Grant - I did it my way: a remarkable journey to the hall of fame

To my wife, Pat. Couldnt have done it without you.

Contents

Foreword by Sid Hartman

Bud Grant and I formally met on the first day he attended college at the University of Minnesota, which also happened to be my first day assigned to the Gophers sports beat. But I had first introduced myself to him when he was a member of the Great Lakes basketball team that had played the Gophers at Williams Arena in 1945. Fortunately for me, I got a good introduction from his coach, Weeb Ewbank, who was the basketball coach at Great Lakes and later coached the New York Jets football team in the Super Bowl.

For Bud and me to become best friends seemed unlikely. He was one of the best athletes ever developed at Superior Central High School; I was a rookie reporter who never graduated high school and never went to college. But we hit it off right away. For a good part of four years, we had many of our meals together during the school year and spent a lot of time together.

In the summertime I occasionally drove him to baseball games. Bud was a great athlete. He once pitched two games in one dayat Gordon, Wisconsin, in the afternoon and at Rice Lake in the evening. I traveled with the Gophers football and basketball teams, so we saw each other then, too. When he finished his three-sport career at Minnesota and was ready to graduate, I was running the Minneapolis Lakers. He made his debut with the Lakers on Christmas night, 1949. His very first basket was from half court, right before the end of the first half. He went on to play on the Lakers NBA championship team.

Remembering Bud from his football prowess with the Gophers, the place came apart. Anyone who saw him will never forget it. Bud played two years with the Lakers before turning to pro football as a first-round draft choice of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Considering his college career, I think he and David Winfield were the two greatest all-around athletes ever to play for the Gophers. Bud was an All-American football player playing on both offense and defense as a wide receiver and defensive end. He pitched for the baseball team and he was a starting forward on the basketball team. Bernie Bierman, former Gophers coach, once told me that Bud was one of the smartest players he had ever coached and that he didnt recall him ever making a mistake. As a basketball player, he was very physical, and as a Laker he made one of the most important baskets of his career. Bud scored with only seconds to go in a playoff game, sending his team into overtime against Syracuse. The Lakers went on to win the NBA championship that season.

Grant had a reputation of being a very stoic person who wouldnt pull tricks on people, but he was just the opposite. There was the time he put a pet squirrel in my glove compartment when we were driving to spend a weekend at his home in Superior. There was another time, while driving on a highway, when I felt something crawl up my knee, and it was that pet squirrel again.

One year Bud and I went to Buds home on New Years Eve and left after midnight to return to the Twin Cities. We had a flat tire and spent part of the night in the car keeping warm while we strategized how we were going to make it home. It all worked out eventually, but it wasnt a good start to the new year for the garage mechanic who helped us out in the early morning hours of New Years Day. It was just another of our adventuresthis time in a car I had borrowed with no spare tire.

The last career I would have thought Bud would pursue was coaching. He never talked about it during his college career. Being the great hunter and sportsman that he is, I always thought he would have a career connected to the outdoors.

He was 29 years old in 1967 when he got the Winnipeg job, coaching the Blue Bombers. Unfortunately, his father died in Pasadena, California, never knowing that Bud got the job. Another secret that few people know is that Bud was the Vikings first choice as head coach of the expansion team, but he decided to stay up in Winnipeg after taking the job. It turned out to be a fantastic decision, as he coached the team to six Grey Cups, winning four of them, before joining the Vikings.

Many people in the media couldnt understand how we could have a relationship while he was coaching the Vikings and I was a columnist covering the team. The truth is, I wrote several storiesespecially about players being added to the team and players being cutbefore he released the information to the press. I didnt get them from Bud, but from other sources I had. He understood that I had a job to do, and I understood that he had a job to do. In fact, he favored another writera young man named Ralph Reeve, who covered the Vikings for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and likely gave him a lot more tips than he gave me.

I made one great contribution to Buds long coaching career: I helped him sign Kenny Ploen, a former Iowa All-American who went on to lead Buds Blue Bombers to several Grey Cups. I had a great relationship with the Iowa coaching staff, especially head coach Forest Evashevski and Jerry Burns, who later became a longtime assistant and then head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. They helped convince Ploen to play pro football in Winnipeg, when he had other plans to become an engineer.

Bud did give me one big scoop when he decided to retire from coaching the first time. He and Mike Lynn asked me to join them on a trip to California. They told me they were going to make a big deal with Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders. I joined them on the plane, and finally they admitted they just wanted me to go to Hawaii with them. They would see Max Winter, president of the Vikings, to break the news to him personally, and I would write the story from there. I broke one of the biggest stories ever to appear in our paper. When Bud decided to come back to coaching, I wasnt as fortunate. The news leaked, and Dark Star, a local media personality, broke the story.

Probably one of the biggest honors of my life was when Bud called me and asked me to be presenter at his induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I never expected that. In my opinion, it was unfortunate that they didnt put him in the Hall of Fame the year before; it could have gotten a lot more local attention, since the Super Bowl was held that year in Minneapolis.

At the Hall of Fame, it seemed as if every honoree cried when they made their speech. I was sitting next to former Dallas head coach Tom Landry, who was a presenter like me, and I made a friendly bet with him that Bud, being as stoic as he is, would not cry. But like others on the platform, he broke down, too. Ill never forget when he remarked what his father would have said had he been there: The kid made it. The kid made it.

Personally, we have long been close. After many home games, I would be a guest at the Grant home in Bloomington, where his wife, Pat, would cook goulash as good as any cook ever made. After not going to Pats house for a long time for her special goulash, she kept on insisting that I come over. The night I finally showed up was the last goulash she ever cooked. She went to the hospital the next day and died shortly thereafter. She was an unbelievable mother who raised six great kids and was a perfect wife for a coach, which takes a certain type of person. She will be missed.

Buds and my relationship hasnt changed much over the years. I often consulted with Bud to get his opinion on various decisions that I had to make. That included buying my home on the St. Croix; he went out and took a look at it and gave it his okay. We still make some trips up to his cabin in Gordon, Wisconsinwhich he and a friend originally bought for $100. Today it is a beautiful lake, and there is a second lake that is completely private.