Looking back at the Pack

Posted: Tue January 20, 1998

My five favorite Green Bay Packers of all time:

1. Jerry Kramer, RG, 1958-68

2. Fuzzy Thurston, LG, 1959-67

3. Jim Ringo, C, 1953-63

It's December 1960, Packers vs. Eagles for the NFL championship (the only one Lombardi lost) in Franklin Field, Philadelphia. My paper, the New York World Telegram & Sun, has taken me off high school sports to go down to this game and work the losing dressing room for Joe King, our pro football writer. It's the first time I've ever covered a pro football game, ever been in a pro football dressing room. I'm terrified.

Postgame. Packers' locker room. I spot Kramer (hoisting Lombardi in a happier moment on the SI cover at right). Green Bay had lost the game, but Kramer and Ringo and Thurston had a done a terrific job blocking the Eagles' defensive tackles, Ed Khayat and Jess Richardson. I tell him that. He brightens up. Then I get serious. That season I'd been playing guard for the Paterson (N.J.) Pioneers in the semi-pro Eastern Football Conference. We'd been having trouble getting our line audibles called. I asked him how he did it.

He started telling me, and then we were joined by Ringo and Thurston. They all helped out, nice friendly guys. Oh, we were having a swell talk, then I remembered what I was there for. The locker room was emptying out. Bart Starr was gone. Paul Hornung had hurt his shoulder. I asked him how it was. He said, "Fine." I caught Lombardi on the way out. He was tucking in his muffler against the cold.

"Uh, coach . . ."

"I said all I had to say inside," he said, and left.

I went upstairs. Joe King was at the typewriter.

"Whaddya got?" he said.

"What do you want?" I said.

"Gimme Lombardi."

"Caught him too late. On the way out."

"OK, how about Hornung's shoulder?"

"He said fine."

"Whaddya mean, fine?"

"That's what he said. Fine."

"OK, how about Starr?"

"Nope, I missed him."

At this point Joe King looked up from his typewriter and stared at me.

"Son, just what did you get?"

"Well, I talked to Kramer and Ringo and Thurston about how they called their line audibles."

He waved me away. "Jack . . .Nat. . . catch me up on Lombardi and Starr . . . son, get out of here. GET OUT OF HERE!"

So I went back to high school sports. It was two years before I ever set foot in a professional football locker room again.

4. Vince Lombardi, coach, 1959-67

It's 1966 and my paper, the New York Post now, has sent me out to do Packers-Bears. I was so nervous that I got out to Green Bay on a Tuesday for my scheduled audience with Lombardi. Finally I was ushered in. I told him that in high school I'd played against St. Cecilia's of Englewood, N.J., when he was coaching there. He got a kick out of that. He wanted to know where I played after that. I told him Stanford. So he brought in his line coach, Phil Bengston, who'd been my line coach at Stanford, and we had a nice chat. And I'm thinking, "Hey, it isn't so tough interviewing Lombardi."

Then he said, "Look, you're a young writer and you're from New York, so I'm gonna give you a good story for your paper." My heart began thumping.

"This is the game where I find out about my million-dollar rookies, [Jim] Grabowski and [Donny] Anderson," he said. "I've got to find out if these guys can play."

So he gave me some more quotes, and afterward I raced to the phone and told the Post to hold the back page, I had a Lombardi scoop. And next day they ran a banner in red: "Lombardi to Unveil Million-Dollar Rookies."

Neither one played a down. Not a down. In the press box I was stunned. I asked one of the Green Bay beat writers, "Why did he do it to me? Why?" He laughed. "He planted it so George Halas would read it," he said. "Welcome to the club."

You're a young writer, you're from New York . . . this here's a pea, son, and it's gonna be under one of these shells. Oh, brother.

5. Tim Harris, DE, 1986-90

Harris, a pass rusher in the 1980's, was known to get a bit testy with the press. We got to talking about sacks (he was leading the NFL at the time) and individual statistics. He said, "Look, I don't give a damn about individual stats. Winning and losing are the only things I care about."

Fair enough. Later, I'm reading a newspaper a few feet away, and I start reading out loud, making up the whole thing, of course, "The NFL statistics bureau took away one of Tim Harris's sacks in the Detroit game, ruling that the quarterback had . . ."

He let out a yell. "Gimme that! Lemme see that paper!" Of course, everybody broke up, and for years, whenever Harris would see me he'd cock a finger like a six-shooter, and say, "There's the man I'm gonna get even with someday."

Well, he never did, but I've always had a soft spot for Tim Harris.

Cover photograph by Neil Leifer