Johnny wasn’t a very good card player, but I think he enjoyed BSing with the guys. He’d stop in the middle of the game and ask me a question like, ‘Hornung, what have you learned about life?’ He’d throw in philosophy on me all the time. We (the Lombardi-era Packers) all loved Johnny Blood — he was one of a kind.

- Paul Hornung,
former Green Bay Packer halfback


We were at an NFL alumni event, and Hornung, Max, and Fuzzy and I played poker with him all night long. We heard all the stories, breaking curfew, walking out on the ledge of the Northland Hotel. He was doing some Hornung-esque things 40 years before Hornung.

- Jerry Kramer,

"There was nothing boastful about Blood or synthetically erudite. He argued on things because he really knew them and because he happened to hold strong opinions. He traveled with bums on occasion because he wanted their company. He recited poetry - and he could do this by the hour - because he liked it."

- Oliver Kuechle, Milwaukee Journal

"Contrary to popular opinion, I never did see him play, but met and interviewed him in my days at the (Green Bay) Press-Gazette. He was probably the most colorful character to ever wear a Packer uniform and one of the most interesting and intelligent people I've ever met. I don't think there will ever be another one quite like him. I believe the best summation of Johnny Blood was authored by his wife (Marguerite) who said: 'Even when Johnny does the expected, he does it in an unexpected way.' "

Remmel laughed as he recalled some of McNally's stunts.

"Johnny gave Curly (Lambeau) fits over the years with his nocturnal escapades, of which there were many," he said. "On one occasion, Lambeau locked him in his hotel room the night before a game against the Bears in Chicago so he wouldn't break curfew and go out on the town.

"Being resourceful, Johnny had other ideas and reportedly tied bed sheets together and climbed down through the hotel window. Though I can't confirm it, another story told of Johnny missing the team train and then stopping it with his car.

"Before the 1929 season, Johnny Blood played for the Pottsville Maroons, and Curly offered him $100 per game to play in Green Bay via a letter, with a P.S. that if he stopped drinking by Wednesday night of each game week he'd pay him $110 per game. Johnny wrote back: 'I'll take the $100.' That was typical Johnny Blood."

Dan Rooney, Pittsburgh Steelers' Chairman of the Board, has fond memories of McNally.

"I remember going to training camp with my father (Art, team founder) and first going to games in 1937, so I did see Johnny Blood play when I was 4 or 5 years old," Rooney said.

"I remember him well. As a coach, he didn't experience much success with us. But I always thought of the guys from the past that could play in the NFL today, Johnny Blood was one of them. In my opinion, he'd have been a first-round draft choice. He was fast and versatile and an excellent receiver. And he was versatile off the field as well."

One exploit stands out in Rooney's mind.

"One thing I'll never forget about Johnny is that he became friends with the famous actor, John Barrymore," he said. "Barrymore would do a show at the theater in Pittsburgh and he'd call Johnny up out of the audience and they'd recite Shakespeare together. Not too many player/coaches in that day could recite Shakespeare."

Another favorite story of Rooney's involved the Pittsburgh players' friendly wagering on who could telephone a girlfriend from the farthest city.

"There'd be so much money on the table and guys would be calling girls from Chicago or California or New York," Rooney recalled with a laugh. "Johnny Blood picked up the phone and called a girl in South Africa."

From his humble childhood in New Richmond, Wis., McNally would literally travel around the country and world during and after his professional football career. He was married twice, had no children, and spent nearly a decade each in New Richmond and St. Paul before moving to Palm Springs in 1979 until his death in November 1985.

Long-time friend John Doar, a New Richmond native and former U.S. assistant attorney general and Watergate prosecutor now residing in New York, described McNally as "a free spirit who was a very kind person. As a 16-year-old kid, I asked him if I could be the water boy at training camp in Pittsburgh. He let me, but only after getting the approval of my parents. He would never intentionally hurt anyone, and had a grace and charm that quickly endeared himself to people.

"Johnny basically did it all, from professional football to visiting the White House to traveling the world."

Gerald Holland of "Sports Illustrated" wrote the following summary of McNally's resume:

"McNally had been around a bit. He had taught history and economics at his alma mater, St. John's University in Minnesota. He had entered the University of Minnesota to study for his Master's degree at the age of 50. He had started writing a book on economics, a work still in progress. He had read law as a clerk in his uncle's law firm. He had run (unsuccessfully) for sheriff of St. Croix County, Wis., on a platform promising honest wrestling.

"He had been an Air Force staff sergeant and cryptographer in India and China during World War II. He had done a few things calling for less intellectual challenge. He had tended bar in Shanty Malone's place in San Francisco. He had been a stickman, a croupier in a gambling house. He had been a seaman, a newspaper stereotyper, a miner, a farmhand, a feed salesman, a floor waxer, a sportswriter, a hotel desk clerk, a pick-and-shovel worker on a WPA project in Los Angeles during the Depression. He had spent a night in jail in Havana for fist-fighting over a matter of principle.

"In between all this, he played some football - a lot of extraordinary football."

After his playing and coaching career, McNally enjoyed returning to Green Bay for NFL alumni events.

"I met Johnny Blood a couple of times," former Packer guard Jerry Kramer recalled. "Johnny was quite a character. Very bright. Proud. Opinionated. A sharp storyteller. I thought he was something really special. I enjoyed being around him.

"At one point, Johnny was getting on me, saying, 'So you're a writer?' He asked me if I knew the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I said, 'No, I don't.' He said I should look it up."

Another famous Packer running back noted for testing curfews, Paul Hornung, chuckled as he thought of a picture of him and McNally hanging in his Louisville, Ky., office.

"It's a picture of Johnny Blood and me that was taken up in Wisconsin," Hornung said, "And it's signed: 'Two of a Kind.' I think Johnny outdid me, but then I played under Vince Lombardi."

Dick Schaap, the late sportswriter and author, said: "Curly Lambeau, Cal Hubbard, Don Hutson, and Clark Hinkle were four of the first five Packers elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It's not hard to understand why they haven't named a boulevard after the fifth, Johnny Blood. There is, however, a local beer named after him. You can get a glass of Johnny Blood Red at Titletown Brewery."

The Packers honored McNally by naming a banquet room after him in 2003 within the Lambeau Field Atrium. Bart Starr, Paul Horning, and Willie Davis were also recognized in this fashion.

"It seemed very fitting," Packer president Bob Harlan said. "Unfortunately, I couldn't reach any of Johnny's relatives to get their blessing, but we wanted to honor Johnny Blood for his Hall of Fame career. He's a special part of our team's early history."

"I think football was an escape from another kind of life, and I enjoyed it so thoroughly I was always congratulating myself that I was able to find an escape so tolerable to me. To maximize my life. In Green Bay I was intoxicated with the freedom . . . I had no more thought of the future. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Let the morrow take care of itself."

- Johnny Blood, (as told to John Doar)