I give you the most colorful and outspoken Loyola athlete ever: major leaguer Zeke “Banana Nose” Bonura.

While in high school, Bonura lettered in baseball, basketball, football, and track and field. He never batted under .400 while in high school, starred on basketball and football squads where he drew the attention of Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, and yielded the javelin throw a world mark at the age of 16. He remains the youngest man ever to win an event at the Amateur Athletic Union National Track & Field Championship Meet.

Bonura came to Loyola in 1927. He didn’t shy away from other sports and became a quadruple threat (participating in baseball, basketball, football, and track and field). Bonura played and managed Loyola’s freshman basketball team. Offensively, the team centered around their player/manager, who averaged 25 points per outing. That turned out to be half of the team’s total score, and he led the squad to a 6-2 record. He was already on the radar of professional baseball and basketball clubs as a sophomore.

Rumors spread in the spring of his sophomore year that he wouldn’t wait for Loyola’s baseball season to begin. On April 2, 1929, Bonura announced he would leave Loyola. The rumor was true – except he did begin the collegiate season, and in his last game with the Wolfpack, he blasted a ball over the fences.

Shortly thereafter, like the ball, he was gone. Bonura played three seasons with the New Orleans Pelicans, where he was wildly popular, before eventually joining the Chicago White Sox.

He was in the country’s capital and had fans on Capital Hill. Bonura’s No. 1 fan was John Nance Garner, vice president under Franklin Roosevelt. Garner had followed Bonura’s career in Chicago and had urged Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith to somehow acquire Bonura. When he finally did, Garner left the Senate under the control of a junior senator to telephone Griffith his congratulations.

Zeke didn’t disappoint the Veep, either. On the season’s opener Bonura visited Garner before the game and told him, “I’ll hit a special home run for you today.” Three pitches in, Bonura slammed a ball in his first time at bat straight over the centerfield stands. Zeke rounded the bases and continued to Garner’s box where the two hugged as the game stopped.

And after just one year, Bonura was traded to the New York Giants, much to the dismay of both the vice president and Bonura. When asked why he was sad about leaving, Bonura replied, “Now I won’t be able to sign my letters ‘Senator Henry J. Bonura, Democrat, Louisiana.'”