The former Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and arguably the franchise’s best player of all-time.
Alan Page was born in Canton, Ohio, the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
For those of us that would consider that matter of fate for one of professional football’s most feared defenders, here’s an interesting fact; as a child, Page told his father he wanted to be a lawyer.
And so that’s what he did.
Page not only got his law degree in 1978, practicing law in Minnesota while he was still a player, but 10 years after retiring from the NFL in 1982, he was elected to the Minnesota Supreme Court as an associate judge.
Obviously, one does not become a State Supreme Court jurist without years of diligent work, just as one does not become the first defensive player in the history of the game to be elected the NFL’s Most Valuable Player like Page was in 1971.
To this day, New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor is the only other defensive player that has been named the league’s MVP.
To say Page was exceptional is like saying Randy Moss was fast.
Drafted out of Notre Dame in 1967, where he lead the Fighting Irish to the 1966 National Championship, Page formed the base of what was called “The Purple People Eaters” in Minnesota with fellow defensive tackle Gary Larson, and ends Carl Eller and Jim Marshall.
Deploying himself in the trenches of the defensive line with what, at the time, was an unorthodox three-point stance, Page’s quickness at the snap dismayed opponents and led to 148.5 career sacks, the most ever by an NFL interior defensive lineman.
Page, without question, was a thinking man’s defensive lineman. He once told reporters that his attitude was not to play in a reactionary way, but to attack the offense.
“I’ve got a job to do and my job is not to sit back and wait and react to what the offense does,” Page said. “My job is to go after them. This has been my philosophy. A defensive player should think of himself as an aggressor, not as a defender.”