Legal Squabble Over The Gipper's Body

A legal squabble over the exhumation of Notre Dame football hero George Gipp's remains may have hit a dead end.

The Michigan Court of Appeals last month refused to hear an appeal of a Houghton County judge's decision to reject a lawsuit filed by two men who say they are distant cousins of Gipp.

Ron Gipp and Karl Gipp, who live near George Gipp's boyhood home in the Upper Peninsula, sued in November 2007.

The previous month, his body had been removed from a cemetery near Laurium to determine whether he had fathered a child out of wedlock before dying in 1920.

DNA testing produced negative results.

The lawsuit accused those responsible for the exhumation of trespassing. Other family members said the testing was justified.

Gipp died at the age of 25 of a throat infection, days after leading Notre Dame to a win.

In 1940, Ronald Reagan played the doomed football star in "Knute Rockne: All-American" in which he wanted his teammates to "win just one for the Gipper."