Bud Grant has lived through 88 autumns here in the North Country. During his professional sports career and also as an avid outdoorsman he probably has travelled more miles than a feature writer for National Geographic, but this fall he had an experience he doesn’t care to relive.
During a recent telephone conversation I told the former Vikings head coach I heard that he had a little unexpected adventure. “Well, yes. I am glad you mentioned little adventure,” Grant replied. “It could have been a great adventure if things hadn’t gone the way they did.”
Grant is a longtime Bloomington resident, and is a hunting buddy of Jim Hanson from Albert Lea. Hanson is a pilot and has access to a couple of airplanes. He and Grant were in a Beechcraft twin engine plane on a nice weather day when they approached the international airport in Regina, Saskatchewan.
There are buttons on the Beechcraft’s instrument panel indicating whether the landing gear is engaged or not. Prior to landing, Hanson pushed the button for the landing gear and as normal a green light went on. Hanson and Grant soon realized, though, there was a malfunction regarding the wheels moving into place.
“To our surprise, when we went to touch down, we came down on our (airplane’s) belly,” Grant said. “Slid down the runway, sparks flying, propellers breaking and came to a stop. Within a minute and a half, the ambulances, the trucks were all on the runway. But fortunately the sparks did not ignite anything and we walked away (safe).”
In just a few seconds the sliding airplane had come to a stop. “It could have been a lot worse,” said the legendary coach known for his stoic personality.
Hanson and Grant planned to return to Minneapolis after the incident at the airport but knew they wouldn’t be flying that Beechcraft. Grant said they inquired about a car or minivan rental, but learned that driving one-way from Canada to the U.S. without returning the rental vehicle back across the border wasn’t allowed. The policy, though, didn’t apply to a U-Haul truck rental. So for 17-hours the two Minnesotans made their way back to Minneapolis in a truck.
Grant played professional basketball for the Minneapolis Lakers and pro football for the Philadelphia Eagles. He was head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers before taking the Vikings to four Super Bowls during a career that lasted 18 seasons. His adventures as an outdoorsman have taken him to various parts of the world including the Arctic Ocean where once his group had to consolidate into a single pontoon after a hole damaged the other pontoon. But Grant had never experienced a “life threatening” incident like this fall in Canada.
“Flying does not bother me,” Grant said before telling a story about travelling with the Lakers in the 1950s. The Lakers had played the Celtics in Boston and were in a hurry to get back to Minneapolis. The team boarded a DC-3 aircraft at Boston’s airport and was in the sky for a few minutes when one of the plane’s engines burst into flames. The engine stopped working and the pilot immediately turned the aircraft around and landed in Boston.
“John Kundla, our coach, did not like flying, as did a couple of the other players,” Grant said. “It’s a scary thing to look out the window and see one of your engines on fire and…(land back) in the airport.”
The aircraft was taken into a hangar and the Lakers were told that it could be fixed. Back in Minneapolis, Lakers general manager Sid Hartman was anxious for the team to return home.
Grant recalled overhearing a phone conversation between Hartman and Kundla when the Lakers were still in Boston. “Sid said, ‘Well, you gotta get here, we play on Sunday afternoon.’ I remember they were arguing whether John was going to get on that airplane again to fly back all night to Minneapolis and play on Sunday afternoon.”
If Grant—who said the Lakers did return in time for the Sunday game—was ever going to develop a fear of flying, that incident in Boston would have been an opportune start. But even while nearing his 90th birthday, Grant has no fear and appreciates how air travel not only delivers him quickly to various places but also provides access to destinations that otherwise can be difficult or impossible to reach by car.
Grant is a waterfowl, turkey hunter and deer hunter. “I do it all, but I am an expert at nothing,” said Grant who retired from the Vikings in 1985 but is a consultant for the franchise.
Lately, he has been hunting in Manitoba, Minnesota, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Wisconsin. Before Christmas he will head to Nebraska, and maybe sometime soon to Texas. “Chasing critters and birds…’have gun will travel’ kind of philosophy,” he said.
The travel itinerary is usually during the week. “Come home on the weekends, and go to a Viking game, high school game, even a college game, and be with family, and then head off on Sunday night or Monday,” Grant said. “It’s hard work having fun.”
The last few years Grant’s name was as likely to pop up in local media for his annual garage sale as anything else. He is planning to have another one at his home next May, the same month he turns 89. All of Grant’s family is nearby—the six children with 19 grandchildren and 10 great grandkids. The family helps provide inventory for the sale.
If you see Grant next May, tell him you’re happy he and Jim Hanson had a safe landing in Regina.