John McNally John Victor " Blood " McNally ( November 27 , 1903 – November 28 , 1985 ) was an American football player who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame . Biography . Early life . A native of New Richmond , Wisconsin , McNally graduated from high school at age 14 . He never played high school sports , but earned letters in football , baseball , basketball , and track at Saint John ' s University in Collegeville , Minnesota . McNally transferred to Notre Dame in 1926 , but left school to play semi - professional football . He would not earn his degree until 1946 after retiring from the game . Professional career . In 1922 , while working for a newspaper in Minneapolis and still answering to the name John McNally , he and a friend , Ralph Hanson , heard they could make extra money by playing football for a semipro football team in the city . They decided to try out under fake names , which would protect McNally ' s amateur standing in case Notre Dame agreed to take McNally back someday after having been kicked out . They headed over to the team ' s practice field on McNally ' s motorcycle . " On the way there , " McNally said , " we passed a theater on Hennepin Avenue , and up on the marquee I saw the name of the movie that was playing , " Blood and Sand " with Rudolph Valentino . Ralph was behind me on the motorcycle , and I turned my head and shouted , ' That ' s it . I ' ll be Blood and you be Sand . ' " McNally made the team , but it was a few years before he made football history while playing with the Green Bay Packers and five other NFL teams . Starting in the 1925 , McNally made a tour of pro football franchises — the Milwaukee Badgers ( 1925 – 26 ) , Duluth Eskimos ( 1926 – 27 ) , Pottsville Maroons ( 1928 ) , Green Bay Packers ( 1929 – 33 ) , Pittsburgh Pirates ( 1934 ) , the Packers again ( 1935 – 36 ) , and the Pirates again as player - coach ( 1937 – 39 ) . McNally played in the National Football League for 14 seasons , with five different teams . In his prime , McNally was 6 ' 1 " and 188 lbs . , known for his speed , agility , and pass - catching ability . He got his professional start in 1925 with the Milwaukee Badgers , where he became famous as the " Vagabond Halfback " for his off - the - field behavior and spontaneity . In 1926 and 1927 he played for the Duluth Eskimos , with fellow Pro Football Hall Of Famer , Ernie Nevers , and in 1928 he played with the Pottsville Maroons . In 1928 McNally switched teams and came to Pottsville along with Walt Kiesling , another Pro Football Hall of Famer - to - be . On November 25 , 1928 , the NFL ' s Pottsville Maroons played the visiting Green Bay Packers at Minersville Park in a driving snow storm . In a 26 - 0 lopsided win over the Packers , McNally scored the last two touchdowns of the game ; his second coming on a 65 - yard run after an interception . Although no one at Minersville Park knew it at the time , that touchdown would be the last Pottsville would ever score in the NFL . After the Maroons folded in 1928 , McNally went to the team against which he scored Pottsville ' s last NFL touchdowns : the Green Bay Packers . Between 1929 - 1933 , 1935 – 1936 , he played with the Packers where he helped them win four championships . He helped lead the Packers to three Championships in a row ; 1929 - 1931 , as well as in 1936 . In 1937 , McNally moved on to the Pittsburgh Steelers ( then called the Pirates ) , where on his first play he ran back a kick 92 yards for a touchdown . He ended his NFL career in 1939 as the head coach of the Pirates . One day in 1941 , McNally took a day off from his coaching duties for the Kenosha Cardinals minor league football team and played one game with the Buffalo Tigers of the third American Football League . Green Bay Packers . When coach Curly Lambeau first negotiated a contract with McNally to play for the Green Bay Packers he offered him a $ 110 a week if he wouldn ' t drink after Wednesday and $ 100 a week if he did . McNally allegedly took the $ 100 . McNally wore several different uniform numbers during his Packers career , including 14 ( 1933 – 34 ) , 20 ( 1931 – 32 ) , 24 ( 1929 – 30 ) , 26 ( 1935 ) , and 55 ( 1936 ) . Coaching career . The Pittsburgh ' s President Art Rooney hired McNally for the 1937 season season to be both a player and a coach for the NFL ' s Pirates . In his first season as coach , McNally ' s team was able to muster only a 4 - 7 record , which was still good enough for 3rd place in the NFL Eastern conference . McNally and his squad fared worse in 1938 , however , posting only a 2 - 9 record . They finished 5th out of six teams in the NFL Eastern conference . During the 1938 season , which would be McNally ' s last full season as coach , the Pirates were set to play the rival Philadelphia Eagles at Laidley Field in Charleston , West Virginia on November 20 , but McNally was nowhere to be seen . As the story is often told , McNally was instead attending a football game at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles . Friends in the press box questioned McNally as to why he was on the West Coast and he replied that the Pirates had an open date . The scoreboard , however , proved otherwise . Pittsburgh was on the road playing without its boss present . " I was going to fire him , " Rooney would later say , " But the players loved him . So I told him , ' John , you have to make the games . ' " McNally began the Pirates ' 1939 season as head coach , but following a 32 - 0 loss to the Chicago Bears at Forbes Field , and the third consecutive loss to start the season , McNally tendered his resignation to Rooney . Clearly McNally ' s playing talents didn ' t carry over to the sideline . The Pirates went 7 - 25 - 1 ( . 318 ) in his three seasons before being replaced by Walt Kiesling in 1939 . Rooney later called McNally the most memorable character he knew during his career . " Nobody would even believe some of the things he did , " said Rooney . " As one of our veterans once said , ' This is the only team I ' ve been on where the players worry about the coach instead of the other way around . ' " Following his brief stint at Pittsburgh , McNally coached football again at St . John ' s University from 1950 - 1952 where he amassed 13 - 9 record during his three year stint . When leaving Saint John ' s he told incoming head coach John Gagliardi that " nobody can win at Saint John ' s . " Gagliardi went on to become the winningest head coach in college football regardless of division and coached at Saint John ' s until his retirement after the 2012 season . Legendary antics . Few deny McNally ' s extracurricular exploits both on and off the football field contributed to the legend of the man . Researchers , however , also agree the line between what is fact and what is fiction is often very thin . The exploits of McNally that can be substantiated include : • Jumping across a narrow ledge six stories from the ground to gain access to a Los Angeles hotel room . • Fleeing a towel fight with Packers end LaVern " Lavvie " Ralph Dilweg by climbing on top of a fast - moving train and crawling across car tops . • After clinching the 1931 league championship , the Packers celebrated on the train ride back to Green Bay from New York with a party , which included an impromptu towel fight . During the towel fight McNally angered the towering end LaVern " Lavvie " Dilweg . Dilweg chased McNally through the railroad cars and trapped him on the rear platform , or so he thought . That ' s when McNally hoisted himself on top of the train . He then made his way across the top of the moving train until he reached the engine compartment where he spent the remainder of the trip . • Playing almost an entire game with a collapsed kidney . • Having to be rescued by teammates while attempting chin - ups on the stern ' s flagpole of the S . S . Mariposa while traveling across the Pacific Ocean for a barnstorming game in Hawaii . • Riding the blinds between trains on the way to training camp to avoid having to pay a fare , which earned him the nickname " The Vagabond Halfback . " • Once ran 50 yards for a touchdown on a lateral and when QB Red Dunn called the same play later in the game , ‘ Blood ’ simply smiled and lateraled the ball back to Dunn . • Climbing down the face of a hotel in downtown Chicago to avoid curfew and recite poetry to the swooning women below . • McNally was famous for perching on hotel ledges and the tops of bar tables as he sang the song Galway Bay . • He once passed up an opportunity to purchase a NFL franchise for $ 1200 . • Alan Robinson of the Associated Press recalled that Blood " once pulled his car directly into the path of the team train that he ' d missed during a late night of wine , women and song . He wasn ' t even fined , or suspended — after all , he was the coach . " • Augie Ratner , a perfectly healthy ex - featherweight boxer advertised his own funeral in a Minneapolis paper in 1971 , to which McNally wrote , " I ' ll be sad when you are dead . " McNally then offered a bet on which of them would live longest . McNally wrote , " The one who goes first loses a grand to the one who survives . The loser won ' t miss the money , and it will console the winner for the loss of a friend . May I live a long time and you forever . " Ratner accepted the proposal both he and Blood had the $ 1 , 000 bequest put into their wills . Later in life . The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked in the opening moments of the Second World War , McNally enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps and served in India as a cryptographer . After the war McNally attempted to rejoin the Packers in 1945 but was injured by two tacklers while returning a punt in an exhibition game and retired permanently from professional football . Returning to St . John ' s , McNally earned a degree in 1946 and stayed a few years as a teacher and a coach for several different sports . Later he would return to his hometown of New Richmond , Wisconsin to run an employment agency . In 1958 McNally was an unsuccessful candidate for county sheriff running on a platform promising " honest wrestling . " McNally also entered the University of Minnesota at the age of 50 , where he later earned his master ' s degree in economics . When the Pro Football Hall of Fame was founded in 1963 , McNally was among the 17 - member inaugural class , which included Curly Lambeau , Jim Thorpe , Sammy Baugh , and Bronko Nagurski . Then in 1970 , when the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame was founded , McNally was among its first eight inductees . After football . McNally was married twice ; first to Marguerite Streater , who he married in the 1940s , and then to Catherine Kopp , who he married in 1966 . On November 28 , 1985 , Johnny " Blood " McNally , arguably one of the greatest and most colorful players pro football history , died from the complications of a stroke in Palm Springs , California . He was 82 . Though McNally was gone , his legacy was not . George Clooney ' s character — Dodge Connolly — in the 2008 film " Leatherheads " was based ( in part ) on McNally . Some said his life was made for Hollywood , but his wife Marguerite probably said it best when she said , " Even when Johnny does the expected , he does it in an unexpected way . " McNally is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City , California .