Red Grange Biography

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America discovered Red Grange because of football, but football was not Grange’s whole life. He was more than a football player, and it was his trials and triumphs off the field shaped him as a man. Throughout his life Grange repeatedly fought past adversity and through his struggles off of the football field to become a smart, humble and resilient man while still dominating the football gridiron. Red Grange was born in 1903 in a small Pennsylvania town. He was the first of three children to Lyle and Sadie Grange. When Red was five years old his mother passed away. His father, the foreman at a lumber camp, needed help raising his three children and decided to pack up the family and move to Wheaton, Illinois to live with relatives. …show more content…
To help the family out Red picked up a summer job delivering ice from the town’s ice house. Because he had to help raise his siblings and make money for his family, Red matured more quickly than many of the kids who were his age. When it was time for Red to start high school, he decided he would join the workforce instead of going to classes. This was not an uncommon for young men during the early 1900’s, and despite how normal Reds decision was, his father believed that his son needed to stay in school earn a proper education. Lyle and his son did not see eye to eye about education but Lyle was confident that Red would thank him later for making him go to school. Lyle decide that if his son chose not to go to school, he would also be choosing to move out of the house. Red was not overly concerned by the consequence. He believed that he would be able to manage on his own and knew that if he was out of the house it was one less mouth for his father to feed. Tension between father and son continued to grow and the quarrel was not settled until Lyle leveraged football against his …show more content…
During his first game of his sophomore year, he scored three touchdowns against Nebraska. For the remainder of the season he scored 12 touchdowns and led the unbeaten Fighting Illini to the national championship. By the end of his sophomore year he was named an All-American halfback. The next year Grange etched his name deeper into the history of college football while playing the University of Michigan, who had not lost in twenty straight games. Within twelve minutes, Grange scored four touchdowns. Later in the game, he scored his fifth touchdown and threw a twenty-three yard touchdown pass.
By the next week Red Grange was a household name. His many nicknames covered newspapers and tales of his football prowess filled the heads of young football fans. His football abilities were not televised, nor did many people have the chance to ever see him play, but through word of mouth and lavish newspaper articles, Grange became a living legend. Sports columnists would use their identifican badges to get into Illinois games and simply watch Grange. Masses of fans and would flock to the team hotel just to see, and, if they were lucky, even get to touch

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