Picture it: Voss, Norway. Snow curling off the rooftops like whipped cream. A young boy, Knute Rockne, sharp-eyed, wired like a coiled spring. Fast-forward: Chicago, 1890s. Smoke, steel, railroads screaming into the future. The Rocknes arrive, lured by the World’s Fair—a glittering promise in a land of motion.
By episode seven of 200 Norwegians, the boy from Voss is no longer just a boy. He’s the myth-in-the-making. The man who would turn football from a bloodbath into a ballet. The Protestant walking into the heart of Catholic Notre Dame. The chemist who cooked up strategy like it was alchemy. The forward pass? He didn’t invent it—but he sold it to America, made it sing, made it fly.
Jim Lefebvre, author of Coach for a Nation, joins the ride to unpack it all: the Viking grit, the immigrant hustle, the locker-room gospel. Rockne wasn’t just a coach—he was an architect of identity, building an American religion in cleats and helmets.
He died in a plane crash. A nation wept. Flight regulations changed. But his legend? Immortal.
Listen in. It’s not just about football. It’s about invention, and how a football game is more than just a game.
Listen to episodes as they are released at the 200 Norwegian podcast website and on these podcast streaming apps:
Check Vesterheim’s blog every two weeks or subscribe on the apps to hear further episodes as we celebrate this anniversary year!
200 Norwegians is a podcast series by Fredrik Kalstveit featuring 200 stories of Norwegians who have shaped American history over the last two centuries.
This biweekly podcast is made in conjunction with Vesterheim Museum, and with support from the Norway House Foundation in San Francisco.
Listen to episodes as they are released at the 200 Norwegian podcast website and on these podcast streaming apps:
Check Vesterheim’s blog every two weeks or subscribe on the apps to hear further episodes as we celebrate this anniversary year!
Fredrik Kalstveit is a freelance Norwegian journalist and photographer covering tech, culture, politics, and Norwegian Americans. He is based in San Francisco, California. He has written for many publications, including TV 2 Norway, Aftenposten, Dagens Næringsliv, A-magasinet, and Vesterheim Magazine. He is author of the book Norske cowboyer: En reise gjennom ville vesten (Norwegian cowboys: A journey through the wild west), published in Norwegian.