Grigsby set to enter MVC Hall of Fame

ST. LOUIS (WMBD/WYZZ) — The jury was still out on Boomer Grigsby when he came to Illinois State as a college football player.

“He was in our first recruiting class,” said Denver Johnson, Grigsby’s coach at ISU. “Boomer was not highly-recruited coming out of high school, to my surprise. I thought he was a diamond in the rough. That’s what he proved to be.”

The Canton High school grad proved to be the most decorated football player in Redbird history. The linebacker was a three-time Missouri Valley Conference defensive player of the year, the only player in league history to accomplish that.

And Grigsby left ISU as the school’s all-time leader in tackles. He is also the career leader in tackles in the Missouri Valley Football Conference and in all of Football Champions Subdivision football.

He graduated in 2004 and still owns those records.

“Records are meant to be broken but he’s put them at a level that will be very tough to break,” said former ISU athletics director Larry Lyons. “He played at such a high level.”

Said Johnson: “He wanted to be the best version of Boomer that he could be. He wanted to be the best player on our team, the best linebacker in the conference and I think he wound up one of the best linebackers in the country.”

In 2022, Grigsby was voted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He’s the first player from Illinois State and still the only one from the Missouri Valley Football Conference to earn that honor.

“He’s in the College Football Hall of Fame and he’s the only one,” said Lyons. “What I think that does is put Illinois State at a different level.”

The jury is no longer out on Grigsby. He goes into the MVC Hall of Fame in a ceremony on March 8.

“I think Boomer and that class of (ISU players) is what put Illinois State football on a different plane,” Johnson said.

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