Once upon a time and far, far away, I was living in a place where jobs were hard to find, and, outside a few specific jobs, paid very little. For my first two years in the Upper Peninsua, I worked two jobs, three weekday mornings cooking breakfasts at the Chippewa Motel Restaurant; three, sometimes four nights a week serving whiskey, gin, beer, and conversation at the Green Light Bar.
Through the first year there, I’d been studying FCC broadcast license requirements with an eye to obtaining my third class license and working for the Public Broadcast Radio station at Michigan Tech University. In the Spring of ’75, I drove to Marquette to take the exam. To my utter amazement (knowing nothing of electronics or broadcasting), I passed the exam with a near-perfect grade. Pretty shortly afterward, I saw a job I’d have liked at Da’ Tech and drove into Houghton to apply.
The station manager, it turned out, had a friend who wanted the job, and my case was closed at Tech. But, it turned out, he and his family owned a small AM station in Houghton, on the mezzanine floor of the Douglass Houghton Hotel. Sick of drunks and breaking-up brawls, I took a job there working mostly mornings, playing polkas, old rock ‘n roll, and some more modern stuff I brought into the shop from home — the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, .38 Special – and some Baroque and Classical stuff I liked; Corelli, Bach(s), Mozart, Vivaldi. The people I worked for there were not very nice; those I worked with were “Terrific.”
One of them was a “little person” named Bryan. He had a great broadcast voice, a great sense of humor, and a hot rod, big-engined, Dodge car, with built-up driver’s seat, clutch, brake, and gas pedals. (He really liked to get on that gas pedal.) The DJ’s chair there was a mess – springs shot, pedestal leaning almost dangerously, wheels that wouldn’t turn — you had to drag it around with locked wheels screeching across the floor.
One day the three DJ’s went up to the office to complain about the chair. The (pathetic) management suggested we take up a collection, among the three of us, to buy a new one. (Not a freaking chance, we all agreed.) It was still there, screeching, when I left.
Well, as luck would have it, after finishing the noon news, a tall, kinda’ red-headed guy poked his head into the broadcast room, and asked where he could leave a news-release. I started a record spinning, dropped the arm and needle on its edge, and said, “I’ll take it.”
As things transpired, his name was Ed Danner, and he was publisher of the L’Anse Sentinel newspaper. I read his release, and learned he was starting another newspaper up in Calumet. He planned to name it the Copper Island Sentinel. He was looking for a combined advertising salesperson, sports writer, and feature writer. I had the job before he left the station — never had to read the release aloud, took it home with me. The paper’s office was located right next the old Calumet Opera House, where I often went to hear performances of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and other, regional classical quartets, plays, etc.
I started there on Monday, April 17, 1978.
Very, very shortly after I started, the local mayor (her son worked for us as jack-of-all-trades, and replaced me as advertising consultant a few months later) stopped in for few minutes. She told Howard (our editor) a notable local man had recently died, and might make an interesting story. (Actually, he made our second issue, front page, by Moi. I was pleased as punch.)
The deceased was a man originally from Calumet, named Heartley Anderson. He was born around the turn of the 20th century, when Calumet was a bustling city (once in contention to be the Capitol City of Michigan). It was a rich city, its wealth based on copper mining, and related business and industry. It was also a city of strife, primarily between labor, and management. Population there was Cornish, Italian, some German, French and Norwegian. It was, at times, the scene of deadly violence (the Italian Hall Massacre). But business boomed, right through the end of World War I, when copper prices slid downward, and hopes of those seeking the American Dream were sliding, as well.
The one bright spot for residents, near the time our story begins, was the college football career of the great Notre Dame University quarterback, George Gipp, and two other Calumet boys (names forgotten) who were starters on the terrific ND squad of the late nineteen-teens. Heartley Anderson (known to friends as ‘Hunk’) had played fullback for Calumet High School for a year or so, while Gipp played there.
One day, hanging around the pool Hall, and drinking a few beers, a Western Union Telegraph messenger delivered a telegram for Anderson. It was brief. “Get to South Bend just as fast as you can to meet Coach Rockne.” Signed by Gipp, Anderson knew it meant an opportunity to play for Knute Rockne, and Notre Dame, as Gipp had promised to advise him of any football opportunity arising to the South.
Somehow, Hunk raised enough money for the long railroad trip to South Bend, packed his bag (1), climbed aboard the train, and set off to make history. Soon the Notre Dame football team would boast four starters from Calumet (another Calumet player was among the team’s 8 or 10 reserves’). It was a long, tiring ride; South and west through the U.P to Northern Wisconsin, down through Green Bay, then on through lower Wisconsin, into Illinois, then back east a bit to South Bend, and the Golden Dome on the Notre Dame campus. High School teammate Gipp was waiting on the railroad terminal loading platform to brief him on all the things he couldn’t afford to say in the telegram.
The young men walked from the station into downtown, where Gipp guided Anderson into a poolroom/bar. Waiting for them there, sipping a beer in a booth, was N.D. Coach, Knute Rockne. They exchanged pleasantries, ate a bite. Then, sipping his beer and leaning back in the booth, Rockne said, “The Gipp tells me you’re a hell of a fullback.” Anderson smiled. Rockne added, “Trouble is, I don’t need a fullback, I’ve got ‘Curley’ Lambeau (Lambeau Field) playing there. What I need, is a guard.” Though he weighed only about 140 pounds as a high school fullback, and maybe 150 as an out-of-shape unemployed person, he answered quickly, “I’m the best god-dammed guard you’ll ever see!” He wasn’t lying (as his future would amply demonstrate).
Seldom has such a remote, shrinking town supplied so many top-quality players to one university.
A few years later, in December 1920, George Gipp lay dying in a South Bend Hospital. A throat infection he’d picked up on the road, degenerated to pneumonia, and he died that very evening. Notre Dame had a spectacular record with Gipp at quarterback, Anderson played in every game as a starter, at around 145 pounds. He routinely handled opposing players twice his size, according to teammates, and went on to play guard for the Chicago Bears, where he was named all-pro seven times. He was assistant coach for the Bears during the 1930s, head coach of an Indianapolis semi-pro team that played on Saturdays.
When George Halas went off to serve the nation during WWII, he named Anderson co-head coach of the Bears. (I believe) it was in 1943, when the Bears defeated Philadelphia for the NFL Championship, 73-0.
Hunk Anderson had a good life, died an old man, in early April, 1978. My original copy of the article was destroyed in a boat wreck, so I can’t vouch for complete accuracy of all dates here, but the vast bulk of the story is strictly the truth. Much of my information came from Hunk’s family members and friends, and research among NFL records.
Hunk was the best dammed guard in the NFL, or any place else, and a hell of a coach, as well.