In the spring of 1922, Wheaton high school senior Harold "Red" Grange was downstate in Champaign competing in the state track meet.

Up walked legendary Illini football coach Bob Zuppke, who asked the boy where he was thinking of going to college.

"I don't know," Grange replied.

Putting an arm around Grange, Zuppke said, "I hope here. You may have a chance to make the team."

Few comments uttered during the past 100 years will ever reach the level of understatement Zuppke's did that day.

Two-and-a-half years later, on Oct. 18, 1924, Grange's star exploded in front of the nation: He scored four touchdowns in the first 12 minutes against undefeated Michigan.

After college, Grange signed with George Halas' fledgling Chicago Bears.

Grange's college fame brought crowds, which brought money, which finally brought longevity and popularity to pro football - a sport which fans had little interest in during the 1920s.

Grange, the man who "may" have been good enough to play for Zuppke, was credited saving the NFL. And he kept sports writers and biographers busy banging out stories, filling reams of newsprint for decades to come.

But before the fame, Hollywood movies, publicity shots with Babe Ruth, and before the legendary moniker "The Galloping Ghost," Grange was the "Wheaton Iceman."

It was at Wheaton High School, where a teen-aged Grange worked a summer job delivering ice and made a regional name for himself as the 20th century's ultimate high school sports star.

"He was a very humble man," said Wheaton Warrenville South football coach John Thorne. "Even though he was a terrific athlete, he was always putting the praise on his team, his coach, his community, and his dad."

No one can doubt his football ability, but the gridiron didn't capture his heart in high school - basketball and track did.

In a retrospective, sportswriter Ed Fitzgerald wrote that Grange - who ran the 100-yard-dash, the 220-yard-dash, jumped the low hurdles, high jump and broad jump - nearly became a one-man track team.

Grange once jumped 23 feet in the broad jump, an amazing feat for a high school jumper today, much less one who competed 80 years ago.

"Nobody compared him to a ghost yet, but it was already crystal clear that he could gallop," Fitzgerald wrote.

Grange won 16 varsity letters in Wheaton. He was captain of the basketball team his sophomore and junior years and captain of the football team his senior year. All three years, he was captain of the track team.

Even to folks as far away as Chicago, Grange was becoming well-known.

"His name is still up near the top in the state high school records lists," Thorne said. "He was way ahead of his time."

For Thorne, Grange is a hero for more than the Iceman's athletic prowess. Grange held a philosophy that espoused all Thorne considers important. Each year, Thorne tries to teach that philosophy to his student athletes.

"The more I learned about him, and what he stood for, the more I realized that he was the kind of person you want as a role model," Thorne said. Even fame didn't change Grange's philosophy of hard work, faith and sportsmanship.

"He was different," Thorne said. "He stood for what's good and right."

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