OFD Book Club: “Shake Down the Thunder” #3

Graphic by Brendan McAlinden / @verypirateyWelcome back to the One Foot Down Book Club, where we are reading Murray Sperber’s “Shake Down the Thunder” (Amazon, B&N, IU Press, eBay). This is the third meeting of the club, and we’ll cover Chapters 8-11 today.

Father James A. Burns and football coach Jesse Harper both made high stakes bets. Father Burns’ paid off handsomely, while Harper’s was a severe miscalculation.

Burns, the first Notre Dame president with a doctorate, wanted to make his university “the Yale of the West” and sought accreditation from the most powerful agency at the time, the North Central Association.

The NCA’s basic standards included “a productive endowment of not less than…