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Steve Jetton
Saw this in the Pantagraph this morning:
25 years ago (1989): Bloomington-born Bump Elliott, the University of Iowa athletic director, will receive a certificate signifying his induction into the National College Football Hall of Fame. Elliott was an all-state running back at Bloomington High, and an All-American at Michigan, were he was MVP of the Wolverines’ unbeaten 1947 squad.
Here’s an amusing story (at least I think so) about how Chalmers became Bump.
We lived in the old Elliott home at 1109 E Jefferson from ’91 to 2005, a big old house built in 1909, situated just a few blocks south of present day BHS. This story was passed along by the folks we bought from, Steve and Carol Struck.
On the west side of the house there’s a single story sun porch. It seems that during summer evenings when it got uncomfortably warm in the house (no air conditioning in those days) the kids would crawl out from a second story window to sleep on the sun porch roof. One night young Chalmers rolled off the roof onto the ground and became ever after known as Bump.
I once asked one of the brothers, Jim Elliot (who still lives in the old neighborhood a block north on Monroe) if this piece of tribal folklore was indeed true. He just smiled and said it might be.
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