Coach Bud Grant

One of the top athletes of the twentieth-century was also one of the most successful professional football coaches of all-time, Bud Grant. A three sport star and a man that guided teams in two different leagues to play for multiple league titles. That is why we have fellow podcaster hosts Rick Loayza of the award winning https://sportshistorynetwork.com/podcasts/basketball-history-101/">Basketball History 101 Podcast and Minnesota expert Ross Blilie host of the https://sportshistorynetwork.com/podcasts/pigskin-tales/">Pigskin Tales Podcast to help us understand the sports history of Bud Grant.

Bud Grant has got to be one of the most interesting and loved figures in North American sports history. Many may only know him as the long time and tenured head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, and he was but the layers of Grant’s sports onion go much much deeper than that.

To tell the story of such an important figure in sports I solicited the help of some of our Sports History Network experts to tell the athletic and coaching legacy of Bud Grant.

Harry Peter Grant was born in Superior, Wisconsin on May 20, 1927. At the time of this writing the 95 year old is still with us. Harry Peter Sr. and Bernice Grant his parent called him "Buddy Boy” and as he got older this eventually stuck in the nickname of Bud. As a child, Grant was diagnosed with a disease diagnosed as poliomyelitis and a doctor suggested he become active in sports to strengthen his weakened leg muscles over time. This he did in full force as he started with baseball, and later added basketball and football as he got  a little older. His local school, Superior High School in Wisconsin was a great place to learn the games that he enjoyed. He graduated from high school in 1945 and then promptly enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois and played on their football team which was coached by the legendary Paul Brown. The 18‐year‐old sailor, was a pretty descent player on the very talented roster of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station team. The football coaching connections of Grant go beyond Paul Brown though on that Naval team. On the staff was Blanton Collier, whose team, the Cleveland Browns, played the Vikings for the National Football League championship in January 1970. Using an acceptance letter from the University of Wisconsin–Madison to be discharged from the service, Grant later changed his mind and decided to attend the University of Minnesota instead.

At college Bud became a three-sport, athlete in football, basketball, and baseball earning a grand total of 9 varsity letter, for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. He was pretty good too having received All-Big Ten honors in football twice. He did not wait graduate but played two years with the Minnepolis Lakers of the National Basketball Asscociation. Bud Grant then turned back to football for his career and was an end for six seasons, two with the Philadelphia Eagles and four with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. 
After his second year in Philadelphia the Eagles did not want to pay Grant what he felt his worth was to the team. The veteran End left to play 3 Down football in Canada in 1953 and became the first professional player to "play out his option" and leave for another team. He played for the Blue Bombers until 1956 as an offensive end and was named a Western Conference all-star three times. He led the Western Conference in pass receptions for the 1953, 1954, and 1956 seasons and receiving yards for the 1953 and 1956 seasons. He also holds the distinction of having five interceptions in a playoff game, played on October 28, 1953, which is a record in all of professional football. When his playing days were over Bud ended up eventually in 1957, at the age of 30, Grant took over the head coaching job with the Bombers and took the Bombers to the Grey Cup final where they lost to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Grant's old coach from Philadelphia, Jim Trimble.  That 1957 match-up was a harbinger of things to come as the Tiger-Cats and the Bombers met four more times in the next five years in the Grey Cup (1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962), and Grant and the Bombers won all four of them. However a great coach does not go unnoticed by the NFL and Jim Finks, the general manager of the Vikings, brought him to Minnesota in 1967.

A New York Times article from January 1, 1970 says Grant was some 10 minutes late to get on the team bus that was going to his first Vikings' training camp. He had been reparing  chain on one of his son's bicycles. The coach never again missed anything and knew what he was doing from the start. The lesson though humorous does point the importance of family in Bud Grant’s life, and the family like environment he created in the Vikings locker room.

Grant coached the Vikings for 18 seasons (1967-1983, 1985).  Currently he is the winningest coach in Vikings history and the third winningest in NFL history.  Grant was elected to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1983 and to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994.

The banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Bud Grant in 1968 from The Gazette Company

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites of Pro-Football-Reference.com, Wikipedia.com, Newspapers.com, and cflpedia.com.