win one for the Gipper

win one for the Gipper

To pursue success or victory in honor of someone else. This set 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." Let's work hard to meet the last sales goal before Jim retires—let's win one for the Gipper!
See also: Gipper, one, win
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • Gipper
  • one for the Gipper
  • blow (someone or something) to kingdom come
  • blow someone/something to kingdom come
  • blow to kingdom come
  • joke is on
  • kingdom
  • blast (someone or something) to kingdom come
  • blow, send, etc. somebody to kingdom come
  • 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.
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.
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.
"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'.
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.
In the 1940 film, Knute Rockne, All American, which film star delivered the line: "Win one for the Gipper."?
At half time of a scoreless college football game between the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and Army on November 12, 1928, coach Knute Rockne delivered his famous "Win one for the Gipper!" speech.
Now, this wasn't a "Win one for the Gipper" speech; this was a "Get out of my office because you begged me for this job" speech.
Publicly slaughtering them, as he did here, might not be the best way to get them to go out and win one for the gipper when they take on Hearts tomorrow night.
Souder, a fundamentalist Protestant who has previously sponsored legislation that would ban gays and lesbians from adopting children in D.C., initiated his support for the dime act in a "Dear Colleague" letter, "Win One for the Gipper," that excoriated the CBS program as "vile." House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has signed on to the bill, which argues that Reagan should replace Roosevelt because of the Gipper's "work in restoring American greatness and bringing freedom to captive nations abroad."