Longtime Vikings coach and Wisconsin high-school standout Bud Grant dies at age 95

Like many teenagers growing up in Superior, during World War II, Bud Grant played almost every sport – either in high school or on community teams.

Grant, whose given name is Harry Peter Grant Jr., was a star in basketball and football at Superior Central High School, from which he graduated in 1945. He also was a standout in high school-age American Legion baseball.

His career continued onward as a player in both pro basketball and pro football. Despite all of it, his biggest mark in the sports world came after his playing days were over, as the celebrated football coach who led the Minnesota Vikings to four Super Bowl appearances. The Vikings announced Saturday that Grant died at the age of 95.

“His career, you’ll never see anything like it again,” said Grant’s son, Mike, a successful football coach at Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota.

“You’ll never see a guy that goes NBA, is in the NFL, played at that high level and played town baseball, which might have been his best sport. He’s on the level of Bo Jackson. That’s the type of athlete you’re talking about.”

Grant was a head coach in Canada and with the Vikings for 28 seasons, with 20 playoff appearances, 10 championship games and four titles, though none of the championships came in the NFL. He lost four Super Bowls but became the first person inducted into the Pro Football and Canadian Football League Hall of Fame. By the time his Vikings appeared in Super Bowl IV, he had four Grey Cup titles to his name in Canada. Minnesota appeared subsequently under Grant in Super Bowl VIII, IX and XI.

He went 158-96-5 in the NFL. In 2019, he was named one of the 10 greatest high-school athletes in state history by the Journal Sentinel.

"No single individual more defined the Minnesota Vikings than Bud Grant," said a Vikings statement from the Wilf Family, the franchise owners. "A once-in-a-lifetime man. But will forever be synonymous with success, toughness, the North and the Vikings. In short, he was the Vikings."

A superstar from a young age

Grant’s path to athletic stardom included three sports at the University of Minnesota and then in the NBA (where he was part of a championship team), NFL and Canadian Football League.

Already 6-foot-3 as a freshman, Bud Grant helped Superior Central to a berth in the state basketball tournament in 1942.

“Everybody grows at a different time of their life, but when I got to high school, I was 6-3,” Bud said in 2019. “I looked like a stick, but I was 6-3. That made me one of the bigger guys on the team, so I got to start when I was 14 years old and went to the state tournament down in Madison. I had hardly ever been out of town before, let alone going to Madison.”

After high school, Grant enlisted in the Navy and played on the Great Lakes football team coached by Paul Brown that beat nationally ranked Notre Dame. When he returned to school at the University of Minnesota, he earned nine letters in football, basketball and baseball.

Grant then played professional basketball with the Minneapolis Lakers and was a member of the 1950 championship team.

He joined the Philadelphia Eagles and played defense for one season before switching to offense and catching 56 passes. He also played four seasons with Winnipeg in the CFL, where he shined as a receiver, before being named coach of the team at age 29.

The Blue Bombers went to six Grey Cups in the next 10 years under Grant and won four crowns.

The Vikings were impressed and brought Grant to the NFL in 1967. After a 3-8-3 debut season, the success continued, when he led the franchise – which hadn’t been to the playoffs at all and finished above .500 just once since joining the league in 1961 – to 11 division titles and four Super Bowl appearances.

Grant retired after the 1983 season but came back for one more year in 1985 after a shaky first year under coach Les Steckel. He had the eighth-most wins in NFL history when he retired.

It wasn’t just basketball and football for Grant

Like many youngsters in northwestern Wisconsin, Grant also played hockey.

“I did play hockey, but not in high school,” he said. “Some sports you can overlap a little bit, but hockey and basketball, you can’t play both. They’re both winter sports. I got to be 14 years old and I had to play one or the other. I can’t say I was a very good hockey player; I was average. In my age group, I played with everybody. I think I had more basketball ability than I had hockey ability.”

Grant also said baseball might have been his best sport.

“We didn’t have a high school baseball team,” said Grant, who later pitched and played center field at Minnesota, leading the team in hitting as a freshman. “I played Legion ball and town ball. The season didn’t start in Superior until about June 1.”

“I played a lot of town ball,” he added. “I played more baseball than anything else I ever played. The crowds we used to get were representatives of the communities where we played, but we used to get really good crowds.”

In 2013, Grant attended a ceremony at Superior High School that connected the school and community to the Pro Football of Fame. At that event, he donned his purple letterman’s sweater from Superior Central.

He remained connected to the Vikings organization until his death. In 2014, a statue of his likeness was erected by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers outside their stadium, IG Field, adorned in the baseball cap that he continued to make his trademark with the Vikings.

Editor's note: This story uses content from a 2019 feature by Jim Hoehn identifying Grant as one of the top high-school athletes in Wisconsin history.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Former Vikings coach, Wisconsin high-school star Bud Grant dies