Everett John "Sonny" Grandelius (April 16, 1929 – April 25, 2008) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player, coach, announcer, and executive. He served as the head football coach at the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sys ...

from 1959 to 1961, compiling a record Grandelius played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

from 1948 to 1950 and professionally in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) with the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

in 1953.

Playing career

Born in

Muskegon Heights, Michigan Muskegon Heights is a city in Muskegon County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 10,856 at the 2010 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. The city is surrounded o ...

, Grandelius attended

Muskegon Heights High School Muskegon Heights Academy High School is a public charter high school located in Muskegon Heights, Michigan Muskegon Heights is a city in Muskegon County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 10,856 at the 2010 census. Geography Acc ...

, and is a 1987 inductee to the Muskegon Sports Hall of Fame. He led his team to back-to-back state championships in 1945 as a

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

and in 1946 as a

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

when he was also selected as a first team All-State. As a senior at Michigan State in

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 cr ...

, he gained 184 rushing yards in the season opener, establishing a then school record. During his senior season, he gained 1,023 yards and 11

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s on 163 attempts, the 17th back in

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

history to rush for 1,000 yards or more in a season and the first at Michigan State. He was the leading scorer for the team and selected as the team's

MVP In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

. Grandelius also was an All-American, selected by three publications including the AP. As of 2006, he was ranked fourth in career average yards per carry at Michigan State (6.09, minimum of 150 attempts) and tied for tenth in rushing touchdowns for a single season (11). He had seven 100-yard rushing games in his career. He was the MVP of the 1951

Hula Bowl The Hula Bowl is a post-season college football all-star game held annually, usually in January. From inception through the 2021 playing, it was held in Hawaii; since the 2022 edition, it has been played in Orlando, Florida. The game was first st ...

and also lettered in boxing his sophomore year.

100-yard rushing games

* 1949 season ** October 1 • 11 carries for 104 yards vs. Marquette ** November 19 • 12 carries for 116 vs.

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

* 1950 season ** September 23 • 24 carries for 184 vs.

Oregon State Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...

** October 7 • 14 carries for 110 vs.

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

** October 21 • 16 carries for 122 vs. Marquette ** October 28 • 21 carries for 114 vs. Notre Dame ** November 4 • 25 carries for 177 vs.

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

Drafted as the 11th pick in the third round (37th overall) of the

1951 NFL Draft The 1951 National Football League Draft was held January 18–19, 1951, at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. The Baltimore Colts folded after the 1950 season, and the NFL placed their players in the 1951 NFL draft. This was the fifth year that th ...

, Grandelius played one season, in 1953, in the

(NFL) for the

. He rushed 108 times for 278 yards with 1 touchdown and 3 fumbles and also had 15 receptions for 80 yards.

Coaching career

Grandelius became an assistant coach at his alma mater in

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...

under newly-promoted head coach

Duffy Daugherty Hugh Duffy Daugherty (September 8, 1915 – September 25, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Michigan State University from 1954 to 1972, compiling a record of 109–69–5. His 1965 and 1966 teams won ...

and stayed for five seasons, through

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

. He was hired as head coach at

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

at age 29 in February

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

, succeeding recently fired

Dallas Ward Dallas Carl "Dal" Ward (August 11, 1906 – February 15, 1983) was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He was the head football coach at the University of Colorado in Boulder from 1948 to 1958, compiling a career r ...

at a salary the Buffaloes to controversial greatness, including a

Big Eight Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associatio ...

championship in

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba ( Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 ...

and an

Orange Bowl The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game in th ...

berth on

New Year's Day New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Wh ...

. Shortly after their bowl loss to

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

, it became rumor that he had been using a

slush fund A slush fund is a fund or account that is not properly accounted, such as money used for corrupt or illegal purposes, especially in the political sphere. Such funds may be kept hidden and maintained separately from money that is used for legitim ...

to pay between 15 and 30 top recruits and their families. The

investigated and released inconclusive findings on April 27, 1962, which led to more controversy; the university regents had fired Grandelius six weeks earlier Only one regent of the six, Charles Bromley, voted not to fire Grandelius, saying the firing "''violated every principle of fair play since the

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...

.''" The football team was also punished for two seasons by not allowing television coverage of games or be involved in any post-season

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

s. At least 20 players lost scholarships or left Colorado. News accounts at the time claimed that Grandelius was the first coach in the country fired for recruiting Under interim head coach

Bud Davis John Wilbur Davis (December 7, 1895 in Merry Point, Virginia – May 26, 1967 in Williamsburg, Virginia) was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1919. He would later re-establish himself as a hitter in th ...

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...

, the Buffaloes had a dismal After leaving Colorado, Grandelius went on to assistant coaching positions in the NFL with the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...

and

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

Later life and death

Grandelius was a

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and t ...

for Detroit Lions telecasts on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

from 1965 to 1967. He was also the general manager for the

Detroit Wheels The Detroit Wheels were an American football team, a charter member of the defunct World Football League. Founding Soon after Gary Davidson announced the WFL's formation in October 1973, he was approached by a man named Bud Hucul about putting ...

of the

World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...

(WFL) in 1974. Grandelius died on April 25, 2008 at age 79 in

Beverly Hills, Michigan Beverly Hills is a village in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Metro Detroit and is about north of the city of Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the population was 10,267. Located within Southfield Townsh ...

. He also had a wife, Martha Grandelius and with her he had four children, Steven, Tammy, Kristin and Joel Grandelius. Along with being a loving father he also was a grandfather of five, Christopher Pendy, Andrew Pendy, Michael Pendy, Nick Grandelius and Grace Grandelius.

Head coaching record

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grandelius, Sonny 1929 births 2008 deaths American football fullbacks American football halfbacks Colorado Buffaloes football coaches Detroit Lions announcers Detroit Lions coaches Michigan State Spartans football coaches Michigan State Spartans football players National Football League announcers NCAA sanctions New York Giants players World Football League executives Philadelphia Eagles coaches People from Muskegon Heights, Michigan Coaches of American football from Michigan Players of American football from Michigan