s success is due to a keen shrewdness, sound common sense, a fine character, and more than any other one thing, a tremendous capacity for work.”

In 1940, Layden left Notre Dame to become the first full-time commissioner of the National Football League, a position he held until 1946, when he went into private business.

Layden was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, and died in 1973 at the age of 70, beloved by generations of football fans nationwide.