Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

by Jerry Kramer

  Coach also mentioned some of the players' grades for one game, and Ray Nitschke, who had a bad grade, was fuming. “I thought we didn't publish grades around here,” he kept grumbling. There was something in the article to the effect that Vince whaled into one of his players a couple of years ago. He did, too. During our scoring slump in 1965, he swung at big Steve Wright, and he kind of pushed Kenny Bowman around, and he threw Carroll Dale around, and he was wild-eyed. But he wasn't trying to hurt anybody. He was just trying to build a fire under all of us. The newspapers printed excerpts from the article, and they made it look like Vince was beating people on the head and frothing at the mouth. Newspaper reporters seem to have a habit of looking for sensationalism, of distorting and stretching the truth. Of course, there are exceptions, but sometimes I'm afraid they're few and far between.

  Lombardi tried to laugh off the article in practice today by making joking references to the wives and to the board of directors, but the situation seemed pretty tense. Then tonight, after dinner, Fuzzy stood up and started singing his favorite song, “He's got the whole world, in his hands,” with some new lyrics: “He's got the greatest wives, in his hands; he's got the board of directors, in his hands; we've got a two-fisted coach, on our hands.”

  Everybody broke up, and the situation eased—until another article comes out in two weeks. What surprised me more than any specific statement in the article was simply that Coach Lombardi had said anything. It just isn't like him to cause any controversy. I mentioned to Forrest Gregg that the article heightened my growing suspicion that, at the end of the season, Vince is going to retire. “It sort of looks like it more and more,” Forrest agreed. If I live to be a million, I won't be able to figure Lombardi out.

  AUGUST 23

  “I'd love to be a Packer … I worked, I sweat, I died … I want to be a Packer, a Packer I want to be. …”

  Twenty rookies, twenty young men who have survived some six weeks under Lombardi, chanted these words tonight as the finale of the annual rookie show. The faces of the rookies were awfully revealing. Some were starry-eyed. Some looked like they were going to cry. A few seemed embarrassed by the emotions the others were showing. Yet you could tell that the simple words meant something to all of them, that all of them desperately hope to become part of this club. And you knew that no more than half a dozen of them could possibly succeed.

  The show didn't have a scene quite so funny as last year when Donny Anderson and Jim Grabowski, the high-priced bonus boys, showed up on stage with dollar bills pasted all over them, but the rookies managed to have a lot of fun. They picked on everyone. They held a mock interview with Max, right after he caught two touchdown passes in the Super Bowl game last January, and the rookie playing Max said, “Hell, I just hope I score as well tonight as I did this afternoon.” They asked “Max” how he felt trying out for the team again at the age of thirty-five, and he said, “Practice isn't too bad, but the weekends are killing me.”

  They awarded Pat Peppler, the personnel man, a hatchet with a sticker saying, WE VISITED THE GREEN BAY PACKERS, and they gave Marvin Fleming the outstanding blocking award, a bit of irony which cut deeper than a hatchet. They named Zeke “Bowler of the Century,” a tribute to the long hours he had put in at the Century Bowling Alley. A group of rookies portrayed the coaching staff, and big Leon Crenshaw, playing Lombardi, asked his staff whether a certain rookie should play offense or defense. All the assistants agreed that the rookie should play offense. “Good,” said Lombardi-Crenshaw. “He'll play defense.”

  It was a lovely evening, filled with the kind of humor that perhaps only a bunch of football players could fully appreciate. Afterward, I had sort of a warm feeling about all the rookies, all the kids who were struggling so hard, against such heavy odds, to win a place on this team. I sympathized with all of them.

  Dick Arndt, the boy from Idaho, is looking better on defense; the injury to Aldridge has given him a new lease on life, and Coach is noticing him more. Crenshaw's down to 278 pounds, spread over a 6′6′' frame, and he doesn't look like he has an ounce of fat left; he's worked so hard. Hyland, who's kind of quiet and shy, is starting to look better; his singing, however, is atrocious. Dave Dunaway, a flanker who's been staring at his shoes ever since he reached camp, is starting to raise his eyes and look at people; he doesn't hustle the way he should, and I suspect he'll soon be gone. Jim Flanigan, the linebacker, has been a little complacent, wasting a lot of the ability he obviously has; on the other hand, Claudis James—“Jiminy Cricket”—has the most beautiful attitude in the world. So does Stan Kemp, the baby-faced kid, but I'm afraid he doesn't have the physical equipment; he wrote the lyrics to “I Want to Be a Packer,” and he wants it badly, but I don't think he has a chance.

  I just can't figure out a big kid named Tom Cichowski. He's already making plans for what he's going to do here during the season, and what he's going to do after the season, and I know he's got only two chances to make this club; slim and none. I can't understand how he's lasted this long. But I could be wrong. I felt the same way seven years ago about Ron Kostelnik; I honestly thought he was hopeless, but “The Rhino” developed, worked and worked and worked and made himself a fine ballplayer. The other day, Cichowski was up singing, and Willie Wood, who's our rookie adviser, shouted, “Sing up a bit, we can't hear you,” and Cichowski growled, “If you guys would shut up and quit talking, you could hear me.” He's quieted down a little now. For a while, we kept asking him how he spelled his name, and he'd say, “Chicken on a cow, and a cow on a ski, and that's how you spell Chickowski.”

  AUGUST 24

  Travis Williams dropped the ball again today in practice, and Coach told him he had to start carrying it everywhere again. I think Vince is just about running out of patience with Travis. His speed is so impressive that a lot of us are hoping he'll learn to hold the ball and make the club. Henry Jordan gave him a little lecture today. “You just think of that ball as a loaf of bread,” Henry said, “and it's my bread. Every time you drop that ball, you're taking bread off my table.” And Zeke gave Travis a football with a handle made of tape. The kid accepted the needling good-naturedly, but you can tell from looking at him how scared he is. He's got a wife and two kids, and a third on the way, and while we're in training camp he's earning only $70 a week. That's what everybody gets, and it doesn't go very far.

  Vince is letting up a little to get us ready for the Dallas exhibition, not driving us so hard on the field, but he's still riding us in meetings about being too nice, too polite. At the same time, he keeps telling us to play hard, clean football. The whole situation reminds me of The Taming of the Shrew. Petruchio beats on Kate to the point where he says something like, “See that beautiful woman,” and she says, “Yes, that's a beautiful woman,” and he says, “No, that's an old man,” and she says, “Yes, that's an old man,” and he says, “No, that's a beautiful woman,” and she goes along with whatever he says. Vince tells us to hate, and we say, “Yes, we hate,” and then he tells us we have to play clean, and we say, “Yes, we'll play clean,” and we accept everything, all the contradictions. Everything that Vince Lombardi says is so, is so.

  AUGUST 25

  My neck is killing me. Every week I go up against these 280-or 290-pound tackles, and every week I get shorter and shorter. I jammed a vertebra or something against the Bears, and my neck keeps aching like a bitch. I think I'll live, but I'm not overconfident.

  I phoned my mother today—she and my father are coming to the game in Dallas—and I made the mistake of telling her how my neck is hurting. “Do you have to put your head into those other players and butt them all the time?” she said.

  “Yes, Mom,” I said. “It's the best way to do it. If I don't do it that way, they're liable to get away from me.”

  “Well, you cut that out,” she said. “You stop doing that. You had that chipped vertebra once before. You just stop doing that.”

  “If I do, I think the coach'll get kinda upset. He likes me to do it the rig
ht way.”

  “Well, you tell him to watch out,” my mother said. “You tell him I'm going to get him. Don't you be doing that butting anymore.”

  I guess she's just like all mothers. She's gone through a lot with me. I hit myself in the face with an ax when I was about five and left a scar in my chin. I backed into a lathe in high school and tore a chunk out of my backside—and played in a football game the same night. When I was seventeen, I accidentally knocked over a shotgun and put two rounds of buckshot in my side. Then I had the splinters in my groin, and a broken ankle, and God knows how many broken ribs, and a detached retina, and a chipped vertebra that left me with a long scar on the back of my neck. You'd think that by now Mom would have learned to stop worrying about me.

  AUGUST 26

  We play Dallas Monday night, and it should be a helluva game. The Cowboys have had all year to brood about their loss to us in the NFL championship game last December, and they've got a great deal of incentive going for them, probably more than we have. They've got a lot more to prove. But the game's going to be on national television, and we always seem to play well for a large audience. We're big hams. Maybe it's because we play our home games in such a small town.

  I wish the season were here. We ought to make the Super Bowl again. We really ought to. I think this may be the best team we've ever had. Vince has been beating us and beating us and beating us, and we still keep winning.

  I don't know how we can lose.

  AUGUST 27

  When we left Green Bay this morning, the temperature was about 40 degrees and it was raining. When we flew into Dallas around noon, the temperature was 94 degrees and the sun was beating down. We checked into the hotel, then went right over to the Cotton Bowl for a little workout.

  After the practice session, Fuzzy Thurston and I shared a cab back to the hotel, and as we got into the cab we were talking about football. The cab driver, a young fellow, looked at us and said, “You Green Bay Packers?”

  I said, “Yes, we are.”

  Fuzzy said, “That's right, Mac.”

  “What's your names?” the driver said. “What's your names?”

  “You mean,” said Fuzzy, using our favorite line, “you don't recognize the two greatest guards in the history of the National Football League?”

  “Yeah, I know you,” said the driver, “but what's your names?”

  I wanted to needle Fuzzy, so I said, “You mean you've never heard of Kramer and Gillingham?”

  The driver turned around. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said. “Sure, I heard of that Gillingham.”

  Fuzzy and I laughed and laughed. It kept us going all day.

  I managed to spend a little time with my folks. Dad's been helping run the diving business in New Orleans, but I think he and my mom aren't too happy in Louisiana. They miss Sand Point. It's a little town of about 5,000 people, but it's got just about everything a guy could want. The lake's got the biggest rainbow trout in the world. There's a good ski trail only six miles away, and there's a nice little golf course. It's a great place to grow up. Mom was telling me how hot it is down in Louisiana, and I suspect they'll be going back to Idaho soon.

  At the hotel tonight I bumped into Dick Arndt, talking in the lobby with another big young boy, about 6′4″.

  “Hi, Jerry,” the fellow said. “You don't remember me, do you?”

  I didn't know who he was from Adam.

  Finally, he said, “My name's Jerry Ahlin, I used to be your paper boy in Boise.”

  “You're kidding me,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “I even remember your address—2225 Cherry Lane. I'm trying out for the Cowboys now. I'm a linebacker.”

  You know you're getting old when your paper boy becomes a pro linebacker.

  AUGUST 28

  Tommy Joe Crutcher was scrambling around for tickets this morning. He comes from McKinney, only about thirty miles outside Dallas, and he went up to Tom Miller, who's our assistant general manager, and said, “Tom, I've gotta get me twenty tickets.” When Miller pulled out a thick wad of extra tickets he'd picked up from the Cowboys, Tommy Joe said he didn't want all twenty seats together. “Give me nineteen off the front,” he said, “and one off the back.”

  “What is it, Tommy Joe?” one of the guys hollered. “You got a wicked city woman stashed away here?”

  Tommy Joe's a bachelor—one of our few eligibles, because we don't count Max, who is single but, after a couple of marriages, not especially eligible—and he's always kidding and taking kidding about his dates. Once he told us he had a new girl friend named Will Rogers. “Why do you call her Will Rogers?” somebody asked. And Tommy Joe said, “ 'cause she never met a man she didn't like.” And then, of course, the big country boy blushed.

  The temperature was 93 degrees at game time tonight, and it had to be at least 100 on the floor of the Cotton Bowl. Most of the guys had good cases of nerves before the game. Gilly was so tense he got sick to his stomach. The heat and humidity almost killed me the first half of the game. I was soaking wet. In the locker room at half-time everybody felt sick.

  But it was a beautiful football game, from our point of view. Our defense was absolutely superb. Bart pulled a rib muscle in the first quarter, and Zeke came in off the bench and did an excellent job. My roomie kicked two more field goals and we won the game 20-3, surprisingly easy, without any difficulty. Maybe the Cowboys were too high emotionally, too eager, too worked up. They couldn't get their offense moving at all.

  I don't think I had one of my better games, but it's hard to tell. Coach Lombardi's got me so psyched out now, as he has everyone else, that unless I play a perfect game, without a single fault, I'm disappointed in myself. I got caught offside again, a stupid, mental error, an asinine thing to do.

  My man tonight was Jethro Pugh, 6′6′' and 260 pounds, one of the smaller tackles I've seen this season. I really didn't expect much of Jethro—he was a substitute last year—but he surprised me. He was much, much quicker than I had anticipated, really exceptionally quick. He gave me quite a bit of difficulty the first two or three passing plays, but then I got my head up and started feeling serious and everything came along pretty well. He didn't give me too much trouble on the running plays.

  The plane ride back from Dallas, in our chartered 727, was thoroughly enjoyable. We drank a few beers, and we sang, and the time passed very quickly. When you lose, you think you're never going to land.

  AUGUST 29

  After supper tonight I was lying on my bed, dreading the movies, dreading the screaming and the hollering from Coach Lombardi, and Kenny Bowman came in and lay down on the other bed opposite me.

  “Man, I can hear him now,” Kenny said. “You know what would be wonderful? If he just came into the meeting tonight and said, ‘We're not going to look at the Dallas movies. We don't have time. We've got to get ready for Cleveland Saturday.' ”

  “I'd kiss him if he did that,” I said.

  “Me, too,” said Kenny.

  “He's going to be terrible,” I said. “He'll be shouting, ‘You stupid ——— you crazy ——— what in the hell are you thinking about?' ”

  Kenny looked sad. “I suppose,” he said, “we'll be in that meeting too damn long to get out in time to see The Fugitive.”

  Very reluctantly, we got up and went to the meeting, and, as we expected, Vince was upset. He got on me a little and on Gilly, and then he really got on Donny Anderson. Donny just isn't quite with it yet. There's a little something lacking. We have to get better effort out of him. I don't know whether he's paying too much attention to the girls or what, but he seems to be suffering at football. He's trying to follow in Paul Hornung's footsteps—we called Paul “Golden Boy,” and when Donny joined us last year, we started calling him “Old Yeller”—but Paul could go out at night and do anything in the world and the next day he'd come back and bust his ass on the football field. If I go out and have more than one beer the night before a game, it affects my mind the next day. I just don't play as well.
I have to take care of myself and get a lot of rest. Maybe Donny's this way, too, but he'll have to find it out on his own. Coach told him he'd better shape up and start running his plays a little better and getting a little more out of them.

  Vince got on Marvin Fleming, as usual, and he even got on the defense. The defense only allowed three points, but he cursed them because they didn't contain the pitchouts too well. You can't feel too bad when he gets on everybody. I guess that's why he gets on everybody.

  “I'm going to tell you the facts, gentlemen,” Lombardi summed up, “and the facts are these: At Green Bay, we have winners. We do not have losers. If you're a loser, mister, you're going to get your ass out of here and you're going to get your ass out of here right now. Gentlemen, we are paid to win. Gentlemen, we will win.”

  As we were walking out of the meeting, Lee Roy Caffey turned to me and said, “Who the hell won that game, anyhow?”

  AUGUST 30

  The miracle healer has worked his wonders again. The doctors removed Lionel Aldridge's cast today just twelve days after he broke his leg. Originally, he was supposed to have the cast on for at least six weeks, but he has mended early. He has been mended, I'm certain, by evil looks from Lombardi.