Former Packers great Carr dies
Fred Carr, one of the best players in Green Bay Packers history, died Monday. He was 71.
He had been suffering from dementia and prostate cancer, his daughter, Karsetta Carr, said.
Carr played football and basketball at TexasEl Paso before playing linebacker for the Packers from 1968-’77.
Carr, who played in three Pro Bowls, was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 1983.
“Just a couple of weekends ago, my dad’s name came up, and some older men said, ‘I played football because of your dad,’ ” said Karsetta Carr, one of Fred’s six children.
Carr was a threesport star at Phoenix (Ariz.) South Mountain High in the 1960s. Craig Liston, a quarterback who was a year ahead of Carr and played at Phoenix Central High, teamed up with Carr on Phoenix College’s 1964 national championship team, throwing a touchdown pass to Carr, while he was lined up at tight end.
“I’ve been running from him ever since,” Liston said jokingly of playing quarterback in high school and being chased down by Carr in football games. “(Vince) Lombardi called him the greatest athlete he ever had. He was 6-5, 245 pounds and ran like a gazelle.”
Lombardi drafted Carr with the Packers’ first pick, the fifth choice overall, in the 1968 draft.
“We, as well as many others, had him rated as the top player in the country,” Lombardi, the Packers general manager and coach at the time, told the Milwaukee Sentinel.
Carr said he was surprised he was drafted by the Packers, “because I thought it would be one of those other clubs. But it’s a great honor to play with the world champions.”
The Packers had just won Super Bowl II, their third consecutive title under Lombardi.