As a kicker, he made 29 field goals, 90 extra points, for a total of 177 points. He was also the team's placekicker in 1962, 1963, and part of 1968. With Kramer playing right guard, the Packers won five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls. You'd be surprised how much confidence a little success will bring.
Jerry Kramer did not know how good he was when he first joined the Green Bay Packers. In January 1959, the Packers hired a new head coach, Vince Lombardi, the offensive coach of the New York Giants. Kramer played every game in his rookie season of 1958 under first-year head coach Ray "Scooter" McLean, but the Packers finished with the worst record (1–10–1) in the twelve-team league. Two other 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 was the 39th selection of the 1958 NFL Draft, taken in the fourth round by the Green Bay Packers. (He wore #74 as a sophomore tackle in 1955, and #57 on the freshman team in 1954.) While at UI, Kramer joined Sigma Nu fraternity, and also lettered in track and field ( discus and shot put).
Kramer's number 64 was retired by the university in 1963, on his 27th birthday. Kramer was also a starter for the winning North team in the Senior Bowl in January in Mobile, Alabama. Following the 1957 season, both played on the winning side in the East-West Shrine Game in late December in San Francisco, and at the College All-Star Game in Chicago in mid-August, in which they defeated the defending NFL champion Lions. Kramer was a standout two-way player for the Vandals, along with teammate (and road roommate) Wayne Walker of Boise, a future All-Pro linebacker with the Detroit Lions. In that era, Idaho was a member of the Pacific Coast Conference, the forerunner of the Pac-12. After graduating from Sandpoint High School in 1954, he accepted a football scholarship to the University of Idaho in Moscow to play for new head coach Skip Stahley. īorn in eastern Montana in Jordan, Kramer moved with his parents and five siblings from northern Utah to northern Idaho when he was in the fourth grade, settling in Sandpoint. At his induction speech, he quoted something his high school coach had often told him: "You can if you will". Kramer was inducted into the Hall of Fame on August 4, 2018. 1 in NFL Network's Top 10 list of players not in the Hall.
Kramer was an All-Pro five times, and a member of the National Football League 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1969.īefore his election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018 at age 82, Kramer was noted for being a finalist for the Hall ten times without being voted in.
Gerald Louis Kramer (born January 23, 1936) is a former professional American football player, author and sports commentator, best remembered for his 11-year National Football League (NFL) career with the Green Bay Packers as an offensive lineman.Īs a 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m), 245-pound (111 kg) right guard, Kramer was an integral part of the famous Packers 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.