Just saw that Bart Starr has died at the age of 85. What a humble, classy guy.
My Packer-owner husband is sad today. RIP, Mr. Starr.
Classy gentleman indeed. One of the tweets I saw today re his passing noted that back in the day his family had sent Mr. Starr a Christmas card. He responded with an autographed photo and handwritten note. I wish that still happened today.
@scout59 - I am also married to a Packer owner. H is a long time fan of Bart Starr. RIP
Bart Starr – a great football player and an even better person! Wishing his family and friends peace.
So admired by many, many athletes and warm heartedly admired by those fortunate to wear a Packers uniform.
Bart Starr and Troy Aikman
A really NICE guy. It’s terrible he lost a son to drug addiction.
RIP Bart.
Sad news, a true gentleman and a truly accomplished athlete. Front-page story in today’s NY Times points out that although Starr’s NFL career was legendary, his accomplishments are still widely underrated because of the tendency to bifurcate NFL history into the pre-Super Bowl and Super Bowl eras. Starr bridged both eras. He’s now most often remembered for winning the first two Super Bowls, but it’s often forgotten that he also won three pre-Super Bowl NFL championships, giving him a total of five—a record surpassed only by Tom Brady—and his mid-60s Green Bay Packers are still the only NFL team to win three consecutive championships.
He wasn’t the most physically gifted QB of his era, but he was the most successful because he excelled in the mental aspects of the game. He controlled games through consummate preparation, execution, composure, and leadership on and off the field, coupled with keen game-time intelligence that allowed him to outfox his opponents, spotting, setting up, and seizing opportunities that led to big plays and game-winning drives. In so doing, he inspired total trust from his teammates and coaches. Legendary Packers head coach Vince Lombardi was tough as nails and a control freak, but he trusted Starr to call his own game on the field, including the game-winning surprise QB sneak in the closing seconds of the infamous Ice Bowl against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1967 NFL title game, when everyone was expecting either a fullback dive or a pass which, if unsuccessful, would still allow enough time for the Packers to set up for a game-tying field goal. Starr was the only player Lombardi wouldn’t berate in the locker room in front of the rest of the team because Starr had persuaded Lombardi that as the team leader he needed the trust of his teammates, and negative treatment by the coach would undercut that. I grew up a Packers fan in that era, and although Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers surpass Starr in many statistical categories, I still think of Bart Starr as the greatest Packer of them all, and one of the greatest ever to play the game.