Q&A with Gary Andrew Poole, author of The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend
December 4, 2008 12:55 AM
In this Q&A, Gary Andrew Poole talks about his new book, the first major biography of Grange.
What drew you to write about Red Grange?
I was at a football game with my daughter. She kept asking questions like, "What's a blitz?" "What's a bomb?" "Why are two guys down there holding poles with a chain attached?" I answered her questions, and I looked around. There were 90,000 people surrounding me. Millions watching on TV. A child-like question hit me: "Where did this football phenomenon begin?" I drew a stick in the mud through American history and came upon Red Grange. I knew about Grange, but as I dug into his life, I realized he hadn't been explored to a great extent. I thought his story was fascinating with lots of twists and turns, and I thought his life called out for a narrative biography, a sort of football version of Seabiscuit.
How did you research the book? Which locations did you visit?
It took me two to three years to research The Galloping Ghost. My goal was to become so well-versed in Grange that I could write the book with authority (I didn't want to simply re-write mythology) and write a lively and accurate narrative without bogging down the story with tiresome details. I wanted the football scenes, as well as the characters, to come alive on the page. I went to archives (University of Illinois, Wheaton College, the New York Public Library, the Pro and College football halls of fame, to name but several), and I spent a lot of time digging up court records, diaries, oral histories, photos, moving images, letters, interviews with people who knew Grange, and so on. I call it the forensics of research.
For example, on one of my research visits I went to the University of Chicago where Grange played in an important, and exciting game, and I found the old Stagg Field stadium doors. I describe them in the book—it's only a line or two in The Galloping Ghost, but I made an enormous effort to do research which lets readers feel like they were there, so to speak. I essentially followed Grange from birth to death. I went to Forksville, Pennsylvania, where he was born, to Wheaton, Illinois, to Champaign, to Chicago, to New York, to Hollywood, and to Florida, where he settled later in life.
What was it about Grange's game that made him special?
That is an interesting question, and it is not an easy one to define. What made Barry Sanders special? Or, Walter Payton? What makes you want to watch Tiger Woods. You can't just look at yards gained, or in Tiger's case, tournaments won. Grange possessed that electric quality that was exciting to watch, and he always played well in big games when a lot was on the line. He really had an It factor. He was fast, and incredibly elusive, and he had the ability to stop and start like no other player. Some people compared him to a deer. Ever watch a deer stand still and then dart off? That was Grange.
How important was the 1924 Illinois-Michigan game, not only to Grange, but to college football?
Quite important. Grange was an All-American in 1923, and the Illini were undefeated, and the Michigan-Illinois game was a national championship game of sorts. (The national championship was as confusing then as it is today.) Grange's incredible, and I don't use that term lightly, performance against Michigan on that October day in 1924 made Grange into a national star.
It was an important game, but I would argue that Grange's 1925 performance against Pennsylvania was of more importance to Grange, and to football. The great New York writers—the makers of sports legends—of the day all showed up in Philadelphia to chronicle Grange and his battle against the University of Pennsylvania, a powerful team back in the 1920s. Many writers considered Penn one of the top teams in the country.
The Illini in 1925 were not very good: It was a young team and the line was horrible, and the team had a losing record. Despite his greatness, Grange was not expected to do very well, and his reputation was in jeopardy because the East Coast had yet to witness him, and the scribes were ready to write him off. This was also a game pitting the East Coast (Ivy league) against a public university team lead by a working-class kid. Moreover, Grange was working behind the scenes with his manager C.C. Pyle to turn pro, and a poor performance would have probably killed Grange's reputation and box office appeal. There was a lot at stake at many different levels. If Grange failed in that game, he might not have had as big of an impact on college and pro football; in other words, he would have been a star, but not a superstar, and I doubt ESPN would have been naming him the greatest ever college football player, which they did earlier this year.
Well, Grange did exceptionally well that day. At the end of the game, the Penn supporters gave him a standing ovation for about 10 minutes. The writers were agog at his performance. Grange cemented his legacy, and proved that football was moving away from the Ivy League. Grange also created a mad-frenzy around him. After the game, Grange took the train back to Champaign and people lined the railroad tracks to get a glimpse of him, and 10,000 people waited in the freezing cold in Champaign to greet him. Pick up a newspaper or go see a newsreel and everyone was talking about Grange. Not many weeks later, Grange turned pro and that decision had a profound impact on sports. But without his performance against Penn, I am not sure he would have had as much national prestige.
What was Grange's role in the creation and promotion of professional football?
He didn't really create pro ball. The NFL had been around since 1920, but it was sort of a podunk enterprise. There were ex-college star players in the NFL, but no one of Grange's status. (Jim Thorpe was popular, to some degree, but he didn't have the rapturous following of a Grange.) Back then only a few-thousand people showed up for NFL games, and it could be a shady crowd. When you opened up the sports pages in, say, the fall of 1923, you would see articles about college football and baseball, but the NFL was ignored. For example, George Halas, the Bears owner, paid off reporters to cover the games.
When Grange turned pro, he went on a 19-game tour, which is credited with bringing credibility to the NFL. He sold out stadiums across the country. George Halas always said Grange was to the earlier era what television was to the modern era.
At the peak of his fame, how big was Grange?
Very big. In the 1920s, you had Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, and Grange. They are the Mt. Rushmore of American athletics, and for a couple years Grange was outshining them all.
He was out-earning Babe Ruth, and the president. He was making movies, endorsing products, starting sports leagues. He was rich and very popular. Given Grange's enormous popularity, it surprised me how little had been written about Grange. Sports Illustrated said, "Football's first superstar played with a ballerina's grace and a bull's power, but as Gary Andrew Poole shows in The Galloping Ghost, there was more. 21st-century fans will benefit from his refurnishing of the legend." And radio host Bob Edwards said, "Red Grange may have been the best football player of all time, but hardly anyone talks about him the way baseball fans talk about Grange's contemporary, Babe Ruth. Gary Andrew Poole's new biography fills in the blanks of the life of a football legend." Outside of the Midwest, people don't really know Grange's story, and even people who know his story in outline form will learn something from my book, I think. Not to be too self-aggrandizing, but I think the book brings an unexplored icon back to life.
What led to Grange's fall from grace?
A bit of hubris, I think. He was just a kid when he turned pro, and his manager C.C. Pyle took him on the barnstorming tour. It was relentless—they were often playing two games in a row—and it broke Grange down. He became wealthy from it, but Pyle had him invest in many different ventures, including a league set on breaking the NFL. Grange started losing money and then he suffered through an injury. How he dealt with adversity is fascinating and talks to Grange's character.
What was the creative inspiration behind the fantastic multimedia experience on the book's website, garyandrewpoole.com/experience/red-grange?
I have to give the credit to Craig Hooper and Jory Kruspe of Analogue, a design team out of Ottawa, Canada. Kruspe is the son of an ex-CFL player and he is really passionate about football and history. We asked ourselves, How do we bring a book to life? Kruspe and Hooper read a draft of The Galloping Ghost, and then we came up with the idea to tell Grange's story through images, sound, and moving images. We went through an enormous effort to secure the images and create the experience, which I am hoping more and more people will visit. I think Craig and Jory did an amazing job with bringing the book to life.
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