McKendree University Athletics

Frank “Big Frank” Gruchalla earned four letters in football and four in track. A center on the football team, he was regarded by the news media as the best at his position in the St. Luis metro area and is considered by many the best lineman ever to play football at Mckendree College. Known as “:the center who never made a bad pass to his quarterback,” he was named to the Little Nineteen All-Conference first Team by the Associated Press in 1934. A linebacker on defense, Frank played practically every minute of the best season in Bearcat football history, 1932, when the team won the Little Nineteen Conference Championship.

Frank captained both the 1933 and 1934 track and field squads. Competing in the shot put and discus, he established the McKendree all-time record in both events in 1934. His 43’3’’ heave of the shot still stood when track was dropped in 1956 and his discus toss of 128’8’’ was the Bearcat standard for 16 years. He led the 1932 team in scoring with 57 individual points and was second in 1934 with 55 points. He won the state shot put title in 1933 after finishing second in 1932.

Gruchalla pursued a career in the field of entistry and in 1943 became chair of the new Department of Oral Medicine at St. Louis University, from which he had obtained his dental degree in 1937. Among the many honors received for his highly specialized work in endodontics, his most prized was an award that can only be won once in a lifetime, the “First Prize in Individual Scientific Exhibit” of the American Dental Association. He also cherished his status as a “Kentucky Colonel.”