one for the Gipper

one for the Gipper

An action taken in honor of someone else. The phrase refers to celebrated Notre Dame football player George Gipp ("the Gipper"). Several years after Gipp's death at age 25, Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne urged his team to "win one for the Gipper." I heard your staff really worked hard to meet the last sales goal before you retired—one for the Gipper, I suppose.
See also: Gipper, one
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • Gipper
  • win one for the Gipper
  • blow (someone or something) to kingdom come
  • blow someone/something to kingdom come
  • blow to kingdom come
  • blow, send, etc. somebody to kingdom come
  • blast (someone or something) to kingdom come
  • kingdom
  • joke is on
  • do a Melba
References in periodicals archive
HARRISBURG Harrisburg head coach Red Stafford admits that as his team trailed by three runs going into the bottom of the seventh, there was no "win one for the Gipper" speech.
The star player supposedly told his coach: "Someday, when the team is up against it, and the breaks are beating the boys, tell 'em to go out there with everything they've got, and win just one for the Gipper."
As with a lot of sports movies based on real life, it played a little loose with the facts, including that "win one for the Gipper" speech that may or may not have actually happened.
In the years since, candidates have tapped pop culture to varying degrees: President Gerald Ford made a pre-filmed cameo on "Saturday Night Live" in the midst of the 1976 primary campaign; Ronald Reagan, the first actor to become president, used a signature line from one of his movies--"Go win one for the Gipper"--as a call to action for his campaign; and Bill Clinton played the saxophone on "The Arsenio Hall Show" during the 1992 race.
Reagan played George Gipp and rallied the troops by announcing, "Win one for the Gipper." Another line, Weisberg says, rings truer: "I don't like people to get too close to me," Gipp tells Rockne's wife.
"Beau all along thought that I should run and I could win," he said.AaAaAeAeAaAeAeA there was not what was sort of made out as kind of this Hollywood-esque thing that at the last minute Beau grabbed my hand and said, 'Dad, you've got to run, like, win one for the Gipper.'"
Whenever football coaching legend Lou Holtz's team was the underdog, he wouldn't implore his players to "give it all you've got," or "win one for the Gipper." Instead, he would ask each player to stand up and specifically commit to what he would do during the game to help achieve a win.
In spite of that lingering question, however, Reagan's Mythical America will prove to be a classic for Reagan scholars; it certainly wins one for the Gipper.
"This is not, 'Win one for the Gipper,' " Aliotti said.
The Irish had a famous catch phrase - "Win one for the Gipper" - that became shorthand for any situation in which a team sought victory in honor of a fallen comrade.
As Marx would say, everyone needs to step up to the plate and do their best to win one for the Gipper.
THE GIPPER: GEORGE GIPP, KNUTE ROCKNE AND THE DRAMATIC RISE OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL provides a fine story of the legend of George Gipp, and comes from a veteran sportswriter and Pulitzer Prize nominee who shows readers what it means to 'win one for the Gipper'.
SOME British golf hacks were wondering if they heard right when an American journalist asked US captain Corey Pavin which one of his players were likely to go out with the attitude of, 'Let's win one for the Gipper.' They say the only two things dividing us from the United States is the Atlantic and the English language - but what on earth is, Gipper?
The one sixth of the workforce that's underemployed or flat out of work though is likely taking one for the Gipper here, befuddled by the numbers and perhaps on the verge of consulting tarot to unmask the voodoo.
Wargin is the author of The Legend of Sleeping Bear Win One for the Gipper and The Legend of the Loon which won the International Reading Association Children's Choice Award.