Old School Heroes of the NFL: Bronislau "Bronko" Nagurski

Thats not a typo, size 19 1/2 NFL Championship ring still recorded today as the largest in the history books. At 6'2" and 235 lbs. you will find several players just as big if not bigger than Nagurski was back then. He is even quoted as saying in a 1984 interview "I would probably be a linebacker today. I wouldn't be carrying the ball 20 or 25 times a game." However back then for Bronko it was like playing professional football against a pee wee league. Breaking tacklers, scoring touchdowns with four and five guys dangling from every body part imaginable and Nagurski just pulling them along like he was a horse plowing the fields of a farm.

Born on November 3rd, 1908 Bronislau Nagurski was an original Canadian moved to Minnesota at a young age. He found his stardom at Minnesota as a defensive tackle and fullback. Around those college days it was asked that players play both sides of the ball. However, in 1928 he played a game against Wisconsin wear he wore a corset underneath his uniform to protect cracked vertabrae which he was still able to recover a fumble, score a touchdown, and intercept a pass for a Minnesota victory. It might well have been his best performance of his lifetime.

He went on to be more than a formidable NFL star and today is still the only player in NFL history to be named an All-Pro at 3 different positions that didn't include kicking. Even while being a superstar in the NFL he was able to build a championship career as a professional wrestler in the heavyweight division winning 3 titles during his 23 year career which ended in 1960. He did however return to the football field in 1943 for the Chicago Bears where he played his entire career and scored a touchdown to help them win the NFL Championship.

Today he is not only enshrined in Canton, Ohio's Pro Football Hall of Fame, but his name also lives on through the Bronko Nagurski Trophy handed out each year to the best defensive player of the year in college football. The trophy was won in 2007 by LSU Tiger Defensive Tackle Glenn Dorsey and in 2006 by Ohio State MLB James Laurinaitis both who played for the BCS National Championship at the end of the 2007-2008 season. After his death in 1990 the city of International Falls where he grew up created the Bronko Nagurski Museum in Smokey Bear Park.

One of his funniest moments was his style of running. Always head down barreling through tacklers when he ran right through the endzone and hit his head on the brick wall at Wrigley Field where they played. He went back to Bears coach George Halas and said, "That last guy gave me quite a lick!"