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Bart Starr started slowly. A seventeenth-round draft choice of the Green Bay Packers
in 1956, his playing time still was limited three years later. But Vince Lombardi took over
as the teams's head coach in 1959 and, after tireless study of films, decided that he liked Starr's
mechanics and would build his new team around him.
Under Lombardi's careful tutoring, Starr slowly gained confidence and in 1960 he led the Packers
to the first of six division titles they would win in the 1960s. He led the league in passing
three times and was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player in 1966.
From 1960-67, Starr's won-lost record as the starting quarterback was a sizzling 82-24-4, and the
Packers won NFL championships in 1961, 1962, 1965, and 1966. They also won the first two Super Bowls
in 1967 and 1968. Strangely, even though Starr was named MVP in Super Bowl I and II, he received
only minimum fanfare while his more publicized teammates captured the headlines.
Maybe it was because Starr, the calm leader of a balanced, precision attack, made it all look so
easy. He never threw as many as 300 pass in one season, a situation which may have helped create
the illusion he was only an average passer. Perhaps it was because some felt, with the Packers'
great array of talent in the 1960s, any quarterback could have been successful.
But knowledgeable football observers knew better. One rival coach said, "I wish there were a way
to ban Bart Starr from playing against us. For the Packers, he is the perfect quarterback."
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