The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The prophecy in the Book of Revalation, Chapter Six, foretold of a dreadful time when the world would witness horror and devastation… and this evil would be delivered by four horsemen. These horsemen represented war, famine, pestilence and death.

This symbolism was not lost on Grantland Rice, one of the most eloquent sports scribes of the 20th Century. Here are his words describing the events that transpired on the Polo Gounds between the varsity squads of Army and Notre Dame on October 18, 1924…

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

And with those words the legendary “Four Horsemen of Notre Dame” would forever be enshrined in the lexicon of sport.

Now this you should know about football… When Grantland Rice was covering football the backfield on offense consisted of four players: a quarterback, a fullback and two halfbacks. These were the positions of the Four Horsemen.

Today, backfields number no more than three and sometimes only two: a quarterback and a halfback (now called a tailback).

But the “concept” of Four Horsemen lives on… but it has now shifted to the defensive side of the scrimmage line where the four “down linemen” stand to bring havoc and destruction to the opposing offenses.

In the 60s the Rams from Los Angeles sported a defensive line of Deacon Jones, Roosevelt Grier, Merlin Olsen and Lamar Lundy… and the Four Horsemen became transformed into the “Fearsome Foursome.”

But the artist’s conception, seen above, of this heroic quartet of defenders is titled “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” drawing on the earlier images spun by Grantland Rice.

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