Garage sale of ex-Vikings coach Grant more about memories than money

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Dressed in a purple Vikings cap, olive-green button down with camouflage accents, a hunter-orange lanyard with a whistle at the bottom and jeans as blue as the eyes of their owner, rareness sits hunched over a 1949-50 commemorative Minneapolis Lakers basketball and asks which color Sharpie he should use to sign it.

The autograph line extends down the driveway at 8134 Oakmere Road, past stacks of sports memorabilia, hunting gear and household belongings from the past century. Cars, ranging in style from BMWs to beat-up pickups, parked bumper to bumper, line both sides of the street all the way to its end cul-de-sac. The same scene unfolded here a year ago, but this time, the yard sale features items not just from Harold Peter Grant, Jr., but his six children and 19 grandchildren.

The Vikings' all-time winningest coach ranks somewhere above Minnesota sports royalty because he represents much of what fans in this state aspire to themselves. Victory -- four Super Bowl appearances, 11 division championships, a league crown, three NFC titles with Minnesota and four CFL Grey Cups as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' coach. Versatility -- the only man to play in both the NFL and NBA, whose exploits included a 1950 championship with the Lakers, two seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, four with Winnipeg and nine letters in football, basketball and baseball at the University of Minnesota. Loyalty -- Grant stayed with the Vikings from 1967-83, came back to coach one more season in 1985, and still spends time in an office at Winter Park. Hardiness -- a trademarked lack of emotion and bans on heaters and gloves at the old Metropolitan Stadium. Outdoorsmanship -- a pre- and post-NFL life centered on hunting, fishing and promoting wildlife conservation.

It's uncommon for one man to embody so much. But it's even more unique for him to blast out his home address on Twitter and invite those who revere him to shell out some cash he purportedly doesn't need and spend a moment with greatness.

But Bud Grant didn't become a legend by embracing normality.

Tim Hennen, the guy who had the old Lakers ball signed, bounces down Grant's driveway with a gold kerosene lantern in each hand. They came from a cargo ship like the ones Bud's father, Harold Sr., saw every day working on Lake Superior in the family's hometown of Superior, Wis. -- just across the bay from Duluth. One of Hennen's new signal lights is shaded red, the other green, so observers could distinguish between the vessel's port and starboard sides. They'd been in the family for 50 years. Hennen paid $295 total for them.

Before he was a wide receiver, defensive end, forward, center fielder, pitcher and Hall of Fame football coach, Bud was a child of the Great Lakes, spending his time shooting down rabbits and small waterfowl and casting a line. His affinity for the outdoors never left him, as he remains an avid hunter to this day.

"The sun's out," Grant says as he picks up another marker to sign the next autograph. "You know what that means? Fish are biting. And we're stuck here." Sports were initially a medical prescription. Bud Grant survived childhood polio, thanks in part to participating in athletics, which doctors said would strengthen his legs.

He became even more familiar with guns as a member of the Navy during World War II. Grant enlisted in 1945 and played for Paul Brown at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station before receiving a discharge and joining the Golden Gophers.

Today, 30-year-old Justin McCluskey heads to his car toting two signed duck decoys and what he's told was the first rifle Grant ever owned. He'll give them all to his dad for Father's Day. Neither McCluskey nor his father consider themselves football diehards; they're more familiar with Grant's work to promote wetland conservation initiatives and wildlife art he's helped create since retiring in the mid-'80s. Hiding in deer stands and duck blinds was at one point Grant's attempt to fade into obscurity. But it only brought him more renown in a state that loves its natural charm as much as its football team.

The firearm alone cost McCluskey $300. Grant used it mainly for sniping grouse.

"If it was just a gun, probably not worth 300," McCluskey says as he loads it into his vehicle. "But if you get the story, worth 300."

Mark Gingrich grew up a Vikings fan in Steelers country before moving to Minnesota in 1993. Today, he'll have Bud sign his framed "Call to the Hall" poster -- which features artwork of Grant, Jim Marshall, Mick Tingelhoff, Fran Tarkenton and several other Pro Football Hall of Famers who wore purple -- and hang it back up in his Minneapolis basement, which has purple carpet and yellow walls. After Grant, the only missing signatures are those of defensive tackle Alan Page and tackle Ron Yary.

All were members of the Vikings' golden era during which Gingrich was raised, watching from afar. With Grant at the helm, the franchise established an identity as a hard-nosed, intimidating bunch that feared nothing, not even the sub-zero temperatures of its outdoor stadium. Those teams -- led by the Purple People Eaters defensive line of Page, Marshall, Carl Eller and Gary Larsen -- took after their coach, whose hair was as white then as it is today.

"Coming from Pennsylvania, you don't realize how cold the winters were, right?" Gingrich says. "So you see the guys out there all intimidating with their bare arms, breath, snow all around, you don't realize it's probably about zero, right? I realized I like going to the Metrodome (more)."

That was the era that defined Bud's legacy. A leader of men, not just a Renaissance one himself.

Don Malinsky still thinks he can save him.

The pastor at Zion United Methodist Church in Buffalo Lake roomed with Bud's son, Mike (today a legendary high school coach at Eden Prairie), at St. John's University. One year, he snapped a picture of Bud Grant, Mike Grant and Johnnies coach John Gagliardi walking into the gymnasium. It appears in Gagliardi's autobiography "Gagliardi of St. Johns: The Coach, The Man, The Legend." Last year, Malinsky invited Bud -- an atheist, the preacher says -- and Mike to a church service in Buffalo Lake, hoping to recreate the picture and perhaps do some evangelizing.

"He'll quote Carl Sagan before he'll quote the scripture," says Malinsky, who bought a piece of Minneapolis Auditorium floor signed by Grant, Minneapolis Lakers coach John Kundla, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famers George Mikan and Vern Mikkelsen at last year's sale, "but I'm working on him."

This might be Malinsky's last chance to remind Grant about the possibility of an afterlife. It's the coach's 88th birthday, and he's not sure if this is his last garage sale or not. The 2014 rendition was supposed to be, but earlier this month, there was Bud's namesake on Twitter.

Grant's 5,768 followers are out of luck. After Sunday, the account will be deleted. Grant will duck back into a favorite hunting spot, alone with his gun and his thoughts and his memories and his family and a billion stories, many of which he's sharing in artifact form through the weekend.

But does that mean this is it?

"You never know," Bud says. Then he shakes another hand, reaches for another pen, and makes another memory.

Follow Phil Ervin on Twitter