The Last Chalkline: The Life & Times of Jack Chevigny

Jeff Walker’s The Last Chalkline is the biography of Jack Chevigny, Notre Dame football star who figured prominently in the “one for the Gipper” legend in Yankee Stadium and in the Notre Dame-Navy game of 1928—a game that still holds the unofficial record for attendance at Soldier Field. Later, as a coach, he led the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL and was caught in the storm of the NFL’s darkest years, the movement toward the expulsion of its African American stars. At the age of twenty-eight, Chevigny led the Texas Longhorns to the precipice of a national championship, only to have his coaching career shattered by two consecutive losing seasons in Austin. As a Marine officer, he accepted the challenge of establishing Camp Lejeune as a premier football program. Under his guidance, Camp Lejeune’s football program became the jewel of the Marines, but Chevigny, a close friend of Marine Commandant General Vandegrift, requested combat duty in 1944. Weighing the tragic cost of a man’s last full measure, The Last Chalkline is a true account of the man who inspired America’s Greatest Generation.