The first Football Legend, his Native American name was Wa-tho-huck or Bright Path. Coached by "Pop" Warner Jim Thorpe led (that perenniel powerhouse) The Carlisle Indian Industrial School to the College Football Championship in 1912. In an 18-15 upset of Harvard Thorpe scored all his teams points. Beating Army 27-6 Thorpe ran for a 92 yard score which was called back by a Penalty, so on the next play Thorpe ran 97 yards for a TD, running over and knocking Dwight D. Eisenhower out of the game. In his spare time Jim Thorpe also played Major League Baseball, won Olympic Gold Medals in the pentathalon and decathalon, led the Canton Bulldogs to 3 pro footbal titles, served as the first president of what is now the NFL. The story I always liked: in one game Thorpe was plagued by a defender who kept giving him cheap shots. Late in the 4th Quarter, with his team assured of victory, Thorpe fielded a punt, looked up, saw this guy coming, tossed him the pigskin. The guy caught it. But then, of course, he was the ball carrier. So Thorpe tackled him. Hard. According to Legend, the guy left on a stretcher.
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Some people may argue "Johnny B. Good," but for my money "Rollover Beethoven" is the best rock 'n roll song ever written. "Roll over Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news." If there's a better line in rock 'n roll I haven't heard it.
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Legend goes a scout from Minnesota got lost, stopped to ask directions in Rainy River, Ontario, found a farm kid plowing a field. No oxen, no horse. By himself. "It's that way," said the youth, pointing -- with the plow. The scout gave him a full athletic scholarship. Red Grange, his teammate on the Chicago Bears, called Bronko Nagurski the greatest football player of all time. They said hitting him was like trying to tackle a freight train running downhill, and his biographer claims he broke more bones (Other People's Bones) than anyone who ever played. One game they had mounted police doing crowd control along the sidelines. Nagurski got pushed out of bounds, ran into a horse, knocked it over.
The best story, though, back in the days when the Goal Posts were those wooden H's on the Goal Line, they gave the ball to Bronko Nagurski, he lowered his head, dove in for a TD, hit the Goal Post, cracked it, spun, stunned, ran through the End Zone straight into a brick wall, splitting his leather helmet and giving himself a bloody nose. Walking off the field, dazed, he told a teammate: "That last guy hit me awfully hard." Is this stuff true? Who cares? When The Legend becomes fact, print the Legend.
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a.k.a. The Galloping Ghost, Red Grange worked his way through school toting blocks of ice, scored 35 touchdowns one year in high school leading his team to an undefeated championship season. He wasn't planning to play football at the University of Illinois, but in his first game he scored 3 TDs against Nebraska, leading his team (like wow, man - deja vu) to a undefeated championship season, vaulting to national prominence in a 1924 game versus Michigan, returning the opening kick-off for a 95 yard TD, then running for scores from 67, 56 and 45 yards. After which the gun went off, ending the First Quarter. George Halas signed Red Grange to the Chicago Bears the day after he got out of college, gave him a piece of the gate receipts on a 19 game, 65 day barnstorming tour across the country widely credited with legitimizing professional football in America.
George Halas once told Chris Berman Red Grange was the greatest Running Back he'd ever seen. The intrepid reporter asked the question all reporters feel compelled to ask when speaking of an old Hall of Famer: if Red Grange were playing today how many yards would he gain a year? Halas said maybe 700 or 800. Berman diplomatically pointed out that didn't sound too spectacular. "Well, son, you must remember," explained Halas, "Red Grange is now 75 years old."
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Not taking anything away from the likes of Walter Payton, Jim Brown or Barry Sanders, but Gale Sayers was maybe the best I've ever seen. Doesn't get his props 'cause he didn't last long. The Bears burned him out quick, used Sayers to do everything: run, catch, return punts and kickoffs. Only lasted 6 seasons. But the guy could fake in three directions at the same time, hips, stomach and shoulders all going different ways. It was like tackling an amoeba. Looked like guys had him, hands would reach out, but Sayers planted a foot, twisted his torso, just kinda oozed around them. In one game versus the 49ers Sayers touched the ball 14 times, scored 6 TDs: an 80 yard run from scrimmage, a 50 yarder, an 85 yard punt return. "I only wonder," the opposing Coach mused leaving the field, "what he might've done if we hadn't set our defenses to stop him."
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Talk about a singular distinction, Larry Csonka is the only player in the history of the NFL who ever got Penalized for Unnecessary Roughness when he was CARRYING the ball. Daylight to the right, daylight to the left, The Zonk would take a hand-off, lower his head, plow straight into the line, a great heaving scrum, which would shudder and shiver and quake, start to stretch and elongate before Csonka's helmet popped out the other end and the crush of bodies crumpled, fell over on top of him. Seven yards, 2nd and 3. He ran at such an extreme angle, leaning forward, if guys would've jumped out of his way he would've fallen on his face. They could've touched him down for a 2, 3 yard gain. Instead, they hit him, held him up, so he'd gain 7 or 8. For years people talked about the hit he took from Minnesota Linebacker Ray Winston. Csonka was waiting to catch a screen pass when Winston hit him, but The Zonk actually fell BACKWARDS, which was Big News. Many might not remember, but he missed the start of his rookie Training Camp with a head injury he got jumping into the swimming pool of his new house before it was filled with water. An unconfirmed report suggests some form of alcohol might've been involved.
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