Autographs & Stories From Chuck Foreman (Photo)

About a month ago, while doing my Christmas shopping, I saw former Viking great Chuck Foreman at the Ridgedale Mall in Minnetonka, Minnesota.  Foreman was signing autographs outside of a store called Fan HQ, while sitting at a table with a bunch of memorabilia. He was charging $20 for his signature. I ended up getting an autographed picture of him that was signed for my dad:  “To Jim, Merry Christmas.”

I had heard that Foreman can be mean and full of himself. But on this day at least, he was pretty cool. (Maybe he is only cool if you give him money.)

Foreman spent some time telling us old playing day stories, including the back-story to one of the pictures he was signing.  It was an action photo of him against the Raiders at the Oakland Coliseum.  He noted that back then, the Coliseum was used for everything.  The night before the game in question, there was a rodeo and bull riding event. Even though the stadium crew worked overnight to clean up the field, it was still super muddy. Hence the dirty uniform pic. He mentioned that prior to the game, every player had to get a tetanus shot. 

He also told us that when playing with the great Fran Tarkenton, he had to adjust his hands when receiving a handoff, because the Hall of Famer kept bumping his shoulder. Foreman switched from one arm above and one arm below, to placing both arms below.