Whether Bud Grant was a football coach who happened to hunt and fish, or was a hunter and fisherman who happened to coach football, was difficult at times to tell.
Retired Minnesota state Sen. Bob Lessard first met Bud when Lessard, of International Falls, visited the Vikings Bloomington offices in 1967, shortly after Bud was named the team's coach.
"He didn't know me. I just went to the Vikings office and said I wanted to talk to Bud Grant,'' Lessard, now 91, said. "I had gone there the year before to try to talk to coach (Norm) Van Brocklin. I was managing Great Bear Lodge in Canada's Northwest Territories at the time, and my idea was to get Van Brocklin to the lodge and get some publicity out of it.
