"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Pete Dougherty writes in the Green Bay Press Gazette:
Paul Hornung was a Vince Lombardi favorite and maybe the most important player on the famed coach’s early championship teams with the Green Bay Packers.
Lombardi loved Hornung for his versatile skill set and clutch play as the featured left halfback in the Packers’ offense, as well as for his fun-loving off-field persona that helped get Hornung the nickname “Golden Boy.”
Hornung, who also won the 1956 Heisman Trophy, died Friday in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky at age 84 after a long battle with dementia, the Louisville Sports Commission announced.
“The Green Bay Packers Family today is mourning the loss of Paul Hornung,” Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy said in a statement. “Paul was one of our special alumni whose mere presence in Lambeau Field electrified the crowd during his returns. His performances in big games were unparalleled and over time were appreciated by generations of Packers fans. He played a key role in four of Vince Lombardi’s championship teams of the 1960s.
“With Paul’s passing, we are deeply saddened that we continue to lose our greats from the Lombardi era, a run of unprecedented success in the National Football League.
“We extend our deepest condolences to Paul’s wife, Angela, and his family and friends.”
Though Hornung never put up big rushing numbers in the NFL – his single-season high for rushing was only 681 yards – he filled the key position in Lombardi’s offense as a runner in the famed Lombardi sweep and option passer. He was a big back (6-feet-2 and 215 pounds) with a nose for the goal line and for much of his career also was the Packers’ kicker.
His 176 points in the 12-game 1960 season was an NFL record that stood until 2006, 29 years after the league had moved to a 16-game schedule. He was voted the NFL’s most-valuable player that season.
Hornung also was voted a member of the NFL’s all-decade team of the 1960s and into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986 after a nine-year career that ended in 1966. But perhaps the greatest tribute to him came from Lombardi himself in his two-volume book, “Vince Lombardi on Football,” which was published in 1973.
“Paul may have been the best all-around back ever to play football,” Lombardi wrote.
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Read the full obit at the link. More pictures of Paul’s career are also available on the link.
The man could run, catch, pass, and kick! Along with quarterback Bart Starr and running back Jim Taylor, Paul was part of probably the greatest Hall of Fame backfield ever!
His colorful off-field exploits included a one year suspension (along with the Lions’ Alex Karras) for betting on games; a stint as a “Marlboro Man” (obviously before such ads were banned); service in the U.S. Army (he got leave to play in the 1961 NFL Championship game — he scored a then-record 19 points); and numerous curfew violations.
I remember watching on B&W TV when Hornung broke the NFL scoring record on his way setting a new mark that stood for decades in a 1960 rout (41-13) of George Halas’s hated Chicago Bears in Chicago. One reason why the record stood so long, even when NFL seasons were expanded from 12 to 14 and then 16 games, was that Hornung was perhaps the last player to score touchdowns by running and catching passes while also kicking field goals and extra points that season. Hard to imagine in this age of specialization! And, I might add that the Packers scored lots of points that season!
Here’s a video clip from that famous game. The Pack are in dressed in their white away uniforms and Hornung is #5:
Kramer # 64 In Foreground Leads Way As Pack Vanquish Dallas Cowboys 21-17 on Dec. 31, 1967 For NFL Title — “Icebowl” Was Played In -13 Temperature In Green Bay!
Bottom right– Jerry Kramer, aged 82, as he looks today, 51 years after the Icebowl!
From Today’s Green Bay Press Gazette, Pete Dougherty reporting:
In his 11th time as a finalist, the former Green Bay Packers guard was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Kramer needed 80 percent of the vote from the 47 voters who were in attendance, which meant that no more than nine could vote against him. The Hall doesn’t reveal the vote totals, but Kramer hit the requisite 80 percent.
According to Hall protocol, after the vote was completed Saturday afternoon, David Baker, the president of the Hall of Fame, visited the hotel where the nominees were staying and notified each individually whether he was in.
“I said that (knock on the door) is it,” Kramer said. “And the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen (Baker), the big hunk down here at the end was standing there with the cameras and stuff behind him. I was over the top. It was something I was afraid to believe in, I was afraid to hope for. So I kept trying to keep those emotions out there somewhere. But hey, I’m here and I’m part of the group. Thank you very much.”
The other members of the 2018 class were fellow senior finalist Robert Brazile, and contributors candidate Bobby Beathard, as well as five modern-era candidates: Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher, Brian Dawkins, Randy Moss and Terrell Owens.
Kramer, 82, becomes the 13th member of the Packers’ dynasty in the 1960s that won five NFL championships in seven years to be voted into the Hall. The others are coach Vince Lombardi, fullback Jim Taylor, tackle Forrest Gregg, quarterback Bart Starr, linebacker Ray Nitschke, cornerback Herb Adderley, defensive end Willie Davis, center Jim Ringo, running back Paul Hornung, safety Willie Wood, defensive tackle Henry Jordan and linebacker Dave Robinson.
Kramer said he had dinner with Robinson on Friday night, just as they had dinner the night before Robinson was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2013. And Taylor was with him Saturday.
“I miss ’em,” Kramer said of his other Hall of Fame teammates. “But I wish they were here, I wish we had an opportunity to be here together. Bart has been sensational in writing letters and doing all sorts of things, and Hornung has been sticking up for me for 20 years. So many of the guys, Willie D (Davis) is a great pal, and Robbie (i.e., Robinson) and Wood and Adderley and so many of the guys in, and (Nitschke) was such a great pal, Forrest Gregg … we’ve had a lot of guys, 10, 12 guys in the Hall. Jimmy is here and that’s about it, Jimmy Taylor. But I miss those guys. I’ve shared so much with them over the years and it would be nice to share this with them.”
Kramer also is the 25th Hall inductee who spent most of his career with the Packers. That’s second most in league history, behind the Chicago Bears’ 27.
It has been a long road for Kramer to get to the Hall. He was a modern-era finalist (i.e., among the final 15 candidates) nine times in the 14-year period from 1974 through ’87 but never was voted in. Modern-era players and coaches have been retired anywhere from five to 25 years.
Then in 1997, he was the seniors committee nominee (for players who have been retired for more than 25 years) but failed to reach the 80 percent threshold among the selection committee for Hall induction.
But at long last, he’s in.
“I don’t think it can get sweeter,” Kramer said. “It’s the ultimate honor in the game, in our game. It’s the top of the heap. It’s the crown of the trail of this whole process, it’s here. If you make it here you’ve made it in professional football. So whenever you’ve made it here it’s a wonderful moment and a wonderful time and a wonderful event. … I told Mr. Baker that this is it, it doesn’t get any better than this. He goes, ‘Jerry, this is just the beginning.’ So I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”
Kramer is tied for fourth on the list of most times being a finalist before induction. Lynn Swann was a finalist 14 times before he was voted in, followed by Carl Eller (13) and Hornung (12).
Kramer joined the Packers as a fourth-round draft pick out of Idaho in 1958, the year before Lombardi took over as coach. He started all 12 games as a rookie and then when Lombardi took over became a key player as a pulling guard in the coach’s famed sweep.
Kramer achieved his greatest fame for his block on the Dallas Cowboys’ Jethro Pugh that helped open the way for Starr’s game-winning touchdown on a quarterback sneak in the Ice Bowl for the 1967 NFL championship. It’s perhaps the most famous block in NFL history.
Former Green Bay Packers guard Jerry Kramer shares memories from the Ice Bowl, which was played 50 years ago on Dec. 31, 1967. USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Kramer played all of his 11 seasons with the Packers. Along with being named to the league’s 50th anniversary team, he also was on the NFL’s all-decade team for the ‘60s. He was named first-team all-pro five times (1960, ’62, ’63, ’66 and ’67) and went to three Pro Bowls (’62, ’63 and ’67).
Besides playing right guard, Kramer doubled as the Packers’ kicker for parts or all of the 1962, ’63 and ’69 seasons.
In ’62 he made 81.8 percent of his field-goal attempts (9-for-11) and finished fourth in the league in scoring (91 points). Then in the Packers’ 16-7 win over the New York Giants in the NFL championship game that season, he scored 10 points (three field goals and an extra point).
This was almost surely the last time Kramer would get a shot at the Hall. Because he has been retired from the NFL for more than 25 years, he could become a nominee only through the seniors committee, and this year was his second time making it through as the senior candidate.
He was only the fourth nominee to twice come through the committee, and with many deserving seniors candidates in wait, there was no chance he’d get a third shot. So this essentially was his last opportunity to receive pro football’s highest individual honor.
Kramer and the rest of the Class of 2018 will be inducted Aug. 4 in Canton, Ohio.
Aaron Nagler of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin contributed.”
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Man, I remember the “Icebowl” as if it were yesterday! I was home from college, following the first semester of my Sophomore year at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. I was preparing to leave right after the New Year for a “Semester Abroad” program at the Lawrence Campus in Bonnigheim, Germany! A rather big deal since I had never before flown in an airplane, anywhere!
Our whole family was crowded around the 13″ GE color TV in our living-room on Revere Avenue in Wauwatosa, WI. Since there were only a few seconds left in the game, and the Pack had no timeouts left, I thought they would probably kick a field goal to send the game into overtime, or throw a short pass that if incomplete would have stopped the clock for a last second field goal (or course, a “sack” by the Cowboys would have ended the game.) I’ve watched lots of Packer games, but the Icebowl was probably the best victory ever!
Later in January, we listened on Armed Forces Radio in our dorm in Germany as the Packers beat the Raiders in the”Superbowl II.” Sort of anti-climactic after the “Icebowl!”
As noted in the article, Kramer is the 13th player from the “Lombardi Era” Packers to enter the Hall of Fame, and the 25th Packer overall!
Although, sadly, the Pack aren’t in this year’s Superbowl, there are still some Packer connections. Of course the “Lombardi Trophy,” awarded to the winner is named for legendary Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi.
And, the Philadelphia Eagles’ Coach Doug Pederson, played a number of seasons as backup QB to recent Packer Hall of Fame QB Brett Farve. Of course, the backup job to Farve didn’t involve much “real game action,” since Farve was in the midst of a NFL record 297 consecutive starts as QB. However, Pederson appears to have been a “good learner” from a coaching and strategy standpoint. Apparently, those years of “holding the clipboard” behind Farve paid off. Big time!
