[17] Local papers reported that Heikkinen's line play during high school was marked by hard tackling and blocking.

[19] In November 1934, Coach Reihsen took Heikkinen to Minneapolis to attend his first Big Ten football game, the Little Brown Jug match between Michigan and Minnesota.

[21] The Bessemer Herald noted: "It was no surprise to learn that Ralph Heikkinen of Ramsay has been awarded a University of Michigan Alumni scholarship, although only 50 high school seniors in the state can win the honor each year .

[8] The president of the Gogebic Range U-M Alumni Club later recalled that Heikkinen won his scholarship by passing a competitive examination.

[8] When Heikkinen graduated from high school, he weighed only 155 pounds (70 kg; 11.1 st) and was thought too light to play Big Ten football.

[27] Heikkinen was described by the Detroit News as a "pigmy" compared to Michigan's last great guard, Albert Benbrook, who was 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) and more than 250 pounds (110 kg; 18 st).

Speedy guards are needed to pull out of the line and lead the interference, and Heikkinen hasn't quite shown that he is fast enough to move in Big Ten competition as yet.

"[35] The Bessemer Herald reported on the impressive turnaround of the first player from the Gogebic Range to be named All-Big Ten: "Heikkinen, one of the quietest and least boisterous men on the Michigan grid squad, has suddenly shot from obscurity into the Western Conference hall of fame .

[48][49] In 1938, with Heikkinen returning at guard, a new coach in Fritz Crisler, and sophomores Forest Evashevski and Tom Harmon joining the varsity squad, the Wolverines began to turn things around.

An Ann Arbor newspaper reported that Gerald R. Ford, former Michigan center then serving as a scout for Yale, "tried to feed Hike a line .

According to the report, Heikkinen, "in his typically pungent manner, nipped Ford's eulogies in the bud with some poignant remarks on who was trying to kid who and how.

[53] Heikkinen called time out and encouraged the players when the ball was on the one-foot line, and the Michigan team kept the Wildcats from the end zone in an impressive goal-line stand.

On defense it was impossible to gain through his position, and he had a way of jamming opposing lines and making holes so that his secondary could break through and stop the ball carrier.

He came out of a small town in northern Michigan, Hike, did, a sandy haired, extremely reserved Finnish boy with an irrepressible urge to play football.

"[26] Heikkinen was chosen as a unanimous first-team All-American by more than 25 sports magazines, newspapers and wire services,[7] including the Associated Press,[54] the United Press,[55] Grantland Rice for Collier's Weekly,[56] the Newspaper Enterprise Association Service,[25] the New York Sun,[57] and Chesterfield Cigarettes as selected by Eddie Dooley.

Motion pictures of the Ohio State-Michigan game show Heikkinen jamming opposing linesmen back from one to three yards on almost every play.

"[55] In announcing its selection, the Associated Press noted: "An all-Big Ten guard for two years, Heikkinen tears down under punts, pulls out of the line to lead interference and tackles hard.

"[25] Another reporter described Heikkinen as "Michigan's 182-pound dynamo," who was "fast as a halfback, and possessing the quickest charge his coach, Fritz Crisler, has seen.

"[60] In addition to the All-American honors, Heikkinen finished second in voting for the Chicago Tribune Silver Football trophy as the Big Ten Conference's Most Valuable Player.

[63] The Ironwood Daily Globe boasted that residents of Michigan's sparsely populated Gogebic Range had accounted for 25,000 of Heikkinen's votes.

[35][36][65] Heikkinen was the first player from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to win All-Big Ten honors in 1938, and he topped that in 1939 as the region's first All-American.

[7] His exploits were followed closely both during the summer and during the football season in the Gogebic Range's newspapers, The Ironwood Daily Globe and The Bessemer Herald.

[68][69][70] In the week leading up to the banquet, the Globe published an interview with "Hike"'s high school football coach, Robert Reihsen.

By newspapers, magazines and radio the Gogebic range's first All-American football star has brought renown to himself, his home town and his school.

If Ramsay has any street, public building, park or athletic field, that are now without title, or the names of which can be changed, why not dedicate something to Ralph Heikkinen who has so nobly proved himself to be Bessemer township's leading citizen for 1938?

"[74] The Upper Peninsula press continued to report on Heikkinen's every move, as he returned home shortly before Christmas, before heading west to play in the East-West Shrine Game.

The children of the Ramsay school not only have these in common with all others, but we have our own local hero who has gained national repute as a gentleman, scholar and last, but not least, a great athlete.

"[75] The celebration resumed again in January 1939 when Michigan coach Fritz Crisler accompanied Heikkinen back to the Upper Peninsula for another banquet.

[79] Heikkinen signed on as an assistant coach at Michigan in the spring 1939 initially expressing ambivalence about playing professional football.

During World War II, in 1943, Slaughter and Heikkinen turned from coaching to teaching aerial navigation at the University of Virginia Flight Preparatory School.