NFL legend Bart Starr was victim of 'brutal' secret Alabama hazing
Alabama quarterback Bart Starr (10) played for the Tide from 1952 to 1955. Photo courtesy of Paul W. Bryant Museum.
By Joseph Goodman |
[email protected] on February 29, 2016
They beat Bart Starr with a wooden paddle until his back resembled a piece of raw meat. The quarterback was never the same again.
For more than 60 years, Bart Starr and his wife, Cherry, have kept a dark secret hidden away from the narrative of the Hall of Fame quarterback's career. No more. One of the most respected football players in the history of the game, and arguably one of the toughest, was hazed so badly while at the University of Alabama that it derailed his college career, disqualified him from military service and affected him throughout his 16 years with the Green Bay Packers.
In an exclusive interview with AL.com, Cherry Starr debunked the cover story used about why Starr's career at Alabama fizzled before his junior season, and why he struggled with back pain throughout his storied NFL career.
It has long been accepted that Starr hurt his back during a punting exercise at Alabama. That is false, says Cherry Starr, who was with him at the time and throughout his life. Cherry told AL.com the truth is that Bart's injury happened during a gruesome ritualistic paddling for initiation into the university's A-Club for varsity lettermen.
"He was hospitalized at one point in traction," Cherry said. "That was in the days when they were initiated into the A-Club, and they had severe beatings and paddling. From all the members of the A-Club, they lined up with a big paddle with holes drilled in it, and it actually injured his back."
Bart never disclosed the incident involving the lettermen's club, says Cherry, because he thought "it would make him look bad." In declining health following two strokes in 2014, Bart, 82, is no longer able to discuss the events of his career, but the trauma he experienced at Alabama and its aftereffects are things the couple lived through together and have shared throughout their lives.
News articles from 1954 give few details about how Bart injured his back, and five biographies about his life and career, including an autobiography published in 1987, craft a narrative about his back injury around a punting exercise. Bart Starr buried the real reason for his injury in 1954, and his beating at the hands of the A-Club was either never reported or lost history.
"But his back was never right after that," Cherry Starr said. "It was horrible. It was not a football injury. It was an injury sustained from hazing. His whole back all the way up to his rib cage looked like a piece of raw meat. The bruising went all the way up his back. It was red and black and awful looking. It was so brutal."
Alabama tight end Nick Germanos, who was teammates with Starr and also Alabama's senior captain in 1955, described the beatings in sobering terms.
Germanos served in the Marine Corps for 3 ½ years following his graduation from Alabama. He said hazing for the A-Club was worse than anything he experienced in the military.
"It was hell," Germanos said. "Lord have mercy it was a rough initiation."
And perhaps even worse for Starr, who not only broke the A-Club's fraternal code of the era by secretly eloping in May of 1954 — teams used to revoke or reduce scholarships for marriages — but he also had the temerity to wed an Auburn girl and move her to Tuscaloosa.
Starr suffered the worst of it before his junior season, and only a few months after his elopement, says Cherry. Newspaper accounts of the day detail a fascinating cover up when viewed through the focused lens of a revelation almost 62 years in the making.
COVER-UP STORYThere's a chance that Alabama coach Harold "Red" Drew never really knew how his star quarterback from Montgomery came to be injured before the beginning of preseason practice in the fall of 1954. Starr would miss most of the season due to his back injury, and Drew was fired that December.
History has painted a picture of Starr struggling throughout his career at Alabama and never materializing into a good quarterback until Vince Lombardi arrived in Green Bay in 1959. It's not that simple. Starr started his sophomore season, helped Alabama to an SEC championship and, entering his junior season, was lauded by Drew as possibly the best passer in Alabama history.
Drew's Split-T offense leaned heavily on Starr's ability as a passer to keep defenses honest. Unfortunately for Drew and Starr, the quarterback's back injury caused shooting pains throughout his upper extremities. It hurt just to lift his arms, according to later accounts of the injury.
Alabama finished 1954 with an overall record of 4-5-2 (3-3-2 in the SEC). With Starr either sidelined or playing through pain, the Crimson Tide went its final six games of the season without a victory.
The wormhole of what-ifs and fateful coincidences is a fool's game, but if Starr's back had never been injured, then Drew might have had a successful season in 1954 and stayed on as Alabama's coach. Instead, a timeline of events was put into motion that led Paul "Bear" Bryant to Alabama in 1957.
Of course, in the preseason of 1954, Bryant wasn't thinking about Alabama. He was just trying to figure out how to turn his new team, Texas A&M, into a winner. While Bryant's Aggies were being transformed into "Junction Boys" during a hellish two-a-day camp that first week of September 1954, Starr was watching Alabama's preseason two-a-days in shorts.
The full extent of Starr's back injury was never reported while he was at Alabama, and it wasn't until the fourth week of the season — Oct. 6, 1954 — that an explanation for his injury was given by the press. Starr was checked into Tuscaloosa's Druid City Hospital on Oct. 4.
With his week in traction to come later in the season, Starr's absence from preseason practice and his bothersome back were noted by local reporters at the start of camp. By all known accounts, though, the injury wasn't serious.
The Birmingham Post-Herald first reported the news on Sept. 4, 1954:
"Quarterback Bart Starr was the only Tider who worked in shorts as Coach Harold (Red) Drew sent the squad through a light afternoon dummy scrimmage. They all worked in shorts in the morning session.
Starr is nursing a minor injury he suffered in Spring training."
Just a few days earlier, however, the Birmingham News offered a report on Alabama's players who were injured the previous spring. There was no mention of Starr. From legendary Birmingham News reporter Alf Van Hoose on Sept. 2, 1954:
"How did the Spring-injured boys appear?
That would be particularly, End Curtis Lynch and Fullback Noojin Walker. The answer's the same for both: Great. Lynch quickly regained his title as the hardest worker on the squad. Walker is running with no limp evident from a bum knee of last Fall and Spring."
Consistent with Van Hoose's report, Starr wasn't mentioned in an injury report leading into the previous spring's A-Day Game. Reporter Naylor Stone did, however, detail a list of six injuries prior to the spring scrimmage in the March 13, 1954, edition of the Post-Herald.
Starr competed in the A-Day scrimmage, completing 4 of 9 passes for 24 yards. Coincidentally, he reportedly was upstaged by backup quarterback Albert Elmore.
It's unclear who first manufactured the story that Starr was injured in the spring, but Starr would later propagate the misinformation while further confusing the timeline. It was extremely rare for Alabama's players to be quoted in the Birmingham papers in the early 1950s, but on the week he was admitted to Druid City Hospital, Starr apparently told the Birmingham News he suffered the injury in August, or less than a month before preseason camp.
From Van Hoose of the Birmingham News, reporting on Oct. 6, 1954:
"The whole trouble started, Starr thinks, from pre-season exercise. He remembers the pain beginning one day after a kicking session with a few of the boys in August. He thought it would go away in a few days, but it didn't — hasn't yet."
That a punter could injure himself in a non-contact kicking session to the point of possibly rupturing a disc is plausible, but that's not the reason for Bart Starr's injury at Alabama, according to Cherry Starr.
To be sure, it was a "kicking session" that altered Starr's career and possibly football history at the University of Alabama. It just wasn't the type of session that happened on the field.
MISINFORMATIONThe brutality of Starr's hazing by members of the A-Club left him with a lifelong back injury, according to his wife, but in that first week of preseason camp Alabama's former high school All-American was still hoping for the best.
That he most likely withheld valuable information from his team physician about his savage beating probably didn't help.
A week into camp, and doctors already were at a loss, apparently. It would become a common theme throughout Starr's career, and one that would drive him to seek alternative forms of therapy while with the Green Bay Packers.
In September of 1954, Alabama's team physician, Albert Tatum, sent Starr to Birmingham for an evaluation.
On Sept. 6, 1954, the Birmingham News reported Starr "is believed to be suffering from a possible pinched back nerve." The Post-Herald countered with its own story the following day, based on information from Alabama trainer Fred Posey. From the Sept. 7, 1954, edition of Birmingham's morning paper:
"Posey said Quarterback Bart Starr was examined and x-rayed by Birmingham specialists who discovered his back was only strained."
Nothing appeared to be broken, but Alabama's hopes for a successful season were already coming undone. Another player, tackle Fred Sington, was already in traction at Jefferson-Hillman Hospital with a possible ruptured disc when Starr first tried to run on his bad back. It didn't respond well. On Sept. 9, 1954, Starr reportedly "lugged the chain marker up and down the sideline" during Alabama's first full scrimmage of the fall.
With Sington lost for the year with his ruptured disc, Starr was ruled out for the season opener against Southern Mississippi (called Mississippi Southern College at the time). It was a bitter day for Starr. Not only was his back in constant pain, but Alabama's season opener was in the quarterback's hometown of Montgomery.
After being hyped as a contender for the SEC crown, Alabama lost to plucky Mississippi Southern 7-2. Starr couldn't bear to watch from the sidelines of the Cramton Bowl. After sitting out the entire preseason, he entered the game in the final minutes in a last-ditch effort to manufacture some offense. From the Birmingham News:
"There was one bright moment of hope for Alabama when Bart Starr, who didn't get to work out for a week because of a strain muscle, came in with the time fading out. He got off a 14-yard pass to Lynch and the ball was on the 41. He was trying to make his second cast when Williams swooped in on him, knocking the ball out of his hands for keeps. Three line plays and the game was over."
The following week against LSU in Baton Rouge, La., Starr once again entered the game "when all else failed earlier..." This time, Starr "put the Tide on the way to victory," in the words of Zipp Newman, the Birmingham News' sports editor in 1954. Alabama defeated LSU 12-0, and Starr was the player of the game. He also had an interception on defense. From Newman's account in The News:
"Bart Starr showed what he meant to Alabama. After floundering around with scoring chances, Alabama went for a touchdown when Bart came onto throw three of the finest passes here in many a moon."
In hindsight, it was extremely reckless for Starr to play that day at Tiger Stadium. He missed the next three games, and was eventually admitted to the hospital on Oct. 4, 1954. On the same day Marilyn Monroe's divorce with Joe DiMaggio made front page news in the Post-Herald, the newspaper buried a brief story by the Associated Press about Starr's hospitalization:
"UNIVERSITY, Oct. 4. (AP) — Bart Starr, Alabama's passing sensation, was placed in traction at Druid City Hospital today because of a nagging back injury."
Cherry Starr accompanied her husband to the hospital. The traction prescribed to Starr called for counterweights to keep his legs elevated. He was immobilized for a week. In a story in the Birmingham News two days later, Alabama's team physician "very frankly admitted that Starr's injury could be one of two things: (1) a strained back muscle or (2) disc trouble."
The story's lede echoed Alabama's frustration. "What's the score on Bart Starr?" wrote Hoose.
Starr kept it a secret for nearly 62 years.
'LOST CAUSE'With Starr in the hospital, the Crimson Tide reeled off three straight victories, including a 27-0 shutout of Tennessee in Knoxville. Alabama was 3-0 in the SEC and churning toward its second straight conference championship. Then Starr returned to action. Playing injured, his presence seemed to disrupt the team's rhythm.
Beginning with its homecoming loss to Mississippi State, Alabama scored just 14 points over its final six games.
Between losses to Mississippi State and Miami, Alabama went scoreless for 16 consecutive quarters, tying a school record. The Crimson Tide was outscored a combined 71-7 over its final three games, losses to Georgia Tech (20-0), Miami (23-7) and, finally, Auburn at Legion Field (28-0).
It was the enigmatic Bobby Freeman who led the rout for Auburn in the 1954 Iron Bowl, giving the Tigers its first victory against Alabama since 1949. Another Auburn standout from that 1954 Iron Bowl, Fob James, would later become governor of Alabama.
Attending the game as a personal friend of Drew, baseball great Dizzy Dean, living in Texas at the time, told the Birmingham News to "watch that Bear Bryant out our way next year. He'll have a team at Texas A&M. You know, he never did take a bad beating."
Bryant went 1-9 in his first season with Texas A&M. In an interesting twist, Starr nearly played for Bryant at Kentucky, but instead signed with Alabama in 1952. It was a fateful decision. Starr's offense didn't score a single point against Auburn in his junior and senior seasons, and a few days after Dean visited Birmingham on an invitation from Drew, Alabama's coach was fired. Starr's injury-plagued junior year marked Alabama's second losing season in half a century.
Things got worse for Alabama and Starr before they got better.
Politics and football have always been wrapped tightly around the Capstone like vines of collegiate ivy — beautiful, but with a tendency to suffocate. As it is sometimes prone to do, Alabama football was choking itself to death in 1954.
Drew, an innovative coach, had a quarterback in Starr, who, before his hazing, had the potential to be the best passer in the nation. Drew's line coach, Hank Crisp, was from the old school, and wanted to run the football. Crisp, who doubled as Alabama's athletic director, was also Drew's boss.
Crisp fired Drew and hired in his place the worst coach in Alabama football history, Jennings Bryan "Ears" Whitworth. In perhaps one of the most inane decisions in college football history, Whitworth benched Starr for most of his senior season and instead ran a ground-heavy offense.
Alabama went 0-10 in 1955, Starr's senior season. In his final game — a 26-0 loss to Auburn — Starr played admirably in defeat. Noted Newman: "Bart Starr was a heroic figure in Alabama's lost cause. He gave it all he had."
Truer words were never written.
MEDICAL DISQUALIFICATIONThere are so many unlikely plot twists in the story of Bart Starr's rise to greatness with the Green Bay Packers. For starters, he was drafted in the 17th round on a recommendation by Alabama's basketball coach, Johnny Dee. Starr then had three coaches in four years with the third being an offensive assistant from New York named Lombardi.
The most amazing aspect of Starr's career might be this, though. His back was so badly injured during his time at Alabama that he failed his medical examination with the Air Force after his rookie season in Green Bay.
The military said Starr was unfit for service. He then played 15 more years in the NFL and won five championships, including the first two Super Bowls. He was named Most Valuable Player of both games.
"Thank goodness he failed that physical," Cherry Starr said.
The son of a master sergeant in the Air Force, Starr was a member of Air Force ROTC at Alabama. He was called to active duty after his first season with the Packers, and there was a great hope at Eglin Air Force Base that Starr could lead the base's football team to service glory.
A story on page 6 of the Feb. 14, 1957, edition of The Command Courier, Eglin's base newspaper, trumpeted Starr's arrival to the northwest Florida installation. Landing Starr's service was "quite a feather in the caps of Athletic Director Bill Bailey and football mentor John Sparks, because they've been hoping for some time that this lad would be assigned to Eglin."
Starr was looking forward to replacing former Eglin quarterback Zeke Bratkowski, who, coincidentally, would later be Starr's longtime backup in Green Bay. It wasn't to be. The commander at Eglin Air Force Base, Col. Frank H. Mears, wouldn't sign off on Starr's service, according to Cherry Starr, "because of the liability." Bart Starr was medically disqualified by the Air Force and discharged in the spring of 1957.
From the May 4, 1957, edition of The Milwaukee Journal:
"GREEN BAY, Wis. — AP — The Green Bay Packers announced Friday that quarterback Bart Starr had received his discharge from the air force and will report here around May 15. Starr, a former Alabama standout, entered service last fall after his first season with the National Football League club."
Starr wrote in his 1987 autobiography that the base commander "refused to sign the medical waiver that would have been necessary for me to remain on active duty. I stayed at Eglin for six more weeks prior to receiving a medical discharge."
Think about this: if Starr had a healthy back, he would have remained in the Air Force for at least two more years. In other words, his pro career might never have materialized if not for that beating by the A-Club.
It's a grotesque irony, and Starr's back trouble hounded him throughout one of the most physically demanding eras of professional football. Starr's dogged persistence got him to Green Bay. From there, uncommon toughness pulled him up the mountain. The NFL didn't keep statistics on sacks throughout most of Starr's career, but in 1969 (the first year Starr's sacks were officially recorded) he was sacked 24 times for a sack percentage of 14.0.
Brett Favre, a longtime admirer of Starr, was sacked more than anybody in the NFL history (525), but Favre's highest sack percentage in a full season was 6.9.
And Starr did it all with a nagging back injury that precluded him from military duty.
"He took a pounding, and I think that was his greatest attribute, his mental toughness," said Cliff Christl, the Green Bay Packers' official historian. "No one could ever question Bart Starr's toughness, and in particular his mental toughness."
DISCOVERYStarr played and coached through chronic pain his entire career, and the winter temperatures of Green Bay, Wis., presumably didn't help. The Packers regularly flew Starr to Madison, Wis., for back adjustments by a chiropractor.
"He was in so much pain constantly," Cherry Starr said. "They nearly tried anything."
Of course, the locker room culture of Lombardi's Packers probably wouldn't have tolerated a constantly aching player. It's not that Lombardi wanted his players to play through injuries. He didn't even acknowledge that players could be injured.
"Vince Lombardi didn't recognize injuries," said Christl, the Packers historian and longtime sportswriting legend. "He treated injuries as something all in your head."
Regular back spasms, spine adjustments and epidurals were Bart Starr's life throughout his time in Green Bay and into retirement. It wasn't until he moved to Birmingham in the late 1980s and met with doctors at the group fronted by Dr. James Andrews that Starr finally received some permanent relief.
A small fissure, a nearly undetectable crack, was discovered in one of Starr's vertebrae, according to Cherry Starr. The fracture was "basically invisible," she said, and located on the anterior side of her husband's spine. Starr had back surgery "to remove a chip."
Did Bart Starr play his entire career needing back surgery? It's impossible to know for sure, but his injury at Alabama changed not only the course of his life, but also shaped the histories of two of the most storied teams in football history, the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Green Bay Packers.
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