WILL Press Room
Red Grange Remembers
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Highlights and Reflections of Football’s First Superstar
Featuring never-before-broadcast portions of Grange’s last significant interview interspersed with photos and film of his career.
When Harold “Red” Grange went out for football at the University of Illinois, he found himself on the field with 90-100 other freshmen. At only 160 pounds, he was smaller than most of them and he’d read about many of them in the Chicago newspapers. “I thought, ‘What chance do I have against these guys?’ I didn’t even ask for a suit. I turned around and went back to the fraternity house.”
After his friends convinced him to return, coaches lined up all the players and told them to run 50 yards. Grange outran them all. From then on, he had everyone’s attention.
He became a national sensation the day in 1924 that he ran for four touchdowns in the first 12 minutes of a game against arch-rival Michigan. Nicknamed the Galloping Ghost, Grange was a three-time All-American at Illinois and went on to help launch professional football as a player for the Chicago Bears. ESPN named him the greatest college football player of all time.
Red Grange Remembers, a new WILL-TV production airing at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8, features never-before-broadcast portions of Grange’s last significant video interview, interspersed with photos and film of his career. Included is new footage of Kemper Peacock, the man who interviewed Grange in 1982, describing their interaction and how Grange was such a powerful presence that he seemed to climb “through the camera.”
Before Grange came along, professional football was essentially a club sport, Peacock said. Grange helped draw the crowds to turn it into a spectator sport. “I realized this was an individual who, perhaps more than any other, had an enormous influence on college football and professional football, and led a historic life,” said Peacock, a sports producer who interviewed Grange for two hours for a 90-second CBS Sports halftime segment.
In the program produced by Denise La Grassa, Grange talks about how he handled his lifelong status as a sports hero; his relationships with Ty Cobb, Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth and other sports figures; why he was superstitious about the number 77; how he would loaf in practice but get fired up for games; why baseball is his true sports passion; why he wasn’t a good coach; and how professional football evolved.
La Grassa discovered the existence of the interview tapes when working on the WILL-TV documentary, Memorial Stadium: True Illini Spirit, about the history of the football stadium at the University of Illinois. “Red Grange is an American icon,” La Grassa said, “so finding out about the existence of these tapes was exciting. Now everyone will get to hear him tell his stories.”
The program is being distributed to PBS stations around the country by NETA, the National Educational Telecommunications Association.
Red Grange Remembers is made possible by a grant from the Mid-Central Illinois Regional Council of Carpenters. Additional funding was provided by Ronald Filler, Charles Finn and Robert O. Endres.
Photo: Culver Pictures.