Hercules Renda
Renda cropped from 1939 Michigan team photograph
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| Sport(s) | Football |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born | September 5, 1917 |
| Died | October 12, 2005 (aged 88) |
| Playing career | |
| 1937–1939 | Michigan |
| Position(s) | Halfback |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1940–1941 | Michigan (assistant) |
Hercules Gennaro Renda (September 5, 1917 – October 12, 2005) was an American football player and coach. He played for the University of Michigan football team from 1937 to 1939. He was an assistant football coach at Michigan under Fritz Crisler from 1940 to 1941. He later served as a high school football and track coach in Pontiac, Michigan for many years and was inducted into the Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame.
A native of West Virginia born to Italian immigrant parents, Renda grew up in Cabin Creek in the state's coal country. He was named after a brand of mining dynamite ("Hercules Dynamite" and "Hercules Powder") that was popular among West Virginia coal miners at the time.
Renda became a star athlete at East Bank High School in East Bank, West Virginia. During the summers, he worked as a "tippler" at the coal mine. During the school year, he played basketball and football and ran the dash and low hurdles for the track team. He was badly injured in a high school basketball game when he was "bumped while in the air with both feet off the floor and landed on his head." Renda later said that five weeks in the hospital taught him that football was the best and safest sport after all.
As a high school senior in 1935, Renda drew attention from the West Virginia press for his skill as a running back. The state's leading newspaper, the Charleston Gazette wrote in October 1935: "In Hercules Renda, East Bank will show its greatest running back of all time. Renda has scored 11 times for East Bank this year and his runs have varied from 10 to 95 yards." In November 1935, the Gazette called him "stocky Hercules Renda, a fast stepping but nevertheless rugged halfback, who has been running wild all season." (Twenty years later, NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West attended East Bank High; West was nicknamed "Zeke from Cabin Creek".)
Two University of Michigan alumni, Lon Barringer and Rocco Gorman, recruited Renda and his high school teammate, Joe Savilla, to play football for the Michigan Wolverines. Renda and Savilla both enrolled at the University of Michigan. The Michigan Daily depicted the two West Virginia recruits as something of an odd pair—Renda was a 5-foot, 4 inch halfback, and Savilla was a 6-foot, 4 inch tackle. Despite his small size (5 feet 4 inches and 152 pounds), Renda played for Michigan's freshman team in 1936 and for the varsity team from 1937 to 1939. His performance on the freshman team in 1936 was summed up as follows: "On the offense he runs like a frightened deer and is deathly with his tackles while on defense."
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