Photo: Courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Courtesy of the Green Bay Press-Gazette
Fifty years on and Jerry Kramer is still leading the Pack.
Kramer, who was at the Boise Airport in Idaho on Tuesday preparing to head to Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, Calif., said he expected to be remembered for a couple of years and then would "drift off into the mist of time. I just assumed as a lineman I wouldn't be remembered all that much."
Instead, he has been a regular representative of the Lombardi-era Green Bay Packers, and will be again when the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame honors the Super Bowl I champions during its 2016 induction ceremony April 30 in Milwaukee. Former Packers receiver Donald Driver and retired University of Wisconsin basketball coach Bo Ryan are this year's inductees.
"Bo Ryan and Donald. That's a good combination," Kramer said.
The Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame was founded in 1951 and has a star-studded membership, but it has been dormant since 2009. Brian Lammi of Lammi Sports Management in Milwaukee acquired the rights to the hall two years ago, and Driver and Ryan will be the first new inductees.
Lammi said they plan to make inductions an annual rather than biennial event, as it had been. Even with hall members such as Hank Aaron, Alan Ameche, Dick Bennett, Kramer, Oscar Robertson, Robin Yount and 129 more, there are plenty of potential inductees.
"Even now, people will stop me and say you should think about this person," Lammi said. "It's still new people that haven't been mentioned before."
Read Green Bay Press-Gazette's article in its entirety here.