Curly Lambeau sent Johnny Blood a letter with an offer to play for the Green Bay Packers;

"Dear John,
     I'll give you a hundred dollars a game, or a hundred-and-ten if you won't drink from Wednesday until after the game."

Johnny wrote back;   "I'll take the hundred."

John McNally grew up in New Richmond, Wisconsin. Highly intelligent, with a near photographic memory, he graduated from High School at the age of 14, studied at St. John's University, and spent a year at Notre Dame.

When an opportunity to play pro football came along, he started using the name Johnny Blood, hoping to hide his identity and maintain eligibility in college athletics. He took the name "Blood" from a movie marquee he passed on the way to his football tryout. His friend used "Sand". The movie was "Blood and Sand".

Prior to joining the Packers, Johnny played football in the Iron Range, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, for the Ironwood Miners;

"The games were rough as hell, but the parties after the games were even rougher. Both teams would usually go over to Hurley to drink, and the brawls that started during the game would resume right where they'd left off."

Johnny ended his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates (later renamed the Steelers), owned by Art Rooney. Art recalled the friendly wagering by the Pittsburch players, betting on who could telephone a girlfriend from the farthest city;

"There'd be so much money on the table and guys would be calling girls from Chicago or California or New York. Johnny Blood picked up the phone and called a girl in South Africa."

"He could be with riff-raff in a waterfront bar one day, then recite Keats or Shakespeare by the hour in different company the next. He could drop a pass thrown right in his hands, then catch one that nobody else could."

  - Oliver Kuechle, sports editor, Milwaukee Journal

"I never saw a fellow who could turn a ballgame around as quickly as Johnny Blood. When he came into a game, the whole attitude of the players changed. He had complete confidence in himself. He had tremendous football sense."

 - Don Hutson, teammate and fellow member of the
   Pro Football Hall of Fame.

RESUME:
Jobs held by John McNally during his lifetime included;
football player, law clerk, stickman at a gambling house, bartender at Shanty Malone's (San Francisco), seaman, newspaper stereotyper, miner, farmhand, feed salesman, floor waxer, St. John's University Professor (history/economics), hotel desk clerk, sportswriter, pick-and-shovel worker on a WPA project during the depression, Air Force Staff Sergeant (cryptographer in India and China during WWII).

Following his football career, McNally signed a contract to write a book. Everyone was expecting a book full of Johnny Blood stories, taken from his life both on and off the field. The subject of McNally's book was; "Malthusian Economics".

He spent a night in jail in Havana following a fist fight. He said it was a matter of principle.

Johnny was referred to as the "Vagabond Halfback" because of his tendency to hop freight trains as a means of getting around.

President John F. Kennedy's boyhood hero was Johnny Blood.

Need more Johnny Blood?

Get this book =>  Vagabond Halfback - The Life and Times of Johnny Blood McNally