March 8, 2011: Bronko Nagurski Jr. dead at 73

If only his old pal could have hung on another couple of weeks, Angelo Mosca would have seen him one last time.

But Bronko Nagurski Jr. died of cancer at the age of 73 Monday night in International Falls, Minn., leaving Big Ang to mourn a man he’d called a close friend for 55 years.

“I knew he wasn’t feeling well and, when I got back from a trip with my grandkids next week, I was going to fly out and see him,” Mosca said of the man who was his comrade in three different places, at three different levels of football, including a long stretch with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats dynasty of the late ’50s and early ’60s.

“I called him a country bumpkin, and I was a city slicker,” Mosca said Tuesday. “But we were good friends anyway. I’ll never forget the time we first met.”

Which was in a Chicago airport in 1955 when both were 18 and heading for the High School All-American Game in Memphis, Tenn. They each thought the other looked like a football player and struck up a friendship that neither could have guessed would last a lifetime.

Eventually, Nagurski, primarily an offensive tackle, ended up at Notre Dame with Mosca, primarily a defensive tackle. They played together for the Irish for two seasons before Mosca left the school after his junior year. After Mosca’s rookie season with Hamilton in 1958, the Ticats sent him to travel to South Bend to convince Nagurski to come to Canada.

Nagurski arrived in time for the 1959 season and played eight seasons for the Cats, including the ’63 and ’65 Grey Cup winners, before returning to International Falls to work in the paper industry. He was a CFL all-star in ’62 and ’65.

“He wasn’t a real rugged player,” Mosca recalled of Nagurski, who was the son of one of the toughest men to ever don pads. “But he had excellent technique, which made him very effective. We had tremendous offensive lines: Bronko was the right tackle and Ellison Kelly was the left tackle. They were great.”

Nagurski’s father, Bronko Sr., was a gridiron legend. Born in Rainy River, Ont. — which gave his son “non-import” status in the CFL — the senior Nagurski starred for the Minnesota Golden Gophers as a fullback and defensive tackle and made some all-American teams at both positions. A hall of famer, he later starred for the iconic NFL Chicago Bears and, in a poll this decade, he was named the 35th best player in league history. When the Golden Gophers opened a new stadium two years ago, he was posthumously named an honorary team captain and was represented by Bronko Jr.

Although Mosca was in Ottawa and Montreal, for two of Bronko Jr.’s Ticat seasons, they were very close. Nagurski is the godfather to Mosca’s son Angelo Jr., and he and Mosca talked two or three times a month since Nagurski returned to International Falls.

The last time they talked, and would ever talk, was just two weeks ago.

smilton@thespec.com

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