Wally Grant Wally Grant ( born December 8 , 1927 in Leonidas , Minnesota ) is a retired ice hockey player . Grant helped the University of Michigan win the first NCAA National Championship in 1948 . He was inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1987 and the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994 . Minnesota state championship . Grant was born and raised in Leonidas , Minnesota . He was the son of an immigrant father who had worked in an open - pit ore mine since he was a young man , and had become a superintendent for U . S . Steel . Grant learned to skate on an ice rink that his father made by flooding a small grassy area near their home . Nicknamed " Cedar Legs " because of his bowed legs , Grant attended nearby Eveleth High School , where he was the left wing and captain of the hockey team that won the first Minnesota state hockey championship in 1945 . Eveleth outscored the competition 30 - 3 in the inaugural tournament . Grant played most of the game in the finals against Thief River Falls and scored the game - tying and game - winning goals within a span of 61 seconds in the third period . Interviewed in 2001 , Grant said the 1945 state championship still blinked in his memory like giant neon billboards . He told a reporter , " I remember my father was behind the net at the other end . He was cheering us on . . . . Dad wasn ' t a man known for emotional displays . He was very aloof , but you knew he was proud after we won . " University of Michigan . After graduating from high school , Grant enrolled in at the University of Michigan , where he played four seasons of hockey between 1945 and 1950 . He took one year off after his freshman year to serve in the U . S . Army . In 1948 , he played on the first NCAA Frozen Four ice hockey championship team . Four teams were selected to play in the first NCAA ice hockey championship , held at the Broadmoor Hotel Ice Palace in Colorado Springs , Colorado . The four teams to play in the inaugural Frozen Four were Michigan , Boston College , Dartmouth and Colorado College . Grant played on Michigan ' s famous " G " line , which included Wally Gacek and Ted Greer . Each of the three linemates scored a third - period goal in Michigan ’ s championship win over Dartmouth in 1948 . Michigan ' s hockey title in 1948 capped off a year in which Michigan had also won the National Championship in football , and the conference basketball championship . Grant was named an All - American three times , in 1948 , 1949 and 1950 , and captain of the 1950 team . In his four years at Michigan , Grant scored 63 goals and 83 assists for 146 career points . Michigan coach Vic Heyliger called Grant " the best two - way hockey player I have ever seen . " Grant was not a large player , but he was fast . He later recalled , " I was 5 ' 8 and 165 pounds , but I was fast enough to get around some of those defensemen . That was my advantage . " Later years and honors . Grant graduated from Michigan with a business degree in 1950 and worked for 37 years for General Motors , retiring in 1987 as comptroller of the Warren Division of Hydra - Matic . He continued to follow Michigan Wolverines hockey and was the vice president of the Dekers Blue Line Club — a Michigan hockey booster organization . He and wife raised three children in the Ann Arbor area . In 2007 , Grant and his wife endowed the Mickey and Wally Grant Scholarship for Hockey at the University of Michigan . Grant was inducted in the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1987 , and the U . S . Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994 .