Part 3: The January Tour

The Florida League

Game On

Go West, Young Red

The Bears' eight-game exhibition series wasn't nearly as hard on any of us physically as the ten-game schedule that followed my joining the team on Thanksgiving Day. I found it no strain to play a minimum of thirty minutes in every one of the games on the winter trip. What made the difference was the fact that we had five and a half weeks in which to play the eight tilts, besides having four more teammates to share the load. Nevertheless, we were all in need of a good long vacation.
The Bears had played a total of twenty-eight games from the start of their season early in September 1925, and I had appeared in twenty-four contests counting the eight games of my senior year at Illinois. When I became a member of the Chicago Bears it was considered a move of such importance in the sports world, many of the outstanding sports writers of the day like Westbrook Pegler, Ford Frick and Damon Runyon were assigned by their syndicates and papers to travel with the team. They wrote about anything and everything that happened to me. Because of the reams of copy given over to me and the tremendous public interest it stirred up, the Bears were able to attract over 360,000 fans in eighteen games from Thanksgiving Day, 1925, to January 31, 1926.
More than 150,000 of this impressive total was recorded on the exhibition junket that started Christmas Day. We covered one end of the country to the other, making in excess of 7,000 miles in the swing from Coral Gables to Seattle and back to Chicago again. We made enough pro-football converts all over the land to give the sport the shot in the arm it so badly needed and, from the 1925 season on, professional football began to grow steadily in popularity.

Results

Epilogue: Beyond the Tour

Lights, Camera, Action

The Yankees and the Rebel League

Pro Football's Future

"Certainly, I am sold on the future of professional football. I believe it is headed for much the same position now held by professional baseball.
"[Pro football] is a much better brand of football, but lacks the intense rivalry of a school nature. I cannot see where it will detract from college football.
"About the best statement I have read is one written by Bill Tilden recently, in which he said the colleges have now commercialized the game, and the only difference between the two in the fact that college players get nothing for their labor."

Red's Reflection

"You didn't graduate, which I suppose at the time was perceived as a bad thing for college sport," the visitor said. "Do you regret it?"
"Well, I never had anybody ask me for my diploma, if that's what you mean. But I suppose I resent it a little that people mistake a lack of a diploma for a lack of brains. I was a good student. Hell, I had all kinds of trigonometry. A lot of people think if you play football you're dumb, but if you play golf or tennis you're smart.
"The thing is, I had a chance to make some money, a lot of money for me. When Herschel Walker got his chance, I couldn't blame him. I don't see how you can turn down four or five million dollars, no matter what anybody thinks. Ten or 15 years from now there'll be new Herschel Walkers. Herschel Walker has to take care of himself."
(Wife) Muggs returned, holding up a pair of old football pants. They were the color of dead leaves, and beneath the stark weave of their canvas skin the mysterious bulges of protection stood out like large welts. The pants had a formidable, inviolate look, as if they were capable of sweating on their own. The old man sitting in the chair smiled and turned over the belt for the visitor to see the inscription sewn inside: RED GRANGE MODEL. "I never wore these," he said. "They were sent to us by an Indian in Oklahoma."
"They were one of your endorsements?"
"I endorsed everything there for a while."
"Tell me about Cash and Carry Pyle," the visitor said.
"Dapper, that's the first word that comes to mind. He went to the barbershop every day of his life, and he was immaculate. He wore that derby and spats and carried a cane, and he had that neat little mustache. The greatest ladies' man you ever saw. He was married five times, three times to the same woman, and despite everything you might have read, he was one of the most honest men I ever knew.
"Charlie had more good ideas than any 10 men about how to make a buck. He'd made and lost a million three or four times. If he were active today, there'd be no end to the money he'd make. But he was straight with me from the start. He owned two theaters in Champaign. One night I was in there and the usher said, 'Mr. Pyle wants to see you.' I thought he was going to give me a couple of passes.
"I went into his office and he said, 'How'd you like to make $100,000?' I said, 'You've got the wrong guy. I don't do things like that.' He said, 'I'm talking about playing pro football. I'll guarantee you that much.' I said, 'Well, I'm interested.' I was only with Charlie for about three years, but I got everything he said I'd get, and more."
What you have to remember about the times, Grange said, "was that there just didn't seem to be a future in football. Now, of course, the game gives so many atha-letes a chance, and that's good. There's money in it, and when you're at your prime you should be able to pursue it. I told (Illinois HC) Zuppke, 'I've played three years. I've got more than three years left. I've got my life ahead of me. Are you going to take care of me until I'm 60?'
"We had some terrific arguments in his kitchen. He'd close the door and keep Mrs. Zuppke out. I said, 'You teach football, I'll take care of Grange.' I just couldn't accept the fact that it was all right for him to coach football for his life and not for me to play it. But most people take care of themselves first, and that's what he was doing. The colleges were scared to death that the pros would lure away their players with money.
"That's why I did it, of course. Football itself wasn't that important to me. But I went from having nothing to owning two or three cars at a time. I bought my father a $25,000 house, which was an expensive house in those days. I spent money like it was going out of circulation, until I learned better. I was a big shot. I drank Dom Perignon champagne. I wore a raccoon coat. I'd go into a restaurant and order from the right side of the menu. After I became a pro, if something I ordered didn't cost $20, I didn't want it.
"It was fun, but I don't think it was a good phase of my life. I noticed one thing that still seems to apply. Once you start getting paid to play, the crowds treat you differently. I got booed for the first time as a pro. It was a new feeling. I can understand it, though. They expect you to play up to what you're being paid. When we made that tour, the crowds only cared that I produced. They didn't care if I was tired or beat-up. I can't blame them. But it made football different for me.
"I don't have any complaints. I've lived the way I wanted, done what I wanted. I don't owe anybody. I couldn't be this way if it weren't for football. But I wonder now and then how the other guys are doing, guys who helped make the pro game, guys who played even after I did.
"Pro ball in the early days got two or three inches on the third page. After we made those tours, it was getting top headlines. We spread the NFL across the country, taking it to towns that never saw a pro game, doing anything to push the product. We played in Memphis one year, and after the game started, we were driving for a touchdown when the promoter came running on the field and told everybody we'd have to start over. The backer of the game was the founder of the Piggly Wiggly stores, Clarence Saunders, and he'd gotten caught in traffic and missed the kickoff. So we started over.
They're benefiting today because of the things we did. And isn't it too bad that the NFL never took care of those early players? I complained a few times, because we had guys in hospitals, guys who had had amputations because of football injuries. Guys who had problems. I thought the game could have done something for them, but it never did. As far as I know, pro football hasn't done anything for anybody except lately, and that's mostly for itself. I never made a real stink about it, but I was sad for the oldtimers."
[...]
It must have been an exciting time, the visitor said, "and to be so well known."
"Well, something always happens to keep you in line. When Pyle took us to Washington, Senator McKinley of Illinois sent a car around to take Halas and me to the White House to meet President Coolidge. He said, 'Mr. President, this is Mr. Grange and Mr. Halas. They're with the Chicago Bears.' Mr. Coolidge said, 'Glad to meet you fellows. I always did like animal acts.' He didn't know anything about football, which is maybe the way it ought to be."
Finally, the visitor got up to leave. Grange seemed sorry to see him go and invited him to come back "anytime." As they walked to the rented car, the visitor noted that the birdseed was all gone. He recalled what Zuppke had said about Grange. Zuppke had once seen a deer bound by in a national park, and he stopped his car and exclaimed aloud, "There goes Red Grange!"
The visitor recited the story for Grange and told how Zuppke, years later, had remarked, "They can argue all they want about the greatest football player who ever lived. I was satisfied I had him when I had Red Grange."
The Galloping Ghost laughed. "I played football the only way I knew how," he said. "If you have the football and 11 guys are after you, if you're smart, you'll run. It was no big deal."