Page, Alan

Alan Page, in full Alan Cedric Page, (born August 7, 1945, Canton, Ohio, U.S.), American gridiron football player, jurist, and writer who in 1971 became the first defensive player to win the Most Valuable Player award of the National Football League (NFL). He later served as an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court (1993–2015).

At the University of Notre Dame (1963–67), Page played defensive end for the 1966 national championship team, receiving All-America honours. After graduating he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL. With the Vikings, he played defensive tackle and joined with Jim Marshall, Carl Eller, and Gary Larsen to form the legendary defensive line known as the “Purple People-Eaters.” He was named Rookie of the Year in 1967.

With the Vikings, Page appeared in four Super Bowls and was named All-Pro every year from 1970 to 1977. Weighing 240 pounds (109 kg), he was relatively small for a lineman, yet he was so uncommonly quick that he was often across the line of scrimmage before his opponents could stop him. In 1971, his best season, he recorded 109 tackles, 35 assists, 10 quarterback sacks, and 3 safeties.

In the middle of his career, Page took up running and even competed in marathons. The training led to a loss of weight to below 220 pounds (100 kg), however, and he was released by the Vikings in 1978. He played the final four years of his career with the Chicago Bears. The unofficial record shows that, in his 15 years of professional football, Page never missed a game, starting in 236 contests. He held a career record for highest number of safeties and blocked kicks. Page was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988.

During his playing days, Page entered law school and in 1978 earned a law degree from the University of Minnesota. He went into private practice in 1979 and then joined the Minnesota attorney general’s office in 1985. In 1993 he became an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, serving until 2015, when he hit the court’s mandatory retirement age of 70. With his daughter Kamie Page, he wrote the children’s books Alan and His Perfectly Pointy Impossibly Perpendicular Pinky (2013) and The Invisible You (2014). In 2018 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.