Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Packer Plus
Starr’s path was paved in Montgomery, Alabama
Upbringing helped him in football
Just two weeks into his sophomore season at Sidney Lanier High School, Bart Starr made a decision that forever altered the course of his life.
Little did he recognize at the time, that choice also impacted the history of the NFL, a lifetime of teammates and coaches at Alabama and Green Bay, and countless others influenced by Starr’s presence over the course of his 85 years.
The Montgomery native died May 26 in Birmingham, Alabama, his career as a fivetime championship quarterback with the Packers and his later years as a successful businessman exceeded only by the way he lived his life with dignity and character. But it almost didn’t happen.
Starr contemplated quitting the Poets when he was relegated to the junior varsity squad in 1949. His father gave him an ultimatum – either stick with football, or else spend his free time tending to the family garden.
Not wanting to disappoint his father and further damage the complicated relationship he had with Ben Starr, an imposing figure as a master sergeant who ran special services at Maxwell Air Force Base, Bart passed up the gardening gig and returned to football.
It was a choice that led to success at Lanier, some challenging seasons at Alabama before blossoming into a Hall of Fame career with Green Bay. It was also one of the seminal moments that began to weave the attributes of determination and perseverance that were always shadowed by the desire to please his father.
The early years in the family were marked with difficult times and tragedy. Starr was born during the Great Depression in 1934. His only sibling, named Hilton but known to all as ‘Bubba’, was two years younger and died at the age of 11 from tetanus three days after stepping on a bone while playing tag in the yard.
Ben Starr identified with the aggressive nature of Hilton, always urging Bart to be less passive and more like his younger brother.
Hilton’s death only widened the need for proval Bart sought from his father, a motition that quietly fueled Bart’s desire to fill e void left in his father’s life.
“We stayed at his house before ball games d Mr. Starr would always say to him, ‘Bart, member your brother.’ Bart would always y, ‘I am dad’. He always did things as a tribe to his brother,” lifelong friend Richard lmer said.
Nick Germanos shared his childhood th the Starr family in the Ridgecrest comunity. He became Starr’s favorite wide rever target at Lanier and they later played gether at Alabama.
“We go back many, many years,” Germas said. “We used to walk to school together Lanier. Knowing Bart, you had to know his mily and the impact they had on his life. r. Starr was a military man with a strong, t loving presence. I was like their other ild when we were at Lanier.”
rning point in high school
Bart’s internal drive and fastidious attenn to preparation was rewarded during his nior season at Lanier.
The Poets were seeking to win their 17th aight game in front of a packed house at amton Bowl when starting quarterback n Shannon went down with a broken leg the first half.
“My first thought was ‘Oh Lord, we’re in uble now,’” said Fulmer, who was a fullck for Lanier.
“Here comes Bart into the game, all 5ot-9 and 145 pounds. We had won every ll game, and after Bart came in everybody ondered if he could get the job done. But wound up beating the dog out of them.” Lanier finished the season 9-0-1 and was nked third in the state. But it was the turng point of Starr becoming a central figure success on the gridiron.
“I wouldn’t have dreamed he would do all did except for one thing – Bart was always winner,” Fulmer said. “In anything he did, always wanted to be the best at it. “I remember playing Cloverdale in junior gh when we were at Baldwin, and Bart was t in to catch a punt. He fumbled the ball d they scored to beat us 12-6. Bart cried e a baby because he felt like he had lost the ll game. He simply could not stand to lose.”
Destined to be a Wildcat
Starr sprouted to 6-foot-1, 185-pounds entering his senior year at Lanier, catching the eye of college suitors. His coach at Lanier, Bill Moseley, played at Kentucky where Paul “Bear” Bryant was in charge, so Starr spent the summer in the Bluegrass State being tutored by Wildcat all-American quarterback Babe Parilli.
“Bart came back for his senior year and he was zooming that football around,” Fulmer said. “I knew he was going to play in college, but we all thought he was going to Kentucky.”
After leading the Poets to a 9-1 mark, including a resounding road win in Louisville, Kentucky over powerful duPont Manual High School, Starr seemed destined to become a Wildcat.
“They laughed at us when we went on the field,” Fulmer said. “They thought we were country boys from Alabama, and we beat ‘em pretty good. Bart gave them a show, and I think that’s one of the reasons Bear Bryant wanted him so badly at Kentucky.”
Madly in love
But a young lady that would become his wife named Cherry Morton had captured his eye, and her decision to attend Auburn led to Starr choosing Alabama as his college destination to shorten the distance between them.
“Cherry was a beautiful lady, and she’s still gorgeous. I introduced him to Cherry. He was so bashful he didn’t even want to talk to her at first, but we finally got them going together,” Germanos said.
“Bart’s daddy always wanted him to go to Alabama so he could come watch him play, but the real reason was Cherry,” Fulmer said. “They were madly in love. My wife, Louise, and I had our first date on Bart’s 18th birthday, and we double-dated with Cherry and Bart often and have picnics up at the lake. Bart simply didn’t want to go to Kentucky and risk losing her.”
Starr’s influence on Fulmer went beyond the football field.
“He was a straight-A student,” Fulmer said. “Coach Moseley made sure he and I were in the same study hall and we’d sit in the back of the room and he taught me more than the teachers did. He could explain things so I could understand it and kept me eligible.”
More than just football
But there was more to Starr than football. The discipline instituted by his father and his quest to gain his approval brought about a maturity that went beyond most of his peers.
“Life was simpler back then,” Fulmer said. “When Bart was around, people didn’t cuss. Bart didn’t do any of that. In high school people respected him for what he was. He didn’t want to do anything wrong and disappoint his father.”
Regardless of the fame Starr achieved in Green Bay, he always considered Montgomery home as he regularly appeared for charitable causes throughout his life.
“He never forgot where he was from,” Fulmer said. “Fame never changed him. If you didn’t know who he was, you’d never know. He’s just plain ‘ol Bart.”
Germanos echoed the sentiments of his former Lanier and Alabama teammate.
“When I think of Bart, he was a very caring person,” Germanos said. “I’ve never met another person who worked with people to try to bring the best out of them. His dad had a lot to do with it. Everywhere he went, he was always respected.”
Alabama years brought tests
After spurning Paul “Bear” Bryant’s offer to play at Kentucky, Starr attended Alabama along with Germanos and Bobby Barnes in part because his future wife, Cherry, selected Auburn as her college home.
Full of promise leaving Montgomery, Starr’s years at Alabama were a test of character and perseverance. He endured a series of setbacks that would shape his future and create greater resolve that would propel him lofty heights in the NFL.
With freshmen deemed eligible for varsity action in 1952 due to the Korean War thinning rosters of eligible players, Starr earned the third-string quarterback slot under coach Harold “Red” Drew. Alabama went 9-2 and won the Orange Bowl.
Just before the 1953 season, the NCAA returned to the one-platoon system.
This meant players competed on both offense and defense and could enter the game only once per quarter. It placed a premium on versatility, and Starr wound up at defensive back and punter in addition to quarterback.
Defenses ruled the day, as coaches were forced to sacrifice skill performers in return for those who could play both ways. Offensive schemes were simplified, and never did Alabama run a system that played to Starr’s strengths as a drop-back passer.
“It was very complicated,” said Hootie Ingram, the former Alabama athletic director who was a teammate of Starr’s. “It took a CPA on the sidelines to keep up with substitutions and the officials were more focused on keeping track of the players than they were calling the game. It was probably the worst offensive era in college football.”
Starr earned the starting nod his sophomore year but lost the opening game to Mississippi Southern (now Southern Miss) at Cramton Bowl. The Crimson Tide was undefeated with three ties in SEC play, closing the year 6-3-3 and a conference championship.
Marriage proposal
While the path of his football career was trending upward, Starr would spend much of his free time burning up the highway between Tuscaloosa and Auburn visiting Cherry. Three years into their relationship, she finally relented to his third proposal for marriage the summer before his junior year.
Starr borrowed a car more reliable than his own from Barnes, whose father ran an auto dealership in Montgomery, then snagged Germanos to serve as best man as the trio headed across the Mississippi state line to Columbus to get married in the living room of the justice of the peace.
“Cherry went out with one of the football players over there (in Auburn), and Bart heard about it,” said Fulmer. “They went over to Mississippi with Nick in Bobby’s car and secretly got married.
“Cherry didn’t go back to school, so she went to live with her parents who had moved to Mississippi. Bart sent her a letter addressed to ‘Mrs. Cherry Starr’ and her momma got to the mailbox before she did. That’s how they found out she and Bart had gotten married.”
The newlyweds hid their union as Bart was concerned about losing his scholarship due to Drew’s opposition to having married players. But Bart moved out of the dorm and Cherry joined him in Tuscaloosa.
“Bart and I were in the same suite so we shared a shower and bathroom,” said Albert Elmore, a Troy native and current Montgomery resident who entered with Starr as a freshman competing for the quarterback position. “I used to tell him he wound up with a better-looking roommate than I had.”
The marriage to Cherry not only eliminated Bart’s commutes to Auburn, but it also brought a stabilizing presence to the final two years of his time in Tuscaloosa.
“I was a year ahead of Bart. We hung out together, and Cherry was good friends with my future wife,” Ingram said. “The night I got engaged and gave my wife the ring, we went out to eat with Bart and Cherry. We had a lot of fun and great memories with them.”
Change comes quickly at Alabama
But entering his junior season, Starr suffered a back injury that for 60 years was thought to have stemmed from a punting drill.
However, Cherry disclosed in 2016 that the condition was the result of an initiation ritual for admission into the Alabama lettermen’s A-Club.
With Starr sidelined most of the season and Elmore also dealing with injuries, Alabama struggled to a 4-5-2 record and Drew was fired.
“We never had a cross word with each other even though we were competing for the same job,” Elmore said. “I think he was pulling for me and I was pulling for him. I have nothing but highest respect for him. I felt like his strengths were not used in college. We were mostly a running team. You played defense first, and then offense.”
Drew’s replacement was J.B. “Ears” Whitworth, and he was intent on focusing on developing younger players and implementing a ground-oriented offense.
Two years after leading the Alabama to a conference title, Starr was relegated to mop-up duty as a senior when the Crimson Tide was winless in 10 games.
“When Whitworth came in with Split-T ground game, it was with the idea of running the football 90 percent of the time and only throwing the ball off the run,” Elmore said. “That really hindered the thing Bart was best at. We didn’t have the personnel to do what a Split-T quarterback needed to do.”
While the dismal Whitworth era ushered the arrival of Bryant three years later from Texas A&M, Ingram still has fond memories of those years at Alabama with Starr.
“I’m sure a lot of people stay close in every generation, but our group from Alabama kept contact with everybody for quite a while,” Ingram said. “There was a special bond we had with each other.
“Bart had bad timing here, and it took a while for him to get over that. When I was AD and we won the championship in ’92 and that was the centennial celebration for the university, I got Bart involved. He was a little reluctant to throw himself into that because he felt like he had a couple of bad years here.
“I’m glad he got all those honors in pro ball because he so richly deserved it. Again, it was timing. He maybe had a bad situation at Alabama, but he ended up playing for Lombardi.”
Despite the challenges they encounter on the football field, Elmore is thankful for the enduring friendship he cultivated with Starr at Alabama.
“Bart was finest person you’ll ever met and I hold him in highest regard,” Elmore said. “You always hear negative, but there’s nothing about Bart that is bad. The fact he went on to become one of the very best pro quarterbacks ever didn’t come as a shock to anybody.
“He’s was a fine Christian human being who would do anything in the world for you. Fame never changed him. He was always the same humble person he was the first time I met him.”
Father’s influence a blessing
From his earliest days Bart Starr never wanted to disappoint his father. He sorely wanted the approval of the master sergeant who ruled their home with firm oversight.
So after dealing with the humiliation of being benched during his senior season at Alabama on the heels of missing much of his junior year due to injury Starr still felt like he had something to prove.
He believed his football days were not behind him.
But he also assumed his immediate future would be in the military after receiving an Air Force ROTC commission upon graduating. However, Starr failed the military medical exam due to his back injury suffered his junior year and was deemed unfit to serve.
He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the 17th round – the 10th quarterback taken – and served his first three seasons as a part-time starter.
Entering the 1959 season, Vince Lombardi was hired to lead the Packers, leading to one of the most dominating eras in professional football. Green Bay won five NFL championships between 1961-’67, including the first two Super Bowls.
Starr played 16 seasons, passing for 24,719 yards and 152 touchdowns before being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.
Starr’s childhood was spent trying to please a father who more closely identified with the personality of his younger son.
Bart never rebuffed the demands of his father, but rather inwardly channeled the challenges to purse perfection.
Little did he know that his childhood home environment would prepare him to successfully deal with Lombardi’s ironfisted coaching style at Green Bay. In fact, he began to view his father’s influence on his life as a blessing.
Lessons from Lombardi
“Bart told me a story about when Coach Lombardi invited him into his office one day right after he took over,” Ingram said. “Lombardi looked at him and said, ‘Bart, do you want to be my quarterback?’ Of course Bart said, ‘Yes sir.’
“He said ‘Well, when you get in the huddle you’ve got to start calling some of those guys SOBs and kicking them in the butt so you can be the kind of leader they’ll respect.’ And he said, ‘Yes sir.’
“When I asked Bart who was the first guy was he called an SOB and he said, ‘I never did that. I got a little rough with them and talked down to them, but I didn’t exactly go the same route Coach Lombardi asked me to do.’
“It worked out, and I thought that was the only element about running a pro team he didn’t have by being rude to anybody. When he corrected anybody, you can rest assured they had done something wrong.”
Kind, yet competitive spirit
Former Alabama football coach Bill Curry was drafted by the Packers in 20th round of the 1964 draft. He was late arriving due to training camp due to an obligation to participate in a college all-star game, not sure what to expect his first day in pro football.
“As a 22-year-old and one of the smallest linemen in camp, I’m not feeling really confident,” Curry said. “I’m walking over to dinner and I realized somebody was walking beside me. I looked and almost passed out because it was Bart Starr.
“I said, ‘Oh my goodness, Mr. Starr it’s great to meet you’ and he said ‘None of that mister stuff. Just call me Bart’. It was obvious he was going to walk all the way over there with me. He said ‘Bill I’ve been looking forward to you reporting. I don’t’ know what your faith is, but Cherry and I think we have a wonderful church and minister, and if you’d like to have Sunday dinner and go to church with us tomorrow, we’d like to have you.’
“Those were the first words out of his mouth when I reported to the Green Bay Packers. He didn’t tell me the snap count, what time practice was, he just invited me into his home and church to meet his family, which we did.
“And from that day until now, he’s been like my big brother. I don’t even know why, but I thank God every time I think about it. I could sit here for hours literally and tell you one story after another of his kindness.”
Curry saw another side of Starr’s unassuming personality when he was in the huddle, and he learned early in his career the competitive side of his quarterback’s makeup.
“I learned that once we got on the football field there was no sympathy,” Curry said. “(Packer linebacker) Ray Nitschke was beating me to death literally – broke my facemask, broke my nose, knocked me out. I was so embarrassed because I couldn’t block him. I didn’t think about it at the time, but nobody else in the league could block him either because he was a Hall of Famer.
“I expected Bart to come up and hug me and tell me everything was going to be OK, but he never did. He just left me to my own. At some level I knew I had to learn this the hard way, but Bart wasn’t going be able to do anything. He was the perfect big brother teammate, so I fought and fought to prove myself. It’s what you have to do in order to survive in that league because high school football is powderpuff, college football is a petting zoo and the NFL is a jungle.
“There are no nice guys, and you have to learn to not be a nice guy when you step across the line. So Bart was not a nice guy on the field, although he never raised his voice except to Lombardi. He would take on Lombardi occasionally when he would become too profane or nasty, but never said a word if my man got past me and knocked his teeth out, he never said a word. He’d get up, help me up, and get back in the huddle.”
Bart and Cherry also took a personal interest in helping care for Curry and his wife, Carolyn.
“A couple of weeks into training camp, Carolyn came to Green Bay,” Curry said. “We had been married a couple of years and I couldn’t find a room at one of the Holiday Inns that had a vacancy, so I put her in a hotel downtown called the Northland that I did not know didn’t have a real good reputation.
“Bart walks up one morning and asks, ‘Is Carolyn staying at the Northland hotel?’ I said, ‘Yes sir, she is.’ He said ‘You tell her that Cherry Starr will pick her up at 10 o’clock this morning. She’s not staying in that place another minute.’ I said, ‘Mr. Starr we couldn’t allow you to do that.’
“He said ‘I didn’t ask you. Cherry’s picking her up and she’s staying out our house until you can find her a place.’ And that’s how it started. You can imagine how quickly we came to love them and treasure them.”
Curry played two seasons in Green Bay before playing center in front of another Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas for six seasons in Baltimore.
“When I’m asked to contrast and compare them, I cannot,” Curry said. “And if I could, I would not because I love them both too much. I have said, and I mean this reverently and respectfully, I would march into hell protecting either one of them any time, any day, any year.
“When they stepped into the huddle or walked into your life, there were so many similarities. With both of them there was this aura of invincibility, and we always knew we would win the game.”
A new direction
Immediately after his retirement, Starr agreed to serve as the Packers’ quarterback coach for the 1972 season. It created a perfect opportunity for former Alabama quarterback Scott Hunter to become tutored by the legend he replaced as Green Bay’s quarterback.
“His last year was my rookie year so he was a big help that year,” Hunter said. “He started about half the games, and I started the other half. But he was just terrific in taking me under his wing and schooling me how to study and prepare.
“I had learned this at Alabama, but he continued the idea you had to be the best prepared person on the field. That’s what Bart always was and it reinforced it with me.
“I think the most impact was the next year in ’72. Bart had retired and Coach (Dan) Devine had asked him to stay as quarterback coach and also to call plays. It was a great situation for me.
“I had Bart Starr over there calling plays and coaching me during the week, preparing me for each game to become an extension of him. We won the division championship, and the way he worked with me was a big part of that.”
Starr spent the next two years cultivating his business interests including auto dealerships and dabbling as a color commentator for NFL games, but he was wooed into trying to help the Packers return to their glory years as head coach when Devine left for the Notre Dame job.
“When he became GM and head coach of the Packers, hired me as an assistant and brought me back up there for four years,” Curry said. “He is the only reason I became the head coach of Georgia Tech. It would have not happened if he hadn’t given me that responsibility. I cannot even begin to calculate all that I owe him.”
Influence felt
While Starr later admitted taking the Packers head coaching job was one of his biggest mistakes as he wasn’t prepared having been away from the game for two years, his influence nonetheless impacted those under his watch.
Montgomery native Bryon Bragg played locally at Carver, then followed Starr’s path to Alabama and Green Bay.
“Growing up in Montgomery when the Packers were winning championships, I had always heard of Bart Starr. The fact that we’re both from the same home town was a humorous point when I got drafted by Green Bay,” Bragg said. “They kidded me that the only reason they drafted me was they said I used to mow Bart Starr’s grass in Montgomery, which obviously wasn’t true.”
Starr’s coaching style helped Bragg adjust to the rigors and demands of the professional game.
“It was pro football so it was all business,” Bragg said. “But at the same there were certain things that stood out about Coach Starr. Right off the bat he was a class act. He was very intuitive when it came to people. He understood what made them tick. That’s the most interesting thing about professional football is it’s the pinnacle of the sport, but unless the cards fall right for you it’s a very difficult journey to make.
“Bart was one of those strong people who you could always count on. He never got too high or low because he knew the journey was not finished.”
Rich Wingo also played for Starr in Green Bay after a collegiate career at Alabama. Drafted in the seventh round as a linebacker, Wingo’s selection was boosted by a phone call from Crimson Tide coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
“I was starting middle linebacker and Coach Bryant kicked me off the team during warm-ups a week before the first game our junior year,” Wingo said. “We had our history, but he was the reason I got drafted. I didn’t think I had a chance of playing in the NFL.
“I sat on a plane one night flying back from the west coach next to Coach Starr, and I find out Coach Bryant had called Coach Starr. He said ‘Listen, I’ve got a middle linebacker here that got injured halfway through the season and I think he’d help your team.’ I can’t believe he did that for me. He did it because of the word of Coach Bryant.”
After enjoying great success and national championships at Alabama, the transition to Green Bay was challenging for Wingo made more bearable by Starr’s leadership.
“My rookie year we went 4-12,” Wingo said. “We won four stinking games, and I had just won a national championship the year before. I had never been on a team that lost more than a game ever, and we couldn’t win. But he never changed even though he was under such pressure, and he came back and won the division the next year.
“I never saw Coach Starr in all the adversity ever lose his cool. Football was important to him, but it wasn’t important enough for him to lose his witness as a Christian.”
Coaching career, not faith, ends in Green Bay
After 25 years with the Packer organization at a player, general manager and coach, Starr was notified by letter that he was being relieved of his duties. But seeing how Starr handled this disappointment further bolstered Wingo’s faith and love for his coach.
“He lives in Green Bay, he’s a legend there and the Packers didn’t tell him he was fired face-to-face. They sent him a letter notifying him his service was being terminated,” Wingo said.
“Around that same time we had a teammate named Ron Cassidy whose child suffocated when he got trapped under their garage door. He was probably two years old, and it was tragic. Understand, Bart was just let go, and there was a lot of hype surrounding his firing. But he and Cherry made it a point to be at that funeral.
“Their support for that family had as much of an impact on my life as anything because I was a new Christian when that happened. He would talk about his faith in a very, non-intimidating manner but it was clear how he lived that he loved the Lord.”
Starr served as head coach for nine seasons, the first five also doubling as the Packers’ general manager. Green Bay went 52-76-2 under his guidance, making the playoffs only once during the strikeshortened 1982 season.
“There’s a lot of great coaches who don’t succeed in pro ball,” Ingram said. “You take Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban – both were great coaches who went to a place that didn’t have a quarterback. It’s kind of hard to play without a quarterback. “You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time. I’m sure the New England coach is a great coach, but if I were him as soon as my quarterback retired I believe I’d retire too. It’s what you call timing.”
Death of a son
Bart and Cherry moved to Arizona after his dismissal from Green Bay as member of a partnership group that vainly attempted to bring an NFL franchise to Phoenix. While there the youngest of their two sons, Bret, died in Florida at the age of 24 from drug abuse in 1988.
Curry was coaching at Alabama at the time, and he reached out to Starr to offer his heartfelt condolences.
“Neither he nor Cherry wavered even though they were heartbroken and crushed,” Curry said. “I asked him if there was anything I could do to help, and he said ‘Yes there is. When we’re ready – if we’re ever ready – we’d like to speak to some young people to keep this happening to them.’ I told him to call me whenever he was ready.
“Like everybody in America, we were having problems too with the drug issue. I stayed in touch with them letting them know that I loved them, and about six months later the phone rang, and Bart said, ‘We’re ready.’ I called a team meeting thinking it would just be Bart, but it wasn’t just Bart. He and Cherry walked into my office and I just held her and said, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ And she said, ‘I can’t either, but we’re both going to do it.’
“So, we walk into that wonderful group of young men at Alabama and my coaching staff and I witnessed the greatest team meeting I’ve ever seen. Cherry stood up first and she was doing fine. She said ‘Look, Brett was not a bad boy. He was a good kid just like you guys. He meant well and was doing so well on his recovery. He’d had like three years of sobriety, and she faltered. I thought, ‘Gosh, do I take over now?’ Bart stood up and walked over and put his arm around her. He waited, she recovered and went on with her remarks.
“When a mom talks like that it’s not like anybody else. When she finished, Bart got up and looked them in the eyes and said ‘Men, I’ve been a general manager and coach in the NFL. I know what the deal is on the streets.’ It was the most
remarkable talk I’ve ever heard. When we walked out, I told him I don’t know how many lives you saved today, but I promise you it was a substantial amount. We’ll never know.”
‘Success never changed Bart’
The Starrs returned to Alabama 1989, settling in Birmingham to be closer to their older son, Bart, Jr., and their three grandchildren. Starr became chairman of a real estate corporation developing medical office buildings before retiring in 2006.
He also continued to be involved with Rawhide Boys Ranch in Wisconsin, a facility designed to help at-risk and troubled boys. Starr’s association with the ministry gave it credibility, and he even donated to Rawhide the Corvette he received as most valuable player for Super Bowl II to raffle off to help keep it financially afloat.
A combination of medical setbacks over the last few years including strokes, seizures and a heart attack limited Starr’s public appearances. But nothing changed the character and consistency that were hallmarks of his life.
“Success never changed Bart,” Curry said. “I never, ever saw him walk by a child, or a drunk or an obnoxious fan without stopping, smiling, shaking hands and signing an autograph. Ever. His priorities were always his faith, his family and the Green Bay Packers.”
From his childhood in Montgomery, through four challenging years in Tuscaloosa, to his Hall of Fame playing days in Green Bay followed by his mediocre coaching record, Starr never changed according to Wingo.
“No matter how much success or adversity he experienced, he was always consistent,” Wingo said. “He loved his players enough to be demanding. He would encourage you, but he would be very straight with you. Just as a godly father loves their child enough to discipline them, that was Bart with his players.
“No matter what, you always knew he loved you.”