USC might have beaten Notre Dame for the seventh straight time in their storied rivalry Nov. 29, but it's doubtful that the legend of the Four Horsemen, who led South Bend to an undefeated season in 1924, has been tarnished.

At least in the eyes of devout University of Notre Dame fans like Jim Lefebvre, founder and publisher of Forever Irish, an online magazine celebrating the heritage of Notre Dame football. His new book, "Loyal Sons: The Story of The Four Horsemen and Notre Dame Football's 1924 Champions," not only chronicles that team's triumph on the gridiron under Coach Knute Rockne; it also shows how the fabled Four Horsemen and their teammates were a powerful counterforce to the anti-Catholicism that pervaded the nation during the Roaring '20s.

"You think of the Ku Klux Klan and you associate it with the South," the award-winning journalist and sports historian told The Tidings. "But if you look at today's political map, Indiana has always stuck out as being the lone red state, so it's definitely linked more to the South. But back in those days, the stat that blew me away was that nearly 30 percent of white males in Indiana in 1920 were members of the Klan."

The words "Catholics" and "immigrants," in fact, were almost interchangeable, according to the author. He points out that between 1900 and 1920 more than 14 million immigrants came to the United States; most of these Irish, Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks and Croatians were Roman Catholics. Many citizens not only feared the loss of "American values," but also believed the newly arrived Catholics had pledged their first allegiance to the pope.

"You've got to keep in mind that the percentage of high school graduates going on to college was relatively small, I think about 20 percent back then," Lefebvre pointed out. "So just to be in college was something special. And here you had Notre Dame - a Catholic college and, as small as it was in '24 with 1,900 male students, having the kind of success in football and national following that they did."

But the Midwest school's reputation had been tarnished early that year when the Klan hosted a tri-state rally of 25,000 members in South Bend and, as expected, ugly confrontations developed with Notre Dame students, who streamed into town from the campus. The Klansmen protested that they had been attacked by the students and ethnic ruffians during a peaceful march.

It was the college's prefect of religion, Father John O'Hara, who came up with the idea of counteracting the hooligan image of students with the winning football team, which under coach Rockne was already playing intersectional opponents across the nation.

"Father O'Hara and other university officials were keenly aware of the enormous public relations value the University could garner if Rockne's men had another outstanding football season," Lefebvre writes in "Loyal Sons." "Winning - and winning in the style of Notre Dame men - could show the American public and anyone who professed to be a reader of the Klan's Fiery Cross [publication] what Catholics and Catholic education was all about. For O'Hara, the 1924 season became a 'spiritual crusade.'"

And then after Notre Dame's 13-7 upset victory over Army on October 18, sportswriter Grantland Rice penned those poetic words for the New York Herald Tribune: "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."

The last line refers to the school's legendary backfield: quarterback Harry Stuhldreher, left halfback Jim Crowley, right halfback Don Miller and fullback Elmer Layden. No defense could stop them from the time Rockne assembled the lineup in 1922 during their sophomore season.

But it was the coach's student publicity aide, George Strickler, who made sure the name - taken from Rudolph Valentino's 1921 movie "The Four Horseman of the Apocolypse" - stuck. When the team got back to South Bend, he rented four horses from a local livery stable and posed the backfield in uniform on their backs. Wire services picked up the photo, and the legend of the Four Horsemen was cinched.

The following Jan. 1, Notre Dame beat Stanford in the Rose Bowl 27-10, giving the team a perfect 10-0 record and the school's first national championship.

Father John O'Hara went on to be president of the University of Notre Dame, stressing the value of daily Communion to students on campus. Later he would be named archbishop of Philadelphia and be elevated to cardinal in 1958.

The fabled Four Horsemen all became coaches after graduation. Layden compiled a 47-13-3 record at his alma mater over seven years. Crowley wound up at Fordham University, where his "Seven-Blocks-of-Granite" line included Vince Lombardi of Green Bay Packer fame. Stuhldreher coached at Villanova University for 11 years. And Miller coached at Georgia Tech for four years, then practiced law.

"After the Rose Bowl, newspapers wrote about how Notre Dame and the Four Horsemen had won thousands of friends for the university," observed Lefebvre. "And I think you could say that for Catholicism as well."

Photo Caption: LOYAL WORDSMITH - Jim Lefebvre spent five years researching and writing his book, Loyal Sons, about Notre Dame's fabled Four Horsemen.