Bart Starr 1934 – 2019 Bryan Bartlett “Bart” Starr, 85, of Birmingham (Ala.) passed away, surrounded by his family and close friends, on Sunday, May 26, 2019. He is survived by his loving and supportive wife of 65 years Cherry, his son Bart Starr, Jr., three granddaughters (Shannon, Jenny, and Lisa) and three great grandchildren (Bryan, Teddy, and Violet). He was preceded in death by his parents Benjamin Bryan Starr and Lula Tucker Starr, his brother Hilton, and his son Bret. Bart was honored to attend and play football at Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery, and at the University of Alabama. During the next 16 years, he was blessed to be a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. He always stressed to his family, friends, and fans that he received far too much credit for the five NFL championships the Packers achieved under Coach Vince Lombardi. He knew that without the unselfishness, focus, and determination of every member of the team, including the coaching staff and the organization, none of that success would have been possible. His respect for his teammates was profound and enduring. One, Zeke Bratkowski, became as close as a brother. During his time with the Packers, Bart fell in love with the residents of Green Bay and the entire state of Wisconsin. Because he came from such humble beginnings, Bart had the greatest respect for the work ethic, generosity, and true sense of family values that permeate Wisconsin. After praying with Cherry about their desire to give back to the community they so cherished, he met John Gillespie. John asked Bart to help build Rawhide, a ranch for at-risk teenage boys who needed spiritual support. In his office, Bart displayed a photograph of a group of young men who were working their way through Rawhide with the guidance of God and their counselors. Nothing could exceed the joy he received when, decades later, he met the men who were once residents at Rawhide and had become wonderful fathers and role models. Upon his return to Alabama in the early 1990s, he found immense meaning in supporting the missions of Children’s of Alabama and Cornerstone Schools for underserved students. He and Cherry also became deeply involved with the Humane Society of Birmingham. Each of these charitable causes filled Bart’s soul with inspiration and gratitude, for they reflected the selfless qualities he witnessed daily by the residents of Alabama. Following the serious strokes he suffered in September 2014, his daily challenges provided yet another occasion for thankfulness; he recognized that the opportunity to again see his beloved friends in Green Bay would be well worth the extraordinary effort required to make those trips happen. As he left this world, he did so in peace, having never lost his faith, and having always trusted in the goodness of humanity. A Birmingham service, “Celebrating the Legacy of Bart Starr,” will take place from 3-5 p.m. on Sunday, June 9, at the Wright Center, Samford University. The Starr family is making arrangements for an additional celebration in Green Bay, with details to be finalized as soon as possible. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a charity of your choosing, or to the Bart and Cherry Starr Foundation, which supports the causes noted herein.
Here is the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s front page from Monday, May 27, 2019, with the cover story coverage on the death of Packers’ legendary QB Bart Starr.
We’re been posting on our social media channels lately, but the original Packerville, U.S.A. blog has been resting as the new season approaches. As everyone now knows, legendary Packers QB Bart Starr has passed away at the age of 85. We are putting together a Bart Starr Tribute for this space, so stay tuned. Until then, the above photo is of your editor and Starr in 2001.
Here is an obituary from the Associated Press in the mean time: Bart Starr, Quarterback Who Led the Packers to 60’s Greatness, Dies Sunday at 85
Associated Press May 26, 2019 Bart Starr, the earnest and determined leader of the great Green Bay Packers teams of the 1960s who became one of the most accomplished quarterbacks in history — the in-the-huddle incarnation of their fierce and masterly coach, Vince Lombardi — died on Sunday in Birmingham, Ala. He was 85. His death was announced by the Packers. He had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2014, the team said. Starr, the son of a strict military man who used to tell him that he wished he were tougher, was an underperforming bench-warmer when Lombardi first arrived in Green Bay in 1959. Like Starr’s father, Lombardi worried, as he later said, that the young man might be “too polite and maybe just a little too self-effacing to be the real bold, tough quarterback that a quarterback must be in the National Football League.” More than a half-century later, the annual N.F.L. award given to a player, and voted on by players, for outstanding character and leadership on and off the field is called the Bart Starr Award. Starr’s name may have been the most flamboyant thing about him. But he proved to be skilled, sly and, by at least one measure, incomparably successful: He won three N.F.L. championships (for the seasons played in 1961, ’62 and ’65) in the pre-Super Bowl era, and then the first two Super Bowls, in January of 1967 and ’68. That Packers’ run of N.F.L. championships helped bring new attention to professional football as it moved into the Super Bowl era. (With his victory in 2019, Tom Brady has won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots.) Starr was named the league’s most valuable player in 1966 and received the same honor in Super Bowls I and II. He was selected to the Pro Bowl four times. And on a team known for running — with the flashy Paul Hornung and the rugged Jim Taylor (who died in October) — Starr was one of the league’s most efficient passers. He led the N.F.L. in that crucial category in three seasons and, on average, for all of the 1960s — even though his rival Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts was often viewed as better. Starr set career records for completion percentage, 57.4, and consecutive passes without an interception, 294. Those records were eventually broken in a league transformed by precision-passing offenses and increasingly coddled quarterbacks, many groomed since childhood and arriving at the annual N.F.L. draft as celebrities. Starr, by contrast, was drafted in the 17th round in 1956 after barely playing his senior year at Alabama, and he may not have been the most talented player on the Packers during their glory years. Many teammates from that era — including Hornung, Taylor, Willie Davis, Forrest Gregg, Jerry Kramer and Ray Nitschke — are in the Hall of Fame. (Gregg died in April.) Yet Starr became the Packers’ most essential player. Lombardi was a new kind of coach — comprehensive, obsessive, relentless — and he needed a new kind of quarterback, serious and studious enough to put the coach’s grand plans into motion, to make crucial decisions when the game, and maybe the season, was on the line, and to endure Lombardi’s sometimes harsh criticism. Starr became a passionate student and a superlative field general, and he never stopped giving Lombardi credit for his success. Editors’ Picks “I loved it,” he recalled in David Maraniss’s 1998 book, “When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi.” “I loved the meetings. I never, ever was bored or tired at any meeting we were in with Lombardi. I appreciated what he was trying to teach. He was always trying to raise the bar.” With Lombardi writing the script, Starr directed the offense, calling the plays. His most memorable was his boldest. It happened in the frigid twilight at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., on Dec. 31, 1967, in the league championship game between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, now known as the Ice Bowl. The temperature was 13 degrees below zero, and a new heating system installed beneath the turf had failed. Players slipped and fell all afternoon. Starr fumbled disastrously, leading to a Dallas touchdown. With less than five minutes to play, the Packers trailed, 17-14, with nearly 70 treacherous yards between them and the end zone. Mixing short passes with run plays, Starr calmly marched his team within two feet of a touchdown. But in the final minute, the Cowboys twice stopped the Packers when they tried to run the ball into the end zone. Sixteen seconds remained when Starr called a timeout and walked to the sideline to confer with Lombardi. There was no talk of kicking a field goal to tie and force overtime. As Lombardi later recalled, he was worried that Green Bay’s benumbed fans could not endure an extra period. Starr told the coach that the running backs were struggling to get traction, but that he thought he could sneak the ball across the line himself. “Then run it!” Lombardi told him. “And let’s get the hell out of here!” Starr returned to the huddle and called for a run play without telling his teammates that he intended to keep the ball. The ball was snapped. Starr hesitated for the slightest moment. Then he dived into the end zone behind big blocks by Jerry Kramer and Ken Bowman. The Packers won, 21-17. “Texas has the lone star,” read a homemade sign in the stands, “but we have the bright Starr.” Two weeks later Green Bay defeated the Oakland Raiders, 33-14, at the Orange Bowl in Miami in Super Bowl II. It was the final championship for the Starr-Lombardi Packers. Lombardi resigned as coach and became general manager in February 1968, joined the Washington Redskins as coach and part-owner a year later, and died of cancer in 1970 at the age of 57. “The dirty little secret of those days,” said Steve Wright, an offensive tackle for the Packers, as quoted in “America’s Quarterback: Bart Starr and the Rise of the National Football League” (2011), by Keith Dunnavant, “was that during the week it was Lombardi’s team, but on Sunday it was really Starr’s team.” Bryan Bartlett Starr was born on Jan. 9, 1934, in Birmingham, the eldest of two sons of Ben Starr and Lulu (Tucker) Starr. Starr’s father, who was of Native American lineage, served in the National Guard before establishing a career in the Air Force and settling his family in Montgomery, Ala. Ben Starr believed that Bart’s brother, Hilton, who was two years younger and known as Bubba, had more athletic potential, and he often said so to Bart. When Hilton was 11, he cut his foot on a dog bone while walking barefoot. Three days later he died of a tetanus infection. His death devastated the family, and Bart Starr would later say that it put more distance between him and his father. When Starr was a junior in high school and playing for the varsity squad, he became the starting quarterback only after the coach’s first choice was injured. But he led the team to an undefeated season and as a senior was heavily recruited. He nearly chose to attend the University of Kentucky, where the celebrated Bear Bryant was coaching at the time. Instead, to be close to his girlfriend, Cherry Louise Morton, he accepted an offer from Alabama. Starr married Ms. Morton in 1954, after his sophomore year. Playing under Red Drew, Starr became the starter as a sophomore and led the Crimson Tide to the Cotton Bowl. But he missed nearly all of his junior season with a back injury, and as a senior was demoted to a backup role under a new coach. When the 1956 draft arrived, Jack Vainisi, the personnel manager for the Packers, decided to take a chance on Starr, though not much of one: The Packers made Starr the 199th college player chosen in the N.F.L. draft. Starr floundered in his early years in Green Bay. Then Lombardi arrived. After a few stops and starts, Starr became the starter for good in 1960. As his star rose on the field, the public began seeing what Lombardi saw: a loyal, dependable leader who worked hard away from the game as well. Unlike many of his teammates, Starr lived year round in Green Bay, where he received “Mr. Nice Guy” awards from community groups — a label that frustrated him but that he never risked contradicting. In 1965 he helped found the Rawhide Boys Ranch, a faith-based nonprofit residential care center for at-risk youth. Survivors include his wife, Cherry; a son, Bart Jr., and several grandchildren. A second son, Bret, died of cardiac arrest after taking cocaine in 1988. His death prompted the family to move to Birmingham to be closer to Bart Jr. In Birmingham, Starr owned car dealerships, built hospitals and was a pitchman for Ford and other companies. He played four more seasons after Lombardi retired, but he never again made the playoffs as a quarterback. He retired after the 1971 season, his 16th. He was 37. Starr returned to coach the Packers in 1975 and stayed for eight seasons, but he was not as effective on the sidelines as he had been in the huddle. The Packers, their roster depleted, had just one winning season and won a single playoff game with Starr as head coach. He was devastated when he was fired in 1983, after finishing second in the division with an 8-8 record, but he remained loyal to Green Bay. In 2000, when the team sought a local tax break to renovate Lambeau Field, Starr’s main stage, it recruited him to lobby for the legislation. He was an emphatic advocate. The legislation passed.
Set the offseason wayback machine to Sunday, September 8, 1985 as we travel to Sullivan Stadium (later Foxboro Stadium) in the Boston metro area. It is the first game of the 1985 NFL season, in the midst of the Forrest Gregg Era, and it’s his Green Bay Packers vs. the New England Patriots, coached by Raymond Berry. It would be another 15 years before Bill Belichick would arrive to transform the Patriots. On this sunny early summer day, 49,488 fans gathered to watch the game, which was eventually won by the Patriots, 26-20. Who were some of the Packers players you’ll see in this contest? QB Lynn Dickey, WR James Lofton, WR Phillip Epps, TE Paul Coffman, RB Eddie Lee Ivery, RB Jessie Clark, LB John Anderson, DE Robert Brown, LB Mike Douglass, CB Mark Lee, S Mark Murphy (not the current Packers CEO), LB Brian Noble, K Al Del Greco, G Ron Hallstrom, T Ken Ruettgers, and many more.
Former Utah State and NFL running back MacArthur Lane passes away By Doug Hoffman | The Deseret News May 6, 2019
Former Utah State and NFL running back MacArthur Lane passed away on Saturday, May 4, in his hometown of Oakland, California. He was 77 years old. “We are saddened to hear of the passing of MacArthur Lane,” said Utah State vice president and director of athletics John Hartwell. “MacArthur was a tremendous football player, both at Utah State and in the NFL, and his passion for the university and Aggie football was unmatched. Our condolences go out to his wife Edna and his entire family. He will be missed by all.” Lane was a three-year letterwinner at both linebacker and running back at Utah State from 1965-67. As a running back during his junior and senior seasons, Lane carried the ball 171 times for 1,182 yards and eight touchdowns. His 6.9 yards per carry average still ranks third all-time in school history, while his 1,182 rushing yards are the 27th most. For his collegiate career, Lane had four 100-yard rushing games, including a career-best 207 yards on 20 carries against West Texas during his senior season. In fact, those 207 rushing yards tied for the 22nd-best single-game performance in Aggie history. Lane also had a career-long 84-yard run against Hawaii as a junior, which is the ninth-longest rush in school history. At the conclusion of his senior season, Lane played in the All-Star Professional Game. During his three seasons playing for the Aggies, USU went 19-10-1, including three wins against Utah and two against BYU. Following college, Lane was drafted in the first round with the 13th overall pick by the St. Louis Cardinals. Overall, Lane spent 11 seasons in the NFL with the Cardinals (1968-71), Green Bay Packers (1972-74) and Kansas City Chiefs (1975-78). For his professional career, Lane carried the ball 1,206 times for 4,656 yards and caught 287 passes for 2,786 years. In all, he scored 37 touchdowns. His best NFL season came in 1970 with the Cardinals, when he led the league with 11 rushing touchdowns and was chosen for the Pro Bowl. During the 1976 season with the Chiefs, Lane led the NFL in receptions with 66. In all, Lane is one of just four Aggies to ever be drafted in the first round of the NFL, joining defensive tackle Merlin Olsen (third overall) in 1962 by the Los Angeles Rams, quarterback Bill Munson (seventh overall) in 1964 by the Los Angeles Rams and defensive tackle Phil Olsen (fourth overall) in 1970 by the Boston Patriots. Lane was inducted in the Utah State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008. Graphic: Green Bay Packers
On our trip back to the Packerville, U.S.A. Archives, it’s 1967 and this is what we’re reading — a copy of All-Pro Football’s season preview. The Packers have won two NFL championships in a row, and are looking to repeat and become the only three-time consecutive champs in the modern history of the NFL. Of course, they also won three-in-a-row back in the pre-playoffs era (1929-30-31). Here is the two-page section about the 1967 Green Bay Packers team, as well as the statistics from the 1966 season. The publication also previews the 1967 American Football League (AFL) season, and includes a page showing the complete schedule for the Continental Football League. You can read more about this league here, here, and here. And what sports publication of the 1960s would be complete without a full-page ad for Charles Atlas’ bodybuilding and strength program? Nobody wants to be the skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face at the beach!
