Introduction by Mr. Cheer or Die: Harry Peter "Bud" Grant was born May 20, 1927. In honor of his upcoming birthday in five weeks, the VU will be paying homage by having special guest author Roger Wilk (aka Purplexing) present a five-part series on Grant. Each Friday, the VU will present one of the five Grant entries culminating on Friday, May 19.

Wilk is an actuary, age 49, single, living along the Connecticut shoreline. His hobbies are running, golf, billiards, and a rare skiing trip to Northern New England states. The only TV he now watched is 'old style reality shows', i.e. news, weather, and sports. As an UConn alum, Wilk avidly follows the men's and women's basketball teams, as well as, of course, the Vikings.

Wilk has been a Vikings fan since early in the 1969 season, when as an impressionable 12 yr old, he saw a pre-game TV special feature on the Purple People Eaters. Wilk immediately adopted the Vikings as his favorite football team. That year, he watched the Vikes win the last NFL Championship before the AFL-NFL merger, then lose to the KC Chiefs in Super Bowl IV. Wilk was impressed by the Vikings defense in 1969. But he also loved to watch Joe Kapp throw his wounded duck passes to Gene Washington, as well as make 'less than elegant' handoffs to Bill 'Boom Boom' Brown and Dave Osborne.

Wilk welcomed the return of Sir Francis Tarkenton, and remained a Viking fan throughout the losses in the next three SB appearances, the Pearson push-off on the Hail Mary pass, the retirement or departures of Larsen, Marshall, Eller and Page, the Hershel Walker trade, the 'various changing of the guard' in terms of owners and coaches, especially the frustrating Denny Green, Red McCombs, and Mike Tice years.

He believes Brad Childress may be able to restore the discipline and attention to detail last seen when Bud Grant coached. Wilk thinks Zygi Wilf's last minute salvage of the aborted sale from Red McCombs to Reggie Fowler may portend the return to the Max Winter - Jim Finks - Bud Grant - Metropolitan Stadium era when the Vikes had top notch management and ownership, and the most significant home-field advantage in the NFL.

Here now, is the final installment of his Grant essay.

Taken For Granted: The Bud Grant Story, Part 5 Conclusion; No Longer Taken For Granted: Summary, Quotes, Bibliography by Roger Wilk

Bud Grant was a nine varsity letter athlete at the University of Minnesota: four in football, three in basketball and two in baseball. State sportswriters voted him the Minnesota Male Athlete of the Half Century in 1950. Grant played two seasons as a reserve power forward for the Minnesota Lakers, who won two championships in those years, before leaving to play football for the Philadelphia Eagles, who drafted him two years earlier.

Bud Grant was a first round draft choice of the Philadelphia Eagles, but opted to play for the Minneapolis Lakers for two years before joining the Eagles. He played WR and DE for two years for the Eagles, and there became the first football player to play out his option, and left for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

In Winnipeg, Grant was a standout offensive end and defensive back for four years before being named team coach in January 1956, without ever holding a job as an assistant coach. He is a CFL Hall of Fame coach of 10 years with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, with a record of 102-56-2, and four Grey Cup championships in six appearances. Grant still holds the all-time professional record for most interceptions in one game (5), which happened to be a 1953 CFL playoff game.

Bud Grant is a 1994 NFL Hall of Fame Inductee, with a coaching record of 158-96-5. Grant’s Vikings won 11 NFC Central crowns, 4 NFL/NFC Championships, including the last NFL Championship in 1969, and berths to four Super Bowls in Grant’s 18 years as Minnesota's head coach; 1967-1983, 1985. Grant is the only known Hall of Fame coach in both the NFL and CFL, and the only coach to win 100 games in each league.

Quotes and Anecdotes

Summarizing Bud Grant’s life as an athlete and coach by recounting facts, statistics, and personal accomplishments yields an incomplete tally. Comments and anecdotes from the players who played with him, the assistant coaches he selected to teach the players, and Bud Grant himself, provide a more rounded story of his success in professional life. Here are a few such anecdotes from many available …..

Grant avoided the minutiae of game-planning details, letting his assistant coaches do their jobs. Assistant coaches were expected to teach the players, with Grant emphasizing "I'm not the teacher". And coaches weren’t the only team members expected to teach or lead others. For example, due to his military background, Carl Eller was assigned the duty of teaching the players to stand at attention for the playing of the National Anthem before each game.

Grant expanded on this topic; "The assistant coaches are the technicians. I may go over the film a couple of times, they (the assistants) study it countless times. They present the actual game plan. The head coach then becomes the Chairman of the Board. Your staff can't be too strong. As the head coach, I'm the guy they look to for direction, but the teaching comes from the assistants."

Fran Tarkenton said Grant never diagrammed a single play when he played for the Vikings under Grant. But Tarkenton added that it didn’t diminish the players respect for him. "The players and coaches all knew who was in charge. …….Bud let everyone do their job and respected them as a professional. It was an atmosphere ripe for individual and team success; everyone was motivated by his confidence in them," Tarkenton said.

Grant chose his calm approach to coaching for good reason; his player’s performance. When asked why he chose to remain calm in tense situations, he said, "I've read a lot about what I do or don't do on the sidelines. But to me football is a game of controlled emotion. If the head coach panics or loses his poise, then his team will follow.

During pre-game warm ups for a game against Philadelphia, Grant asked Tarkenton "Fran, how many coaches do you see over there on the Eagles sideline?" Tarkenton replied "12, 13 or 14 . . . I think." "Now, how many do you see over here," Grant asked. Tarkenton said “Six”.

Grant explained, "I think we're going to win. The problem with all of those coaches is you have to find something for them to do." The Vikings beat the Eagles 31-12.

Tarkenton remembers the clarity with which Grant was able to explain things and his simple approach to running a team; "Bud Grant has more leadership ability and common sense than any person I have ever known or been around in my life. He was way ahead of his time in terms of dealing with players and his staff. On that day in Philadelphia, he just knew that the Eagles had too many coaches for everyone to possibly be on the same page."

Grant’s management philosophy, partially driven by parsimony, is echoed in his comment about the dedication of players, and the attitude they bring into training camp. "I didn't like it (training camp) . . . We told our players to come into camp in shape and ready to work hard . . . I told them if they'd do that, I'd cut camp down to a bare minimum."

"One of the questions that I was asked most often was about my coaching philosophy, and it was a question I was never able to answer," he said. "Probably the closest I can come is to relate something I clipped from a newspaper many years ago and still keep in my desk:

A leader is best when people barely know he exists. Not so good when they obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despise him. But of a good leader, who talks little when this work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: 'We did it ourselves.'" Lao-tse (c.565 B.C.)

Grant once said all you need to be a successful coach is a patient wife, a loyal dog and a good quarterback, not necessarily in that order.

Reflecting on the coaching profession and what it had meant to him, Grant said, "Now that I've made the decision (to retire), I can't say that I'm relieved because coaching was never a burden.

Another comment Grant made, pondering his retirement, is most telling about his life outside football, “There are just some valleys I want to cross, some mountains I want to climb, some streams I want to wade, and there isn't going to be time, even now, to do all of the things I want to do or go to all of the places I want to go."

Speaking for all Viking fans, I wish Bud Grant well in his continuing retirement adventures, and I hope he considers Brzezinski, Studwell, Foley, Tomlin, Bevell, and Childress to be his latest group of ‘six assistants’ when he updates his cell phone speed dial list.

Bibliography/ Weblinkography

Some key links to sources of information used to write “Taken for Granted”:

http://www.startribune.com/

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/

http://www.vikings.com

http://www.vikings.com/historyalumni_detail_objectname_BudGrant.html?proceed=1&counter=1

http://www.profootballhof.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Football_Hall_of_Fame

http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/member.jsp?PLAYER_ID=79

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/GranBu0.htm

Note: 2 post season losses in 1968. In those years, four teams qualified for the NFL playoffs. And a 4th playoff game was played to determine 3rd and 4th place.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Bud+Grant

http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0109234.html?proceed=1&counter=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Grant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Football_Hall_of_Fame

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Cup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_Bowl

VU profile of Bud Grant, historic timeline of Vikings the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s decades:
http://www.vikingupdate.com/history/historyprofiles/grant.html?proceed=1&counter=1
http://www.vikingupdate.com/history/historyprofiles/decades1960.html?proceed=1&counter=1
Note the following factual error in the text found in the above link:
“The next coach for the Vikings would become one of the league's most noteworthy men, Harry Peter 'Bud' Grant. Grant had been Max Winter's first choice in 1961 but he declined in order to play for the NBA Lakers”. Correction: to continue coaching the Winnipeg Blue Bombers
http://www.vikingupdate.com/history/historyprofiles/decades1970.html?proceed=1&counter=1
http://www.vikingupdate.com/history/historyprofiles/decades1980.html?proceed=1&counter=1

Minnesota Vikings Coaches; last updated: 1999;
http://user.cybrzn.com/~gary/coach1.html?proceed=1&counter=1

One of the most interesting articles I encountered while researching material for the conclusion of “Taken For Granted”:
http://www.americanfootballmonthly.com/Subaccess/Magazine/1999/June'99/bud.html

Posted by maasx003 at May 19, 2006 01:43 AM