Ironton's greatest living football legend has died.

Glenn Presnell, who gained fame as an All-American running back at Nebraska and later professionally with the Ironton Tanks and Detroit Lions, died Monday at the age of 99. He was the NFL's oldest living former player.

Presnell came out of the University of Nebraska as an All-American in 1927 in which he led the nation in rushing. He was also named All-Big Six and All-Missouri Valley.

As a sophomore, Nebraska played Illinois and the legendary Red Grange. The Cornhuskers slowed Grange that day, but Presnell ran wild in a 14-7 win over the favored Illini. It prompted famed sports writer Grantland Rice to proclaim Presnell "was better than Grange. Some teams stopped Grange cold, but no one stopped Presnell."

With the NFL in its infancy, many of the game's top players opted for jobs after college and continued to play ball at a semi-professional level. Presnell was one of those players as he was enticed by Nick McMahon to take a job teaching at Ironton High School and playing for the Ironton Tanks.

"I made $2,000 a year at Ironton and I got $150 a game with the Tanks. That was pretty good money in those days," Presnell once said of his playing days.

Presnell played for the Tanks from 1927-30. The Tanks folded after the 1930 season as the Depression took its toll on the Ironton community.

The next season Presnell joined the Portsmouth Spartans, the Tanks arch-rival and now a member of the NFL. Three years later the franchise was sold for the sum of $16,500 to G.A. Richards, a wealthy businessman, and moved to Detroit.

It was in Detroit Presnell enjoyed his finest NFL seasons, leading the Lions to the 1935 league championship. It was also in Detroit that Presnell earned his best-ever pro football salary of $4,000.

After signing his contract with the Lions, Presnell was asked by the owner to pick out the team's new uniforms from several samples and he selected the Hawaiian blue and silver still used today.

Presnell led the league in scoring that season and was first team All-Pro. He had earned second team honors before and on Oct. 7, 1934, kicked a then-NFL record 54-yard field goal. The record stood for 19 years as a league record and has yet to be broken by a Detroit kicker during the past 61 seasons.

Former Eastern Kentucky head football coach Roy Kidd, who won 300 games during his career, played for Presnell at EKU. He said Presnell was one of the all-time great players.

"It's a shame he didn't get into the Hall of Fame," Kidd said.

One player in the Lions backfield from the '35 championship team was Dutch Clark. Presnell shared the backfield duties with Clark, but Presnell said that when things got tight at the end of the game, Lions coach Potsy Clark always turned to him.

"Potsy had more confidence in me. We'd get the lead and Potsy would always turn to me and say, 'Get in there Glenn and hold 'em,'" Presnell said.

Part of the reason Dutch Clark made the Hall of Fame was the fact he later coached the Lions and Cleveland Rams. Presnell retired after nine professional seasons and spent one year as an assistant coach at Kansas, then went to his alma mater Nebraska before entering into the Navy during the World War II for three years.

After the war, Presnell was hired at Eastern Kentucky and spent 17 years as the EKU head coach and another 11 as the athletic director before retiring in 1974. Since then, he has been elected into the Eastern Kentucky University, the University of Nebraska and state of Nebraska hall of fames.

But Presnell is best remembered in Ironton for his great seasons with the Tanks, especially his final two games in 1930 when the Tanks beat both the Chicago Bears and New York Giants of the NFL.

The Bears had just finished the 1930 season in third place and were sure they would put some major dents in the Tanks armor in a game played at Cincinnati's Redland Field. But Presnell ran 4 yards for the game's first score, then broke free with a dazzling 88-yard run. He kicked the point after and it was 13-0. Presnell intercepted a pass early in the second quarter and Keith Molesworth converted the turnover into a 22-yard scoring run.

Chicago closed the gap to 19-13 in the second half, but a long pass from Presnell to Molesworth got the ball deep in Bears territory and Molesworth completed the drive with a 5-yard run.

The Tanks had won convincingly 26-13.

Two weeks later at the same Redland Field, the NFL runner-up New York Giants (13-4) wanted to avenge the league's honor behind former Michigan All-American quarterback Benny Friedman and All-Pro guard Denver Gibson.

Friedman threw a scoring pass to give the Giants a 6-0 lead, but Presnell answered with a touchdown strike of his own to Dick Powell and the game was tied. New York took the ensuing kickoff and drove 68 yards for the go-ahead score but the point-after attempt was fumbled leaving the score 12-6.

Near the end of the game, Presnell began to work his magic again. He returned a punt 40 yards to the Giants 27, darting out of bounds to stop the clock.

In those days, the clock was kept on the field and Presnell asked the official, Shorty Davies, how much time was left. The answer was a mere three seconds and Presnell knew there was time for only one play. Naturally, he called a pass play and began to scramble around behind the line of scrimmage trying to buy some time as he tried to find an open receiver.

"Finally, I saw Gene Alford down near the end zone waving his hands. I threw the ball and he caught it and stepped into the end zone to tie the score. That pass was the biggest thrill of my career," said Presnell.

Second-string kicker Clair Sloan booted the conversion to give the Tanks a 13-12 win over the Giants and secure Presnell's legacy.