A century later, John ‘Button’ Salmon’s Bear Down story still lives on | Greg Hansen

Button's tombstone has been there since Oct. 20, 1926. A century next month. I think about it every time I drive south on Oracle.

I must've parked in the cemetery five or six times and walked to Button's grave. Upon leaving, I always say “Bear Down.”

Over the years, I've interviewed Salmon's former Arizona football and baseball teammates, Ralph Deal, Roy Drachman and Martin Gentry. I was honored to meet and talk to his sister, Babe Lockie, when the UA dedicated a bust of Salmon in front of McKale Center 40 years ago next month.

“It's still so sad,” she said that day. “He was only 22.”

I've almost exhausted my newspapers.com subscription to search for more data on the UA's 1926 football team captain and student body president. I learned about his remarkable baseball skills — he turned down a contract offer from the Double-A Arkansas Travelers to complete his eligibility at Arizona. 

And I scoured every conceivable newspaper database in an attempt to find out more about his life, his death and the Bear Down legend that thrives in Tucson today, 100 years after his death.

It is an irresistible story of a young man who was born in Texas to a man who drove a stagecoach for a living, and a mother whose father was a captain in the Confederate army in the Civil War. The Salmon's moved to Bisbee when Button was 3.

That's where the Bear Down legend began. I thought I knew as much about him and his life as possible.

To my happy surprise, I was wrong. I learned last week that former KGUN 9 sports anchor Phil Buehler, a Canyon del Oro High School and UA grad, a former Daily Star sports correspondent, has written a long-awaited book about Salmon and the Bear Down legend.

It's called: “BEAR DOWN: The true story of a man, a town, and two words.” Talk about good timing.

I read it in one day.

Buehler, now the press secretary for the attorney general of Tennessee, said he researched Salmon's life for 10 years.

“The more I dug, the more I found,” he says. He did most of the digging while working on his MBA at The Citadel.

Buehler not only uncovered details about Salmon's life (and death) that long ago faded away, but details about Pop McKale's arrival in Tucson — he turned down a baseball offer to play for a minor league team in Walla Walla, Wash., before he became the football coach at Tucson High, and, subsequently, Arizona.

He found that 11 years before Salmon died from injuries suffered in a car accident near Florence in October 1926, McKale had experienced the death of another elite UA athlete, Leo Cloud, who was electrocuted on campus while working for a painting company.

More? Salmon broke two ribs while playing quarterback for Bisbee High School in a game against Tucson High in 1920. He found that McKale once dismissed Button from the UA baseball team, and that a referee ejected him from a UA football game for fighting.

Salmon was 5 feet 8 inches tall and barely 150 pounds. As the UA's 1925 football season began, the Daily Star referred to him as “a scrub,” but by year's end changed course and described him as “the two-headed wizard from Bisbee.”

After Salmon's fatal neck/spine injuries in the car rollover near Florence, McKale visited him in the hospital for 14 consecutive nights. On night 14, he famously asked Salmon if he had a message for his teammates.

“Tell the team... tell the team to Bear Down,” he said.

Three months later, teammate Martin Gentry petitioned UA student officials to name the new basketball arena on campus “Bear Down Gym.”

His motion passed unanimously.

Buehler's book is available through Amazon. I strongly recommend it.