Bart Starr

Football Player

• Born: January 9, 1934
• Birthplace: Montgomery, Alabama
• Died: May 26, 2019
• Place of death: Birmingham, Alabama

Sport: Football

Early Life

Bryan Bartlett Starr was born on January 9, 1934, in Montgomery, Alabama, the oldest of two boys of a military family. Starr’s father, Ben, a master sergeant in the US Army Air Corps, was an athlete and often played pickup football games with his boys and other children.

Starr’s father was a good coach, and both sons caught on quickly to the basics of passing and tackling. When Starr’s younger brother Hilton died from an infected cut, twelve-year-old Starr and his father tried to fill the painful gap with sports. Starr was a quiet boy and was so small that his junior-high school football uniform drooped all over. His father told him not to worry; he would grow.

Education

Starr made the Sidney Lanier High School football team but seemed to lack the size to play much. He decided to quit but changed his mind—a lucky decision, as it turned out. Starr became the starting quarterback in his junior year when the first-string quarterback broke his leg, and by the end of the next season, his “clutch” play and cool head attracted big-time college scouts. Starr chose the University of Alabama to stay near his sweetheart, Cherry Louise Morton, his future wife.

A star quarterback and punter in his first two seasons for the Alabama Crimson Tide, Starr suffered a back injury that took him out of action late in his junior season. Then, in Starr’s senior year, a new head coach decided to field a team of younger players. After some compared him with the best passers in the school’s history, Starr spent most of his last college season on the bench. Meanwhile, he continued to get top grades in the classroom.

The Green Bay Packers, suffering a string of bad seasons, picked Starr in the seventeenth round of the National Football League (NFL) draft in 1956. His confidence shaky, Starr felt that he had only a remote chance of making the team, but he turned down an offer to play professional football in Canada.

All summer he practiced throwing a football through a suspended tire; his wife, Cherry, retrieved the ball. He narrowly made the Packers’ roster as a backup.

NFL Career

Starr spent most of his first three seasons as a backup quarterback, playing well at times for a losing team. In those early years, Starr’s leading competitors for the starting job helped him the most in sharpening his quarterback skills.

The big college setback still haunted Starr. Though he played brilliantly at times, he lacked confidence, brooding over every bad throw or interception. His big chance to regain his confidence came when the hard-nosed Vince Lombardi took over as the coach of the struggling but talented team in 1959.

Starr finally won the starting job by impressing Lombardi with a combination of accurate passing and shrewd play-calling. The Packers started winning.

In 1960, Starr led the team to its first divisional title in sixteen seasons, completing 57 percent of his 172 passes. He convinced a lot of people that although he was soft-spoken, he did not lack toughness. The team again captured the NFL Championship in 1961.

Not everyone was a believer, though. Over the next few years, his more illustrious teammates, Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, stole the media spotlight. Some said Starr’s talent lay simply in the automatic way he carried out Lombardi’s cautious strategy.

Starr was not bothered by such talk. In 1962 and 1964, he was the league’s best passer; in the latter year he had a 60 percent completion rate and fifteen touchdown passes. In 1965, Starr took the Packers to another NFL Championship with an offense that depended almost completely on his 56 percent completion rate and sixteen touchdown passes.

Starr had to wait until late in his career to get full credit. Rather than demand praise off the field, however, he convinced people with his consistent, winning ways. In 1966 and 1967, the polite country boy had the football world cheering with his cool, heroic performances in some of the most exciting games ever played. Starr’s off-the-field involvement in a host of community groups won him still more respect. After his playing days, he was asked to run for the US Senate.

When the Packers' players faced injuries, advancing age, and a divisional race with the Baltimore Colts in 1966, Starr answered with pinpoint passing and a record low interception rate. In the thrilling championship game against the Dallas Cowboys he slipped tackles to pass for 4 touchdowns and 304 yards. The Packers then won Super Bowl I, against the American Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs on January 15, 1967. Starr was named the Super Bowl most valuable player and the NFL player of the year.

The next year, in the now-famous NFL Championship “Ice Bowl” game against the Dallas Cowboys, with below-zero weather and a whipping wind, Starr took the ball over the frozen goal line for the winning score with just seconds left on the clock. The Packers then beat the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II. Starr’s place in history as the leader of one of football’s greatest dynasties was secure.

Starr led the league in passing for two more seasons before retiring in 1972. Starr was a quarterbacks coach for the Packers in 1972 and spent nearly a decade as the head coach for the Packers from 1975 to 1983. The Packers retired Starr's jersey number (15) in 1973. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977. He became president of his own firm, was a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and was a member of the boards of directors of major public companies. Starr also became a dynamic speaker who inspired and motivated audiences with his stories and lessons from the world of sports.

Personal Life

Starr and his wife, Cherry, cofounded the Rawhide Boys Ranch in Wisconsin in 1965. Starr had two sons, Bart Starr Jr. and Bret Michael Starr. His younger son, Bret, died of a drug overdose in 1988 at the age of twenty-four. Bart Starr suffered a series of strokes and a heart attack in 2014 and entered rehabilitation, although he continued to suffer from seizures. He died on May 26, 2019, at the age of eighty-five.

Summary

Bart Starr is identified with one of the greatest football teams ever. On a squad of stars, Starr was a calm and careful leader who relied on consistency and pluck rather than flash. In his playing days he was often compared with Johnny Unitas, one of the greatest quarterbacks of the same era. As a Hall of Fame member, Starr has been recognized as one of the best in any era, especially under pressure. In 2010, the NFL Network ranked Starr as the fifty-first greatest NFL player of all time.

Bibliography

Claerbaut, David. Bart Starr: When Leadership Mattered. Dallas: Taylor Trade, 2004. Print.

Dunnavant, Keith. Bart Starr: America's Quarterback and the Rise of the National Football League. New York: St. Martin's, 2011. Print.

Eilerson, Nick. "Packers Legend Bar Starr Recovering from Broken Hip after Slew of Health Problems." Washington Post. Washington Post, 9 Jan. 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Gulbrandsen, Don. The Green Bay Packers: The Complete Illustrated History. St. Paul: Motorbooks International, 2007. Print.

King, Peter. Greatest Quarterbacks. Des Moines: Sports Illustrated, 1999. Print.

McCullough, Bob. My Greatest Day in Football: The Legends of Football Recount Their Greatest Moments. New York: St. Martin’s, 2001. Print.

Maule, Tex. Bart Starr, Professional Quarterback. New York: F. Watts, 1973.

Starr, Bart. Starr: My Life in Football. New York: Morrow, 1987.

Yardley, William. "Bart Starr, Quarterback Who Led the Packers to Greatness, Dies at 85." The New York Times, 26 May 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/obituaries/bart-starr-death-packers.html. Accessed 3 July 2019.