Bud Grant, the Hall of Fame coach who guided the Minnesota Vikings to four Super Bowl appearances, has died at the age of 95.
“We are absolutely devastated to announce legendary Minnesota Vikings head coach and Hall of Famer Bud Grant has passed away this morning at age 95,” the Vikings said in a statement Saturday morning.
“We, like all Vikings and NFL fans, are shocked and saddened by this terrible news.”
Born Harry Peter Grant Jr. in Superior, Wisconsin, Grant represented the Bold North as iconically as anyone.
In 2015 when the temperature was subzero and the wind chill well into the negative 20s, Grant, 88 at the time, walked onto the frozen turf at TCF Bank Stadium in a T-shirt ahead of the Vikings-Seahawks playoff game.
After starring in high school sports in Superior he went on to play football, baseball and basketball at the University of Minnesota.
The Philadelphia Eagles selected him 14th overall in the 1950 NFL Draft and the Minneapolis Lakers took him fourth overall in the 1950 NBA Draft.
He was named head coach of the Minnesota Vikings on March 10, 1967.
The Vikings went on to win 11 NFC Central Division titles over the next 14 years and appeared in the Super Bowl in 1969, 1973, 1974 and 1976.
The stoic and demanding Hall of Fame coach guided the Vikings from 1967-85, with a one-year hiatus in 1984, on his way 11 division championships in 18 seasons. He went 10-12 in the playoffs.
When he retired, Grant was eighth on the NFL’s all-time victory list.
He was a mainstay among coaches of his era, a decorated group that included Don Shula, Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, John Madden and Hank Stram. Grant, however, had little interest in accolades.
‘The only reason I can see for a head coach getting credit for something good is that he gets so much blame when something is bad,’ he once said.
‘The whole secret, I think, is to not react to either the good or the bad.’
He also went 102-56-2 in 10 seasons as the head coach of the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers (1957-66), capturing four Grey Cup championships.
Grant was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994, the first person to be enshrined in both.