Legendary Grant enters Ring of Honour

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This article was published 30/09/2016 (3295 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bud Grant concedes the Winnipeg Blue Bombers took a big gamble on him in 1957.

It was then former Blue Bombers president Jim Russell approached the young 29-year-old Grant — still a player for the club — to take over the coaching reins from Allie Sherman, who was fired while Grant was at the CFL’s all-star game

“(Sherman) came here and coached and I played for Allie… he didn’t get along with Canadian players particularly,” Grant said. “It got so bad that some of the Canadian players were revolting because Allie was so tough on them. He wasn’t a midwestern guy. He didn’t understand midwestern culture and people.”

Grant, a Wisconsin native, did. He was summoned for a meeting with Russell when he returned from the all-star game. At the time he figured he was being traded.

Instead, he was offered the job as the team’s head coach.

“He must have seen something in me where he thought I might succeed, thank goodness,” Grant said. “I have a great deal of debt to those people who that put their faith in me.”

Grant, 89, rattled off a long list of names as he spoke to Bombers faithful from a podium set up at midfield Friday night. The club’s most successful head coach was inducted into the team’s Ring of Honour at halftime of their game against the Edmonton Eskimos.

“You can’t be here by yourself,” Grant told the assembled crowd before receiving a big ovation.

“There’s so many people who contribute to whatever success you might have. You’re the figurehead… but you didn’t do it. You can’t ever believe it’s because of you. It’s because of all the people working with you.”

Grant became the seventh inductee into the team’s newly minted shrine honouring the club’s all-time greats at IGF. Grant’s name now hangs alongside Chris Walby, Ken Ploen, Milt Stegall and the man Grant called the best player he ever coached, Leo Lewis, above the suites in the stadium’s 200-level.

Before he led the club to four Grey Cup championships as the team’s field general, Grant played four seasons in Blue and Gold beginning in 1953 and was named a West Division all-star three times. Grant still holds the CFL’s playoff record for most interceptions in a game with five, set Oct. 28, 1953.

After retiring from the game in 1956, Grant assumed the controls as the team’s head coach in 1957 and found immediate success, leading the Bombers to the first of six Grey Cup appearances under his tutelage in 1958.

Grant racked up 102 regular-season wins (118 total including playoffs) — a club record — and was named the CFL’s top coach in 1965.

“We had a good nucleus of players for a long time,” Grant said. “For about 10 years we had as good a personnel as there was in the league.”

Good personnel with plenty of durability.

“We had Kenny Ploen for 10 years… he was our quarterback for 10 years,” he said. “If you get that kind of continuity and durability… They got to be able to stay healthy. We had very little injury problems. Leo Lewis (who was inducted into the Ring earlier this month) played every game. (Buddy) Tinsley played every game.”

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Grant left the Bombers in 1966 to become the head coach of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. There, he would lead the Vikings to four Super Bowl appearances, the first head coach in NFL history to do so.

In 1976, Grant was named the NFL coach of the year. He remains the most successful coach in Vikings history.

But he’s never forgotten where he came from.

“I have kids here. I like the people here,” he said. “I’ve hunted here for the last six days.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @scotbilleck

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

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