Jerry Kramer

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Jerry Kramer

Date of birth:	January 23, 1936 (1936-01-23) (age 72)
Place of birth:	Jordan, Montana
Career information
Position(s):	Guard Kicker
College:	University of Idaho
NFL Draft:	1958 / Round: 4/ Pick 39
Organizations
As player:
1958-1968	Green Bay Packers
Career highlights and Awards
Pro Bowls:	3
Honors:	NFL 1960s All-Decade Team Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame
Stats at DatabaseFootball.com

Gerald Louis "Jerry" Kramer (born January 23, 1936, in Jordan, Montana) is a former professional football player, author and sports commentator, best remembered for his 11-year NFL career with the Green Bay Packers as an offensive lineman. As a 6'3", 250 lb. right guard, #64 was an integral part of the famous "Packer Sweep", a signature play in which both guards rapidly pull out from their normal positions and lead-block for the running back going around the end. Kramer was an All-Pro five times, and a member of the NFL's 50th anniversary team in 1969, but surprisingly, even after appearing on the list of finalists ten times since becoming eligible, has not been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1975.[1]

1 Early Years
2 NFL career
3 Author
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early Years

Born in eastern Montana, Jerry Kramer moved with his family from northern Utah to northern Idaho when he was in the fourth grade, settling in Sandpoint. After graduating from Sandpoint High School in 1954, he accepted a football scholarship to the University of Idaho to play for new coach Skip Stahley. In that era, Idaho was a member of the Pacific Coast Conference, the forerunner of the Pac-10.

Kramer was a standout player for the Vandals, along with teammate (and roommate) Wayne Walker of Boise, a future All-Pro linebacker with the Detroit Lions. Both were drafted in the fourth round of the 1958 NFL Draft. Being the first two Idaho Vandals ever selected in an NFL Draft, behind Carl Kiilsgaard, who was drafted in 1950^[1]. Both Walker (#57) and Kramer (#64) would have their numbers retired by the university. Both also played in the East-West Shrine Game and the College All-Star Game that summer, in which they defeated the defending NFL champion Detroit Lions.

[edit] NFL career

Kramer was the 39th player selected in the 1958 NFL Draft, taken in the fourth round by the Green Bay Packers. The first four rounds of the draft were held on December 2, 1957. Two Hall-of-Famers for the Packers were taken in this draft: fullback Jim Taylor of LSU, in the second round (15th overall), and linebacker Ray Nitschke of Illinois in the third round (36th overall). Kramer played every game in his rookie season of 1958, but the Packers finished with the worst record (1-10-1) in the 12-team league. In January 1959, the Packers hired a new head coach, Vince Lombardi, the offensive coach of the New York Giants (the current title of 'offensive coordinator' was not created until years later). Lombardi's playing position in college was the same as Kramer's, never an easy situation for any player, but especially challenging when the coach was as disciplined and demanding of perfection as Lombardi.

With Kramer playing solidly at right guard, the Packers would win five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls. Kramer also served as the team's place kicker in 1962, 1963, and part of 1968. As a kicker, he kicked 29 field goals, 90 extra points, for a total of 177 points. He also kicked 3 field goals and 1 extra point in the Packers 16-7 victory over the New York Giants in the 1962 NFL title game. In college, he was also a kicker, with Wayne Walker as his long snapper. Walker was also a placekicker for the Detroit Lions midway through his career.

During his career, Kramer was often injured. Among these were surgery to remove sizable wood fragments embedded in his abdomen from a teenage accident, and a badly injured ankle suffered in 1961. In all, Kramer played in 129 regular season games; he also had 22 surgeries in 11 seasons, including a colostomy, which he described as a "nightmare most people don't know of yet." Despite these setbacks, Kramer was selected as an All-Pro five times (1960, 1962, 1963, 1966, and 1967).

[edit] Author

In his penultimate season of 1967, Kramer collaborated with Dick Schaap on his best-selling first book, Instant Replay, a diary of the season which highlighted the heretofore obscure work of an offensive lineman. It climaxed with Kramer's lead block in front of Bart Starr to win the legendary "Ice Bowl" championship game. Kramer and Schaap would write two more books together. Kramer played one more year, under new head coach Phil Bengston in 1968. After that season, which saw the aging Packers fall to a losing record of 6-7-1, he published a sequel book, Farewell to Football. After retiring, Kramer briefly worked as a color commentator on CBS NFL telecasts.

In 1985, Kramer wrote Distant Replay, which updated the whereabouts of the members of the Packers' Super Bowl I championship team following a team reunion at Lambeau Field during the 1984 season.

Jerry Kramer is now living in Eagle, near Boise in southwestern Idaho. In October 2005, he released Inside the Locker Room a CD set that includes Vince Lombardi’s final locker room address as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers, immediately after Super Bowl II. In September 2006, Kramer re-released his 1968 best seller, Instant Replay. [2]

Kramer has 6 children and 4 grandchildren. His youngest sons Matt and Jordan also played college football at Idaho. Jordan, named in memory of Hall of Fame defensive tackle Henry Jordan, played several seasons in the NFL as a linebacker, initially with the Tennessee Titans in 2003, moving to the Atlanta Falcons in 2005.