Red grange

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Red grange
Red Grange 1925.jpg
Red grange
Positions:
Halfback , Defensive Back
Jersey number (s):
77
born June 13, 1903 in Forksville , Pennsylvania
died on January 28, 1991 Lake Wales , Florida
Career information
Active : 1925 - 1934
College : University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Teams
Career statistics
Games (NFL)     96
Starter (NFL)     63
Touchdowns (NFL)     32
Stats at NFL.com
Stats at pro-football-reference.com
Career highlights and awards
Pro Football Hall of Fame
College Football Hall of Fame

Harold Edward "Red" Grange (* 13. June 1903 in Forksville , Pennsylvania ; † 28. January 1991 in Lake Wales , Florida ) Nickname : The Galloping Ghost was a US American football poker players in the National Football League ( NFL).

youth

Born the third child of a foreman at a logging camp , Grange first grew up in Pennsylvania. He still had three brothers. After his family moved to Wheaton , Illinois , his father became the city's police chief . His mother died when he was five years old and he and his brothers were raised by his father. Grange enjoyed a strict upbringing, but was supported by his father in his athletic ambitions. During an examination of six-year-old Grange, the doctor found unusual heart murmurs. He shouldn't actually take part in any sporting activities. His father doubted this diagnosis , took the boy to another doctor, whose diagnosis was negative. The boy was healthy and was therefore able to play American football at school, but also other sports. Already in high school , Grange developed into a fast runner, he completed the 100- yard distance in 9.8 seconds.

Player career

College career

Grange attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . His family and he himself had to pay for his studies. In high school, Grange had worked on the side and earned the money to study. This work almost marked the end of his young career. When unloading blocks of ice from a truck, the heavy vehicle rolled over his leg, but it was not severed - he was able to recover quickly from his injury. Grange was forced to study at a nearby college due to financial difficulties .

Jim Thorpe

Grange played in college from 1923 to 1925. In 1923 his team became champions in their league. He set numerous records during his season in Urbana-Champaign and was then considered the best college football player of all time, which was confirmed by the American television channel ESPN when they were voted in 2008 . In 1924 he was directly involved in one of the most legendary games in college football history. His team played against the University of Michigan in front of over 66,000 spectators . Grange carried the first ball of the game as a kickoff return 95 yards into the Michigan end zone . He scored four more touchdowns over 67, 54, 44 and 13 yards, threw a touchdown pass and thus contributed to the 39:14 victory of his team. The three-time All-American Grange developed into a nationally known football star who regularly filled the football stadiums and thus aroused the desires of the professional teams, which were then still a marginal phenomenon in football and received little public notice. The last game of Grange in college sport was watched by 90,000 spectators, one day after he announced - after his manager had received the assurance that he would be involved in the future viewer income - he wanted to continue playing as a professional.

The playing style of Grange, whose great role model was Jim Thorpe , was described by the American sports journalist Grantland Rice as follows:

“Grange runs like Nurmi , moves like Dempsey , almost effortlessly, scurrying, whizzing and darting around like shadows. There is no gathering of strength for one last additional push. There is only this playful, ghost-like snaking and gliding on feather-light legs, with a body that can detach itself from the hips in a change of speed, then comes to a stop and immediately picks up the previous speed again, all in a perfect interplay of the brain and muscular system. "

Grange got his nickname from another Chicago sports journalist - Warren Brown , who was also a writer at the time and who was employed by the Chicago Herald-Examiner .

Professional career

Five days after his last college game, Grange played in front of the NFL record crowd of 36,000 for the George Halas- trained Chicago Bears during the current season . The game against the Chicago Cardinals ended 0-0. The other games also generated considerable audience income. The last game of the season was played at the New York Giants in front of 65,000 spectators (according to other sources in front of 73,000 spectators), brought the Bears a 19: 7 victory and saved the Giants in financial difficulties from ruin.

George Halas
Ernie Nevers

The season was also a complete success for Grange financially. Its share of the gate receipts amounted to 100,000 US dollars , of which, however, his manager kept 50% for himself. For a professional football player that was a huge sum. Usually players were paid per game and the fee rarely exceeded $ 100 for a game. The Bears were also impressed by their economic success and added a guest tour to the season. In terms of sport, the trip was not very successful, economically it brought Grange additional income totaling 100,000 US dollars. In addition, Grange made two silent films One Minute to Play and A Racing Romeo , which brought him another income.

After the financially successful first season, Grange's career took a turn. Grange did not have a direct player contract with the Bears, but was contractually tied to his manager Charlie Pyle. Pyle demanded from the 1926 season in addition to the usual participation in the viewer income, a third of co-ownership in the Bears, which was rejected by Halas and his co-owner all around. Pyle therefore decided in 1926 to found a competing league, which, however, had to stop playing again a year later due to financial difficulties. The new professional team from Grange, the New York Yankees , was taken over into the NFL after this year, but also went bankrupt after another year of play. To make matters worse for Grange was that he seriously injured his knee in a game against the Bears in 1927 and therefore had to sit out in 1928.

After his two-year stint with the New York Yankees , where he had mostly played as a blocking back , Grange returned to the Bears in 1929 ruefully. However, Grange had lost his sole dominance in the NFL and the Bears. His knee injury sustained in 1927 had made him difficult to maneuver and prevented him from playing. The Bears' NFL competing team, the Chicago Cardinals, brought another football star to Chicago in 1929, Ernie Nevers . Furthermore, from 1930, Bronko Nagurski, a new college football star with the Bears, was under contract, who should develop into a top player in professional sport.

Grange and Nagurski did not see themselves as competitors and complemented each other perfectly, with Grange getting more playing time in the defense of the Bears. 1932 was signed by the Bears with the end Bill Hewitt , another later member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and it followed the first championship. In 1933 the Bears were able to win their second championship. The Bears were able to defeat the Giants in the final with 23:21, but had to admit defeat to the Giants with 13:30 in the following year, after they had won all of their 13 games in the regular season . Grange retired in 1935. In an unofficial football game, he was caught and tumbled by a normally much slower linebacker while running . He therefore decided to end his career.

Honors

Red Grange Field in Wheaton

Grange was voted All Pro three times . He is a member of the NFL 1920s All-Decade Team , in the Hall of Fame of his colleges in the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame since 1963 in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and since 1951 in the College Football Hall of Fame . His number has been banned from the Bears and his college. For the 100th anniversary of college football, Grange was elected by American sports journalists as the only player in the All-American team in 1969 without dissenting votes. The Sporting News magazine named him one of the Top 100 Professional Football Players of All Time. A high school stadium in his hometown was named after him. The football team there bears his name. His college placed a bronze statue of Grange at the stadium. In 1978 he performed the coin toss at Super Bowl XII . Up until this point, this was done exclusively by the referees. ESPN TV channel named Grange one of the top 100 North American athletes of all time.

Red Grange (above) as a reporter, 1955

Off the field

In addition to his two feature films, Grange shot a 12-part series called The Galloping Ghost in 1931 . In addition, he worked until 1963 as an analyst for games by the Bears, as well as college football games, for American radio and television. Grange met his future wife during a flight in 1941 , who was a stewardess for the airline . The couple remained childless. In addition to his work as an analyst, Grange became a successful businessman and worked in insurance and real estate. Red Grange Garland's brother was under contract with the Bears as a football player from 1929 to 1931. Grange suffered from Parkinson's disease in the last few years of his life and died of a heart attack . His body was cremated. The grave site is unknown.

literature

  • Jens Plassmann: NFL - American Football. The game, the stars, the stories (= Rororo 9445 rororo Sport ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-19445-7 .
  • Red Grange: The Red Grange Story. To Autobiography. University of Illinois Press, Urbana IL 1993, ISBN 0-252-06329-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ESPN's list of top college football players
  2. Annual statistics of the Bears 1932
  3. Annual statistics of the Bears 1933
  4. Annual statistics of the Bears 1934
  5. Red Grange at number 80 on the list ( memento of the original from January 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tsn.sportingnews.com
  6. Statue of Red Grange, Genesis
  7. picture of the statue
  8. Red Grange at number 28 on the list ( Memento from December 2, 2000 in the Internet Archive )
  9. Grange's tomb in Find a Grave