A gentleman sent me an e-mail making sure that I had taken note of the death of Bill Daley, the great Gophers' (and Michigan) fullback of the 1940s. He also mentioned a column that I wrote on Daley "within the last 10 years.''

It was in December 2005 and Bill still was running his art gallery in the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis. Here's the column on a man who I found to be a true character:

THE GOPHERS DEFEATED defeated Michigan on Oct. 8. It was the first victory over the Wolverines since 1986. Glen Mason had possession of the Little Brown Jug and brought it with him into Manny's Steakhouse that night.
Mason was told that the gentleman in the art gallery across the hall, Bill Daley, had a unique familiarity with this precious hardware.
"They came over and got me, and Mason and I had our picture taken with the Jug," Daley said. "See, it's right here."
Daley was pointing at the snapshots that were in the window outside the restaurant. "I've had a lot of photos taken with the Jug," he said.
Yes, he has. Daley was the fullback for the Gophers from 1940-42. Then, he enlisted in the Navy and was stationed in Ann Arbor, Mich. He played that season for Michigan and was named an All-America fullback.
Daley was on the winning side four times in the Little Brown Jug game - three times with his homestate Gophers, once for the Wolverines.
He owns Bill Daley Illustrations Art Gallery on the mezzanine level of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis. He generally arrives around 4 p.m. and spends a few hours in his store.
"This is my last hurrah," he said.
Retiring? "No, no," he said. "This is my last location. I have over 400 illustrations and paintings in my collection. Hopefully, I'll be showing up here until the day I die."
That does not appear to be an imminent occurrence. Daley remains a picture of strength and close to his playing weight of 215 pounds.
"I'm 86," he said. "Do you believe that?"
No.
"Neither do I," Daley said. "I told someone I was 86 a while back and he said, `Bill, do you realize how old that is? In 14 years, you're going to be 100.'
"That had never occurred to me. I never felt old until that moment."
Daley's Irish father was working on the railroad when he met Bill's mother in the then all-German enclave of Melrose, Minn. Bill wound up with the genes of the TeVogt side of the family.
"I'm the luckiest guy in the world," Daley said. "Bud Wilkinson once said I had the best physique ever for a football player."
Bill reached around behind his desk and showed off a large photo. "Look at this guy," he said.
It was Daley in 1941, wearing only athletic shorts. The physique was so impressive that Heath Ledger would have been tempted to throw Jake Gyllenhaal out of his sleeping bag to make room for young Bill.
Daley was a freshman fullback in 1940 on a team that had two amazing halfbacks: Sonny Franck and Bruce Smith. They are both members of the College Football Hall of Fame. Daley is not, which is astounding to those who watched him play.
"I was a young guy then and saw all the games," the Star Tribune's Sid Hartman said. "In my opinion, Daley was the best back of them all. He was bigger than everyone else, he could move and there was nobody that strong. He would carry two or three tacklers on his back for 10 yards."
Franck was well-known for his ego. Daley's most vivid memory of that came against Wisconsin in 1940 - the last game of that 8-0 national championship season.
"I carried the ball all the way down the field, run after run into the line," he said. "I took it down to the Wisconsin 2. Then, Sonny called a play for himself and ran it in the end zone.
"He looked at me with a big smile and said, `Thanks, Bill. I needed that touchdown to make All-American.' "
When Daley first left Melrose, he went to Chicago with the idea of being a professional fighter. A trainer in the gym lined him up to go to DePaul to play football.
"I learned in a hurry practicing with the DePaul players that I was better than most of them," he said. "Ever since I went to a Gophers' game in 1934 and saw my hero, Pug Lund, I had been
fascinated by the idea of playing for Bernie Bierman.
"So, I left DePaul, came back to Minnesota, and tried out for the Gophers."
In 1940, he carried the ball through the Badgers until Franck scored the winning touchdown and became an All-America. In 1941, the Gophers repeated as national champions and the powerful
fullback helped make Smith the winner of the Heisman Trophy.
The Bill Daley gallery has an illustration of Bruce Smith in his No. 54 jersey on the back wall.
"Bruce was quiet and gentlemanly - a completely different personality than Franck," he said. "But when you put us all together ... I don't think for its era there was ever a better
backfield."