Idle Workshop

As the rest of America debates which statues should come down, how did sports—and college football especially—end up in a golden age of bronze?

- David Fleming

Forty years after his death, Ulysses S. Grant, the former Union Army general and two term POTUS, was immortalized with a statue on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning? He got his statue outside Lucas Oil Stadium less than two years after retiring.

First, though, he had to pose. And so in August 2016, five months into his post-NFL life, the quarterback was in Nashville, Tennessee, standing for sculptor Ryan Feeney inside a small office at a private airport. After joking about his vital signs—“Thought you had to be dead to get a statue,” Manning mumbled—the former Colts QB, already memorialized at Tennessee with a road named after him, tugged on his full NFL uniform one last time. Knowing the image would be captured in bronze forever, Manning made sure it was perfect, down to the tiniest detail.

The jersey came straight from the Colts museum. The wristbands were game-ready. And when Feeney told him that the knee brace probably wasn’t necessary, that he was in no danger of getting sacked by one of his assistants, Manning knelt down and strapped it on anyway. “I’ve always worn it,” he said, looking up. “It’s a part of me.”

Over the next hour, inside the cramped space, Manning posed for a series of photos and measurements—while dropping back, throwing the ball to a Colts equipment manager and re-creating his revolutionary work at the line by pointing at an office plant in the corner. “52’s the Mike,” he yelled at the dracaena as Feeney studied him. Calling audibles, Manning even yelled “apple” instead of the trademark “Omaha!” call he used in Denver, because that was the terminology he used as a Colt.