Notre Dame All-American Thom Gatewood headlines 2023 Rockne Award winners
Former Notre Dame All-America wide receiver Thom Gatewood will receive the Rockne Living Legend Award at the seventh-annual Knute Rockne Spirit of Sports Awards Celebration on Sept. 22 at Notre Dame.
The event, presented by the Knute Rockne Memorial Society, will take place at the Smith Ballroom of the Morris Inn on campus, starting with a social hour with buffet dining at 11 a.m., followed by the awards program from noon to 1:30 p.m. Information and registration is at: www.RockneSociety.org.
The Notre Dame football team hosts Ohio State the following evening.
Gatewood, is a College Football Hall-of-Famer who served as the first Black captain in Notre Dame football history in 1971. He was also an academic All-American who went on to a successful career in broadcasting. He won both an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award for his work in television news and sports. He and his wife, Susan, have resided in South Bend for the past several years.
Gatewood joins past Rockne Award winners, a list that includes Ara Parseghian, Rocky Bleier, Brian Boulac, Johnny Lujack, Muffet McGraw, Luther Bradley, Alan Page, Barry Alvarez, Mike McCoy, Aaron Taylor, John Huarte, John Carney and Kory Minor.
The rest of the 2023 Rockne Awards are:
Champion: Notre Dame men’s lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan, whose 2023 team won the school’s first national championship in the sport.
Communicator: Jack Nolan, who became “the voice of Notre Dame” while broadcasting Fighting Irish sports over a four-decade career.
Community Leader: South Bend businessman and philanthropist Michael Leep Sr., known for his decades-long support of many causes and charities.
Distinguished Service: Larry Dwyer, who has served as assistant director of bands and head of jazz studies at Notre Dame since 2001.
Heritage: An expert on Notre Dame football history, Jim Augustine curates artifacts at his “part-store, part-museum” Augie’s Locker Room.
Leadership: Notre Dame’s senior deputy athletics director Missy Conboy, who has overseen virtually every area of operation in 35 years in the department.
Also honored will be 2019 Rockne Distinguished Service Award winner Patrick “Murf” Murphy, long-time Morris Inn bartender, who suffered a heart attack on the day of the 2019 Rockne Awards and was unable to attend.
The 2023 Rockne Awards are hosted by award-winning South Bend sportscaster Allison Hayes, the well-known host of ABC57 Kickoff.
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