The Spiral Pass → Notre Dame → Mother's Day → Mothers' Pensions → Old-Age Pensions → Social Security → The New Deal

That's an extraordinary arc for one person's life.

And there's an important historical nuance: Hering wasn't “the man who invented Social Security.” Rather, he was one of the early leaders of a grassroots movement that spent decades arguing that Americans shouldn't have to spend their old age in poverty or depend on charity. That movement became part of the political groundwork upon which Roosevelt and the New Deal built the federal Social Security system.

So, “Who is the modern-day Frank Hering?”

That's actually a really good question for the Eagles today.

The modern-day Frank Hering wouldn't necessarily be somebody who invents a football play or creates a holiday. It would be an Eagle who sees a social problem decades before government catches up with it, organizes ordinary people through the Aeries, develops a practical solution, and then takes that idea from the local lodge to the statehouse and eventually to Washington.

That's essentially what Hering and the Eagles did with economic security for ordinary Americans.

What is today's equivalent of the problem Hering saw in 1904 and the Eagles tackled for the next 30 years? Universal Healthcare?

Frank E. Hering: a man who helped change America

🏈 Football pioneer — 1890s: While playing for Amos Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago, Hering is the first known player documented as throwing an overhand spiral. It wasn't yet the legal forward pass; it was a lateral throw on a punt return. But it was an important step in the evolution of the modern passing game.

🎓 Early Notre Dame football: He went on to Notre Dame, where he was a player, captain and coach and became an important figure in the development of Notre Dame football.

🌹 Mother's Day — 1904: Hering made what the Eagles recognize as the “First Public Plea” for a national day honoring mothers. He then used the Eagles' growing grassroots organization to spread the idea nationwide.

👵 Mothers' and old-age pensions: This is where Hering's story becomes particularly significant. The Eagles moved from advocating for mothers' pensions into a decades-long campaign for old-age pensions and economic security. A congressional hearing in 1935 described the Ohio pension law as the culmination of a three-decade Eagles campaign “led by Frank E. Hering.

Social Security: The Eagles didn't write the Social Security Act by themselves, and Hering wasn't the sole architect of it. But their pension campaign helped build the political movement that preceded it. The Social Security Administration itself acknowledged that the Eagles' campaigning helped produce the first old-age pension laws in Montana and Nevada.

🏛️ The New Deal: In 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal transformed many of these ideas into a federal system, and FDR signed the Social Security Act into law. Social Security became the defining reform of the Second New Deal.