Gene "Tuffy" Ronzani

Eugene A. "Tuffy" Ronzani was born on March 28, 1909, in Iron Mountain. His father, Giovanni (referred to as "John"), immigrated from Italy in1898 and worked as a miner. After being naturalized in 1904, Gene's father was able to send for his wife, Caterina (Catherine) Broglio Ronzani, and their two oldest siblings. Five more children were born in Michigan, with Gene being the fifth of the seven.

Gene was a 1929 graduate of Iron Mountain High School. He went on to star in football, basketball, and track at Marquette University, earning nine varsity letters, which is unusual even today for a collegiate athlete. Ronzani once said, "I wasn't interested in individual records. What good does it do if you score all the points and the team loses? Why, I can't even remember my records." Still, his records were historic. In tribute to his fantastic career at Marquette, a Marquette Tribune story in 1932 honored him saying "Ronzani easily finds a place for himself among Marquette's immortals."

After graduation, Tuffy joined the Chicago Bears in the National Football league. He played six seasons for the Bears in the 1930s and two more in the 1940s. He also served briefly as backfield coach at Notre Dame in 1945 before rejoining the Bears as a player. Starting in 1947, Ronzani was the backfield coach for three seasons under legendary coach/owner George "Papa Bear" Halas.

In 1950, Ronzani was hired as head coach and General Manager of the Green Bay Packers. He followed Curly Lambeau as head coach through 1953, and while winning only twelve of his thirty-eight games as head coach, he left an indelible mark on the team's history as well as the NFL. Tuffy introduced the first Black American player into the lineup, a move for which he was widely criticized at the time. Also, it was during Ronzani's first game where he discarded Lambeau's original blue-and-gold uniforms in favor of the green-and-gold color scheme which the team has maintained ever since. Ronzani did so, saying, "We are the 'Green' Bay Packers." While his tenure as the team's head coach was unsuccessful, Ronzani hired Jack Vainisi as full-time talent scout. Vainisi went on to receive credit for discovering seven Packers Hall of Famers drafted from 1953-1958: Jim Ringo, Forrest Gregg, Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Ray Nitschke, and Jerry Kramer.

After leaving the Packers, Ronzani served as an assistant with the Pittsburgh Steelers for one season before resigning.