by Jerry Kramer
This afternoon, I deliberately didn't look at the 49 ers. I didn't look at Charlie Krueger. I convinced myself I hated him. I hated him for trying to make me look bad. I hated him for trying to beat me. I hated him for trying to take money out of my pocket. I hated him for trying to tackle Bart Starr. I worked up my hatred when we did our calisthenics, and I still hated him when we started back to the dressing room to put on our shoulder pads and helmets before the kickoff. I rushed through the tunnel, started up the stairs, concentrating on my hate, concentrating on getting mad, and as I reached the top step, I heard a voice behind me saying, “Is Gerald Kramer thayuh?”
It had to be Charlie. I laughed and turned around, and he stood there, laughing, too. “How you doin', Jerry?” he said. He completely ruined my train of hate.
I tried my best to get myself up again, but the game ended up as a workmanlike effort for me, not a high, emotional effort. I did a fairly good job, but I should have done a few things much better. I looked terrible on one goal-line play. It was a new play that Coach Lombardi put in on Friday, and there were three things wrong with it: First, the play shouldn't have been in. Second, Bart shouldn't have called it. And, third, I made a lousy block. I could have wiped out the first two evils with a good block, but I wasn't properly prepared for the linebacker. I didn't think he'd be in the position he was in when I met him. He stopped me and stopped Bart, and the play looked bad.
Bart got hit in the head during the second quarter, and for a while he didn't know what was happening. He sat on the bench for the whole second half, and Zeke, whose back is almost completely healed, replaced him. We won, 13-0, and on the last play of the game, to kill the clock, Zeke took the center, curled himself around the ball and just fell on the ground in a foetal position. In this situation, when a man's down but not officially stopped till he's touched, an opponent will often pin him down with a knee or an elbow, anything sharp. But this time Charlie Krueger just reached over and sort of patted Zeke, then turned around, grabbed my hand, shook it, and said, “Good luck, Jerry. Ah wish y'awl the luck in the world. Y'awl got a helluva club. Ah hope y'awl go all the way, all the best.”
I've always liked Charlie, always had a high opinion of him, and I guess this confirmed my judgment. I was moved.
We went back into the dressing room after the game and said the Lord's Prayer, as we do before and after every game, whether we win or lose, simply to give thanks for people being whole, not being torn up. When we got to the end and said, “Amen,” Forrest Gregg spoke up. “Now, remember,” he said. “Next week it's the Chicago Bears.”
Lombardi added his own comment. “Next week,” he said, “we start the big push.”
NOVEMBER 20
Doug Hart, Dave Robinson, and I went hunting today, but even out in the woods looking for deer I kept thinking about the game coming up. This is Bear Week. This is the oldest rivalry in the NFL. It's a grudge match and, regardless of the position of the two teams, it's always played like a title game. This week it is a title game. If we beat the Bears, we clinch the championship of the Central Division. With four games to play, our record is seven victories, two defeats and a tie; the Bears, in second place, have five victories and five defeats. If we win, we can relax a little in the last three games, regroup our forces, and give some of the rookies a chance to play. We can start preparing for the Western Conference playoff.
NOVEMBER 21
After the movies this morning, we went outside for our usual touch game, but before we could get started Ray Wietecha said, “C'mon over here. I want to go over a couple of things.” He started talking about changes in our pass blocking, but before he could finish, Vince shouted, “Bring it up here. I'll explain it up here.” Then he went over the blocking changes. He was so excited about Bear Week he never did let us play touch. Instead, he had us run through a few new plays.
Actually, Vince has been kind of easy on us this year. Last year he pushed us all year long, and you could see it wearing on him toward the end of the season. He says he's getting too old to beat us and push us as much as he used to. But now that we're getting close to the pot of gold, to the third straight championship, to the $25,000 bonus, you can see the gleam coming back into his eye. You can see his blood quickening.
NOVEMBER 22
Vince whipped us today. We started early and stayed late. We had a lot to cover. The Bears use about six or seven different defenses, with variations off each one. This means that maybe 250 or 280 different situations can come up. We're getting new audibles at the line of scrimmage, new pass blocking, new plays. It's a pretty hectic week, and it means a lot of study.
Our defensive people have a habit of standing by the movie tower or sitting on the bench under it when they're not actually practicing. The offensive players don't have much opportunity to rest because we interchange almost every play. For instance, if we're running a sweep and I run thirty yards downfield, another guard, Jay Bachman from the taxi squad, will jump in and run the next play for me. But the defensive men will work for fifteen minutes and then rest for fifteen minutes. For as long as I can remember, they've taken advantage of the bench. Today, Lombardi was screaming at somebody and he happened to turn around and see a few defensive men sitting on the bench. “Get off that damn bench,” he hollered. “What the hell's going on out here? Where the hell do you think you are? Get that bench the hell out of here. Throw it over the wall. Burn it.”
Everything seems to be moving along nicely. Everyone seems to be concentrating. We know the Bears have been playing good ball lately, and we know they're a strong club. I read an article today quoting Jack Concannon, their quarterback, and Jack seemed to be whistling in the dark a little. “We're not in awe of the Packers,” he said. “They put on their pants one leg at a time, just like we do. They're not supermen.” Which immediately means he's scared to death of us. This is do or die for them—no tomorrows, and all that jazz—but I think if we stick it in their ear early, we'll take them and take them good.
NOVEMBER 23
Lombardi's pulse rate quickened today. He screamed louder and longer and at more different people than he had all week. He's really gotten himself ready for a game. I wish we could suit him up.
He was jumping around this morning before we watched movies of the Bears, and he shouted, “Boy, I'm getting a Bear itch. I'm getting ready. I don't get excited very often…” He stopped and thought for a second or two.“… Maybe three or four times a day,” he said. “But I'm sure as hell getting excited now. Boys, I hope you are, too.”
I think we are.
NOVEMBER 24
The Bears are what I'd call, politely, an overexuberant team. Lombardi, I'm sure, had this in mind when he gave us a little talk today. “Look, boys,” he said, “We've got everything here in the palms of our hands. All we've got to do is take this game Sunday, and we've got three weeks to prepare for the conference playoff.
We've got recognition going for us, and self-preservation going for us, and $25,000 going for us. This is going to be the game of your life. I want every man to play the game of his life. I want every man on the special teams, I want even the men on the taxi squad”—they're not eligible to play—“to play the game of his life. I want tough, hard, clean football. Tough, hard, CLEAN football.” We're in fairly good physical shape for the game. Lee Roy Caffey's been limping most of the week from an injury in the 49 er game, and his roommate, Tommy Joe Crutcher, will probably have to take his place. Grabo's been running a little, and he may be able to get back in action. And Bart's shook off the head injury he got last week. He still can't remember what happened, which is probably just as well.
NOVEMBER 25
We worked out in Green Bay this morning before flying to Chicago, and Lombardi was even more hopped up than he'd been all week. He came up to me before practice and said, “What do you say, Jerry? What do you say?”
I said, “Let's go get 'em.”
“Attaboy,” said Vince, “Attaboy. That's what I like to hear. Let'
s go get 'em.” Then he turned to the whole squad and said, “Boy, I'm really excited.”
“You're getting just like George Halas,” somebody said. The Chicago owner and coach has a reputation for getting excited.
“Halas?” Lombardi snorted. “Halas? Hah, hah. Halas. I can whip his ass. You whip the ballplayers and I'll whip him.”
Everybody giggled at that.
After the workout, Vince spoke to us more seriously. “Nobody knows the tortures you go through, trying to stay on top as cham- pions,” he said. “It's not so damned tough to get there, but once you get on that pinnacle, everybody in the world is fighting you. It becomes increasingly difficult to win. Kansas City is getting a little taste of what it's like in the American Football League this year. They won their championship last year, and they're virtually out of the race now. They've been getting the hell beat out of them.”
Vince smiled a bit. I think he's glad that their loud-mouthed coach—who said he'd whip us the next time he played us—may have to wait a long time to get in the Super Bowl again.
NOVEMBER 26
At our devotional service this morning we had a guest speaker, a retired doctor who spends his time traveling around the country talking to athletes about Christ. He gave us copies of his booklet Athletes in Action, and I began thinking about people who never make decisions about their own lives.
The other day, I saw a film called Cool Hand Luke, and Paul Newman played a wild character who courted disaster all his life. He had no goal, no fear, and toward the end of his life he escaped from prison two or three times. The last time he escaped, he came upon a church and went in and got on his knees and said something like, “Old Man, whadaya got planned for me? What's next, Old Man? Whadaya want me to do? What did you put me on earth for, Old Man?”
I ask the same questions. I often wonder where my life is heading, and what's my purpose here on earth besides playing the silly games I play every Sunday. I feel there's got to be more to life than that. There's got to be some reason to it.
Many people never take control of their own lives, never say this is the way it's going to be, and maybe I'm one of them. I didn't come up with any answers this morning. I just thought about it for a while.
When we got to the stadium everything was pretty tense, pretty tight. Our people seemed nervous; this was the most we'd been up for a game, physically and emotionally, in some time. It's another reflection of Coach Lombardi's brilliance, I guess. Several times during the season I felt we were low, we were dead, and perhaps it was all deliberate, all part of Lombardi's scheme to bring us along gradually. Beyond any question, we were up today.
There's a danger of getting too high, to the point where you're ineffective. Inexperienced ballplayers are especially vulnerable to this. They get so emotional they can't do anything right. We've got a lot of young boys, and today, before the game, Vince was kind of gauging them, trying to measure their emotions. “How you feel, Jerry?” he asked me. “You think everybody's ready?”
“I don't know about the rest of them, Coach,” I said, “but I sure as hell am ready.”
Lombardi called us together, and we were all jumping around, hopped up, chattering, tight as drums.
“OK, boys,” Coach said, in a calm voice. “I want to tell you a little story.” He paused, and we waited, very quietly, to hear what he had to say. “Did you ever hear,” Vince said, “about why Belgians are so strong?”
In Green Bay, we tell Belgian jokes, the same jokes people in some areas tell about Italians and people in other areas tell about Poles.
“No,” one of the guys said.
“ 'Cause they raise dumbbells,” said Lombardi.
That was his whole pregame speech. It was a silly, asinine little joke, but it worked. It took the edge off the tension. Most of the guys giggled, and we all loosened up. We went out and beat the Bears 17-13.
I had a good day. I handled Frank Cornish well on running plays and on passing plays. Usually when you play a good game as an offensive lineman nobody notices you. If you do your job right and keep your man away from the ballcarrier you've got to be inconspicuous. When you're screwing up and your man is making tackles, you get noticed. But I got lucky today. On the first touchdown of the game, when Bart scrambled out of the pocket and wandered around before he found Boyd Dowler in the end zone, I stopped my man at the line of scrimmage, then retreated into the backfield and, in the open, where everyone in the stands could see it, I cut down two Bears with one block. An open-field block is no harder, probably easier, than a good block at the line of scrimmage, but for an offensive lineman to cut down two men is just like scoring a touchdown. It's a beautiful feeling.
The Bears, rough and hungry, really made us work for the game. They tied us 7-7 in the first quarter, and then Travis Williams ran back a kickoff 69 yards to set up a touchdown that put us ahead 14-7. From then on, our defense got tough, and we hung on to win the game and clinch the Central Division championship.
We took the victory pretty calmly. Nobody went wild in the locker room. Nobody screamed. Nobody poured champagne. We walked around quietly congratulating one another for a job well done. There was an air of satisfaction rather than of exhilaration. Some of the visiting sportswriters in the locker room felt we were a little too blasé. They thought we should have been whooping it up a bit more. Henry Jordan had the perfect answer for them. “Sure it's a thrill,” Henry said, “but we'll walk into the movies Tuesday morning, and we'll think we lost the game.”
NOVEMBER 28
Henry hit it just about right. We came in Tuesday morning, and Lombardi cussed this guy and cussed that guy and hollered at all of us. “If you think we're going to let down,” he screamed, “you're crazy. We're going to play just as damned hard as we've ever played in our lives.” We watched the movies, and at one point he turned around and said, “Jerry, you had one of your better games. You had a helluva ball game. You knocked that Butkus right on his ass a few times.” Vince hadn't talked to me like that for some time. He was absolutely right, of course.
Coach had a special treat for Jim Grabowski. “Grabo,” Vince said, as soon as he spotted him, “that'll cost you $250.” I wondered what Grabo had done, and then I found out that Jim, who had reinjured his knee against the Bears, hadn't reported to the training room for treatment Monday. He had stayed over in Chicago to see his friends and relatives. His little vacation had cost him $250.
NOVEMBER 29
Coach Lombardi wore his mouthful-of-sour-owls look today. He screamed and hollered as if we'd won one and lost ten, as if we were the worst team in professional football. Steve Wright blew a play, and as he trotted back to the huddle Ray Wietecha said, “C'mon, Steve, think! Have a little poise out there.”
“Think!” Lombardi shouted. “You've got to be kidding, asking that guy to think. He can't think. He can't do nothing.” He cussed Steve up and down, and he said, “We'll get rid of you next year. We'll send you down to one of those hinky-dinky teams, and you can be a big man on a hinky-dinky team. That's all you're good for, anyhow.”
Steve, who's about 6′6″, just looked at Lombardi and then looked down at his own shoes and then sort of shuffled back to the huddle. He didn't say a word.
What could Steve say? He knew Vince didn't mean the harsh words, but you can't argue with the man—unless you've got some good strong football reasoning behind you. If you just back-talk to him he gets all over you, and you get chewed five times as bad.
A minute or two after the lecture to Steve, Fuzzy missed a block, and Lombardi exploded. “Who was supposed to be on that man?” he demanded.
“I was,” Fuzzy said. “I thought Zeke called a pass.”
“WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?” Lombardi shrieked. “What in the hell are you thinking about? What in the hell's wrong with you guys? I drive and I drive and I drive, and you guys don't give a damn. You've got too many restaurants, too much hunting, too many outside interests. I've had it. I'm disgusted with you guys. The hell wit
h you. Let's go to defense. The hell with the offense.” He was livid. He was fuming. “You guys,” he said, “can stick it in your diddy-bag.”
He was so angry, so hot, and when he came out with that word, “diddy-bag,” he just sounded ridiculous. I was standing by Forrest Gregg—neither of us had the faintest notion what a diddy-bag was—and Trees whispered, out of the side of his mouth, “Don't you look at me.” He was practically giggling. He was afraid he'd burst out laughing in Vince's face. We watched movies later, and Coach didn't crack a smile all day. He looked like the great stone face himself.
NOVEMBER 30
Lombardi came to work today full of remorse, genuinely sorry that he had been so rough on us. He bounced around the locker room laughing and smiling, trying to get back on good terms with everybody, and he walked over to a pile of autographed footballs lying on the table where we sign them, picked them up and started throwing them, one by one, like a pitchout, through a door into the equipment room. Vince kept giggling, enjoying himself, and, finally, he said. “That's pretty good. Ten in a row. I'm getting to be a helluva pitchout man.”
And Max shouted, “Why don't you see if you can throw one in your diddy-bag, Coach?”
Everybody in the place broke up, including Lombardi.
The sun was in the sky again. Everybody was happy. We even found out that a diddy-bag is something sailors stow their gear in.
“I don't want to seem ungrateful,” Vince said, at a meeting. “I'm awfully proud of you guys, really. You've done a helluva job.” He couldn't resist adding, “But sometimes you just disgust me.”