When it became clear that Deacon Jerry (Lefty) Devine and I were approaching the finish line for our book, The Nine Devines of Chippewa Falls, we needed to settle on a date for publication. We eventually landed on November 25th, 2024. What better timing for a story about family, football, and resilience than the start of Thanksgiving week?
There was something about the significance of 2024, however, that I knew I was missing. It finally dawned on me: Dan Devine was born on December 23rd, 1924, making this year his 100th birthday. I wish I could say this timing was all part of the plan.
One of the reasons Lefty and I embarked on this journey was to reexamine the remarkable legacy of Dan Devine. Despite his incredible run of success at the upper echelon of his profession, he remains one of the more underappreciated and misrepresented figures in college football history. One need to look no further than the myth of Dan Devine’s dog or how he is portrayed in the iconic sports film, Rudy, to appreciate how public perception can be misleading.
While hardly surprising that a grandson (me) and a brother (Lefty) would want to set the record straight, what is astonishing is that two other authors had the exact same motivation.
Earlier this year, the noted sportswriter, Tom Shanahan released his book, The Right Thing to Do, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration. Shanahan dedicates three chapters to Devine’s role in recruiting and elevating Black athletes well before it was commonplace or widely accepted. The three chapters focus on each of Devine’s college head coaching tenures at Arizona State, Missouri, and Notre Dame. In a blog post, Shannahan displays a photo of how he inscribed many of his books at recent signing at the Notre Dame bookstore: “Learn about the real Dan Devine.”
500 miles southwest of South Bend, Indiana, Brendon Steenbergen also had Devine on the brain. A former employee of the University of Missouri, Steenbergen chronicles Dan Devine’s 1960 football season in his book Respectable Roughnecks. Consider one of the best, if not the best, Missouri team in history, the 1960 squad was one game away and some Kansas shenanigans from winning the National Championship. In the synopsis of the book, Steenbergen writes, “Respectable Roughnecks captures the inspiring personal determination of Coach Dan Devine, his leadership and demand of excellence from his players and coaches.”
Steenbergen had hoped to have released the book in 2017, but delays (which I can completely relate to) caused the book to come out this year. This fact has led to a probability defying development: After hardly a mention of his name over the last couple of decades, three books – all independently created and without any effort at coordinating – will be released in the year Dan Devine turns 100.
My father used to have a saying, “there is no coincidence, only morphic resonance.” That was Dr. Syed Arshad Husain’s way of saying all things are interconnected despite the seemingly randomness of our existence. If we are to believe his theory to be correct, then the football gods have clear message for us: 2024 is the year of Dan Devine.
The Nine Devines of Chippewa Falls is available in ebook, paperback, & hardcover November 25th.
