Until last week, I was unaware of the impact Elroy Hirsch had on UW athletics as we know them today.

I knew he was Wisconsin’s former athletic director, a one-time NFL great and the cheery-looking old guy who started the annual “Crazylegs” race in April.

But it wasn’t until Jan. 28, 2004, the day of his passing, that I began to realize what he meant to this university, to its students and to the state as a whole.

While conducting the research and obtaining the quotes I needed to write the article about him for Thursday’s paper, I quickly discovered why he is considered one of the state’s most unique and celebrated figures.

Not only was Hirsch a decorated athlete and UW’s longest-tenured athletic director, he was also a brief actor, a Marine Corps veteran and a huge Badger athletics booster.

And, as I’d grow to realize over the next few days, he was also one of the most respected and friendly people to ever grace the city of Madison.

In Thursday’s Wisconsin State Journal alone, five separate articles were written about the details of his life — from his days as a standout tailback on the 1942 Wisconsin football team to the impact he had while serving as an ambassador for Badger athletics.

Hirsch was truly one of a kind, and the mark he left on the University of Wisconsin will deify him forever.

When he left his front-office position with the Los Angeles Rams to head up the UW athletic department in 1969, Badger athletics were seemingly in a state of disrepair.

The football team was in the midst of a 20-game winless streak, the athletic department was $200,000 in debt, and the school’s most respectable sport, boxing, had been abolished nearly 10 years previously.

During his 18-year tenure as UW’s athletic director, Hirsch served as the cornerstone of the Badgers’ rise from mediocrity, and virtually put Wisconsin on the map as far as collegiate athletics are concerned.

In just four years on the job, he helped increase the average attendance at football games from 43,000 to 70,000 — a feat he accomplished with “his personality — nothing else, just his personality,” according to long-time UW athletics supporter Butch Strickler.

It’s difficult for many people in our generation to even fathom an unpacked Camp Randall stadium on game day, but Hirsch is part of the reason why a Badger game has become less of a game and more of an event.

The football team only put together six winning seasons and was invited to just three bowl games during his tenure as athletics director, but UW still ranked among the nation’s leaders in attendance throughout the ’70s and early ’80s.

“I think his legacy is the spirit that we see at Wisconsin games, that attitude that it’s supposed to be a fun event and we want to win, but it’s not the most important thing,” said UW band director Mike Leckrone in Thursday’s Wisconsin State Journal. “He had a magic about him. I can’t put it any other way.”

For me and many other people throughout the state, this magic is celebrated every spring with the annual “Crazylegs” race.

Most of the events’ participants couldn’t care less what their time is when they cross the finish line. Instead, it’s more about getting off your duff, having a good time and feeling a sense of accomplishment — and something tells me that’s the way Hirsch intended it.

Whether it’s the looping of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” by residents of Breese Terrace and Lathrop Street while you run by or the opportunity to run through the tunnel of Camp Randall and give Hirsch a high-five to finish the race, the event has an appeal that draws more than 10,000 participants a year.

The Mifflin Street Block Party and the NCAA college basketball tournament notwithstanding, Hirsch’s five-mile run/ walk has gradually become my favorite springtime event.

This April’s 23rd annual “Crazylegs” Run will be unlike any other, though, as it will be the first time in the event’s history “Crazylegs” himself will not be there to start the race.

I never had the privilege of meeting Hirsch, but after talking to a friend of his about who he was and reading compliment after compliment about what he represented, I now realize why he is widely considered to be the state’s most prized athletic icon.

On the first day of class in a history course I took my freshman year, the professor asked us to name five people, living or dead, we’d most like to meet. At the time, I had a difficult time narrowing down my list of names. Something tells me, though, I’d now be narrowing it down to a list of four.