Elroy Hirsch was born in Wausau on June 17, 1923. He became one of the best receivers in pro football history, starred in a Hollywood movie about himself and came home to run athletics at the University of Wisconsin for 18 years.
How he got the name
Hirsch starred in football and basketball at Wausau High School and enrolled at UW-Madison. He played one season for the Badgers, in 1942, as a triple-threat halfback. That team went 8-1-1, beat No. 1 Ohio State 17-7 and finished third in the Associated Press poll, according to UW Athletics.
The nickname came that fall. Chicago sportswriter Francis Powers watched Hirsch score on a long touchdown run against Great Lakes Naval Station and wrote that “his crazy legs were gyrating in six different directions all at the same time.”
During World War II, Hirsch joined the Marine Corps and was sent to the University of Michigan in the V-12 training program. He lettered there in football, basketball, track and baseball, the only athlete in Michigan history to letter in four sports.
The Rams
Cleveland took Hirsch in the first round of the 1945 NFL draft, but he started his pro career with the Chicago Rockets of the All-America Football Conference, from 1946 through 1948. He joined the Los Angeles Rams in 1949 and played there through 1957.
The Rams used him as a flanker in their three-end offense. In 1951, he caught 66 passes for 1,495 yards and 17 touchdowns, an NFL single-season record for receiving yards at the time, and the Rams won the league championship.
He finished his pro career with 387 catches for 7,029 yards and 60 touchdowns. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968.
Hollywood
Hirsch made a few movies in the 1950s:
- “Crazylegs” (1953), in which he played himself
- “Unchained” (1955), a prison drama with Hirsch in the lead as an inmate. It introduced the song “Unchained Melody.”
- “Zero Hour!” (1957), in which he played the airline captain who gets sick from the fish
Fans of “Airplane!” will recognize that last plot. The Zucker brothers used “Zero Hour!” as the basis for their 1980 parody, down to much of the dialogue.
Back to Madison
After football, Hirsch worked for Union Oil and then returned to the Rams as general manager.
He became Wisconsin’s athletic director on Feb. 28, 1969. The department was $200,000 in debt, and the football team had gone 0-19-1 over two seasons. Hirsch sold the Badgers in every corner of the state. Over his 18 years, the department grew from 12 men’s sports to 25 men’s and women’s programs. He stepped down as AD in 1987.
In late 1981, three Badger fans, Tom Grantham, Ken Sparks and Rich Backus, came up with a race to raise money for UW Athletics and asked Hirsch if they could name it after him. The first Crazylegs Run in 1982 drew 1,525 runners and raised $9,500, according to the Crazylegs Classic. It is now an 8K run and 2-mile walk that finishes at Camp Randall Stadium.
Hirsch died Jan. 28, 2004, in Madison. He was 80. He is buried in Wausau.
