Waiting at the front door of his tidy Rossford ranch the other morning, Jerry Krall greeted us with a wave and a pumped fist.
“Go Blue!” he shouted.
Then the 91-year-old former Ohio State star and resident cut-up smiled.
“Nah,” he said, motioning a photographer and I inside the house, where he lives with his wife, Helen, and their basement guest, a female department store mannequin wearing his old leather football helmet atop a dirty blonde wig and a Varsity ‘O’ sweater. “Go Bucks.”
See, told you he’s a funny man.
Rest assured, however, Mr. Krall is not a Michigan one — even if his dual salutations were perfectly fitting this week.
For those on the fence when it comes to picking Ohio State or Michigan in Saturday’s big game, you might say Mr. Krall knows the feeling.
VIDEO: Jerry Krall
As an all-state senior running back at Libbey High School coveted by both universities, know how the schoolboy star chose between the bitter rivals?
He carefully listed their pros and cons, prayed on the decision, and ... heck, who are we kidding?
“I flipped a coin,” Mr. Krall said.
Seriously.
Heads for Michigan, tails for Ohio State.
And that was that. For the Buckeyes great, the rest became a whole lot of history.
“Wouldn’t change it for anything,” he said, his scarlet Ohio State hat and gray Buckeyes sweatshirt confirming the absence of second thoughts. “I should write a book.”
We’re holding Mr. Krall to that, but until then, let us share the CliffsNotes edition.
The story begins on Toledo’s south side, where he grew up one of 14 children. His father, a machinist, died when he was 9 after falling from a ladder, devastating the family. But together they carried on. Mr. Krall remembers he and his mother carrying home bags of lard, sugar, bread, and milk from the relief station at the old Civic Auditorium on Erie Street, taking back alleys most of the way. “My mom was too proud,” he said.
Mr. Krall found comfort and success on the football field. At Libbey, he and co-captain Tony Momsen led the Cowboys to back-to-back City League championships, along the way earning interest from nearly every big-time college in the land.
That included the region’s blood rivals.
He liked Fritz Crisler’s powerhouse Wolverines, the choice of Mr. Momsen, who famously went on to block a punt for the winning touchdown in the Snow Bowl of 1950. But he also had eyes for Ohio State, which, as a bonus, pledged to set him up with a side job as a Senate page at the Statehouse. “I needed the money to send home,” he said.
Mr. Krall was torn, unable to make heads or tails of the decision. And so, in the modern signing-day equivalent of a recruit selecting from a row of hats while blindfolded, he finally decided to let the money talk.
By that, we mean the quarter.
It came up tails. Ohio State it was.
For a minute, fate seemed to disagree. Mr. Krall mangled his knee so badly in a game against Pittsburgh his sophomore year in 1946 — “My ankle was by my ear,” he said — that he remembers the then-innovative surgery to reconstruct his ligaments drew a gallery of curious doctors and Ohio State medical students. “I should have charged a buck a head,” he cracked.
At the time, the injury was a career death warrant for a running back.
But after spending a year home in Toledo working to strengthen the knee — Mr. Krall biked to Waterville and back every day — he returned to form in 1948 and headlined the Buckeyes in 1949.
That year, as a live wire in Wes Fesler’s single wing, he did it all, leading the team in rushing but also passing and catching, too. In the Rose Bowl, despite his ankle swelling so much that he had to cut his shoelaces, Mr. Krall ran for 50 yards and threw for another 20 in the Buckeyes’ 17-14 win over California.
He endures as one of three Ohio State players to score three ways from scrimmage in a game — Keith Byars in 1984 and quarterback Terrelle Pryor in 2010 later pulled off the same run-pass-catch triple — and, as impressive, the guy who figuratively stiff-armed a Heisman winner. He started ahead of some kid named Vic Janowicz, who, as Mr. Krall likes to say of his buddy and backup, used everything he taught him to win the famed cast bronze trophy as a junior in 1950.
Mr. Krall went on to play three years in the NFL, then spent 44 as an executive at Owens-Illinois, settling in Rossford. He and Helen raised six children.
“I’m very fortunate,” he said.
Today, his Saturdays still revolve around the Buckeyes. He is not sure about this year’s team, telling me Urban Meyer needs to toughen the boys up. “I just don’t think he’s hard enough on them,” he said. Still, if ever there was a week for the Buckeyes to stir and give their opponent hell, he knows this is the one.
“I think it’s going to be a matter of few points,” Mr. Krall said. “It could go either way, the way I’m seeing it.”
A flip of the coin, if you will.
First Published November 23, 2018, 5:13 p.m.
