Reusse: Jim Marshall belonged to us, and Minnesota loved him for it

Jim Marshall was in possession of a curious mind, extremely high energy and not much of a fan of the doldrums of training camp when it lasted a month in Mankato.

He was entering his seventh season as an ironman defensive end with the Vikings when Bud Grant became the coach in 1967.

As a fine athlete who collected checks in the NBA, the NFL and the Canadian Football League, Grant had a strong radar for when players were looking for the opportunity to stray from, what?, proper game preparation.

Thus, when the Vikings would have a home exhibition game at Met Stadium, followed by some time off in the Twin Cities, Grant would not allow the players to get in their cars or trucks for the drive home until three hours before kickoff.

This cut down on possible detours for mischief.

Marshall seized on this to make himself the official starter for the Southern Minnesota 110. The cars and trucks would be lined up, with the gentlemen having already started their engines. He would raise a pistol high and, at precisely 4 p.m., would fire the shot that allowed his teammates to head for, ahem, Bloomington.

What type of pistol? Don’t ask such personal questions.

On Tuesday, Marshall died at 87. He had been in Methodist Hospital for a few days, which happens to be where Fred Zamberletti, the team’s ironman trainer, died in September 2018. If not, he would be a first call for a Marshall tribute, since Zamby’s admiration for him as a great football warrior knew no bounds.

Zamberletti also was required to remain a keeper of confidences as Marshall plotted some of his training camp distractions. None of those topped Marshall’s belief that a small rocket could be hand-built that would launch a frog into “space” off the roof of Gage Hall.

Mike Grant, son of Bud the coach, a ball boy in training camp for several years, recalled Tuesday that there were days of players’ planning and constructing before the rocket was ready to carry its passenger.

“I believe it was three stages, and then the frog would be parachuted onto the practice field, when it was unoccupied,” Grant said. “There was a lot of betting, as to whether the frog would survive or perish. Ed White was holding the stakes … he had like $3,000.

“And Gary Cuozzo, the quarterback, had some medical training — so he was assigned the task of determining if the frog was dead or alive.

“White was on the ‘alive’ side, because he raced out there, looked at the frog, and started trying to give it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Then Cuozzo came with a stethoscope and confirmed its demise.”

Grant paused, then said: “That all came from the mind of Marshall. And he did so wanting the frog to have a long and adventurous life.”

Which basically is the story of Marshall: An NFL ironman with 270 consecutive starts for the Vikings, infamous for the 66-yard dash the wrong way in 1964 after one of his record 29 fumble recoveries, near-death experience while crashing a hang glider in Bloomington.

Marshall also was part of the snowmobile trek in January 1971 in the mountains of Yellowstone Park, when the 17-person party was caught in a raging blizzard. Hugh Galusha Jr., 51, the president of the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis, died in that trek.

Mark Rosen was a young part-timer at WCCO-TV when first being around a Vikings locker room or practice field.

“The first time I met him was in ‘73, that team that beat Dallas in the playoff game,” Rosen said. “Later, we became friends, we’d drop over to the house, and he always called me ‘Little Marky.’

“A small thing that I’ll always remember that tells you a lot about Jim Marshall was when my mom went into assisted living. We were talking one day and she said, ‘Guess who came to see me? Jim Marshall and his wife, Sue. We had a great talk.’

“I only had mentioned my mom was in assisted living. I never expected he would go see her.”

There was another such sneaky great moment from Marshall in 2009. Brett Favre had surfaced with the Vikings and surpassed Marshall’s NFL record for consecutive games for a position player. Jim had to miss the game.

What he did was show up at Winter Park a couple of days later to congratulate Favre in person.

Paul Krause, the all-time interception leader, was Marshall’s teammate for 12 seasons. The last season for both was 1979.

There was a small weekly media luncheon at a Bloomington hotel in those days. Grant had Marshall attend before what would be his final game to praise his ironman effusively.

At least, “effusively” by Bud’s standards at that time.

Krause didn’t get that sendoff, although Grant did campaign fully to get Krause in the Hall of Fame.

“There weren’t two guys more different — Marshall outgoing, Bud quiet, watching — but they were like two peas in a pod when it came to football," Krause said. “All those crazy outside things, Jim Marshall always was there to play football. Sick, hurt … everyone knew he was going to play on Sunday.

“He was our leader. We all loved Jim Marshall.

“Even Bud.”

Mike Grant confirmed that.

“I heard that from Bud several times; his love for Jim Marshall as a player, a competitor, a person,” Mike said. ”And as his son, I can tell you ‘love’ wasn’t a word that my dad threw around loosely."

**

Back in 1999, I was able to get an appointment with the Honorable Alan Page at the offices for the Minnesota Supreme Court. Marshall and Carl Eller, the other full-time members of the “Purple People Eaters” came along.

At one point, I did ask if they could look at one another in the eyes and know that the opposing quarterback was in trouble. Page came quick with this answer:

“I don’t know if you had to look at the other person’s eye. We made the assumption that the quarterback was in trouble ...”

Jim Marshall — he came here in 1961, stayed on Met Stadium gridiron for 19 seasons, and lived here until Tuesday.

He was Minnesota’s. And we loved him.