Instant Replay-The Unedited Edition

We had a tough practice today because the “Golden Boy” is back and the Coach is running him ragged. He ran that same off tackle play about a hundred times.  You see the league just let him back in after he was suspended for a year for gambling. Hornung was betting on the games. We just hoped he was betting on us to win.

The league suspended him and Alex Karras for a year. Coach Lombardi called Commissioner Rozelle every day. Three times a day. He kept busting his chops until he let Hornung back on the team. I mean it wasn’t like he did anything serious like using the “n” word or doing a war dance or slapping around his maid. I mean he just bet on football when he could shave points and affect the outcome of the game. I am sure he never made us lose. He just shaved it a little.

Just like he used to do to his ball sack. It was quite unpleasant actually. He wouldn’t do it. He would have one of the rookies do it as a rite of passage. At least that’s what he said. He was all about the rookie’s passage.

Coach Lombardi didn’t care about that. He didn’t care about what laws were broken. If you shaved points or even threw a game here or there. You see if you were a star player he would do what he had to do to get you on the field.

Winning isn’t everything. Winning is the only thing.

(Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition, Jerry Kramer & Dick Schaap Random House 1968)

Instant Replay The Unedited Version

We lost Willie Davis for two games this week. To a concussion. All because of domestic violence.

Not Willie of course. He is a pussycat who wouldn't hurt a fly. He wouldn't lift a finger to his wife. It seems his wife Bertha beat the crap out of him. She brained her with the frying pan that she was making pancakes with yesterday morning. You see Big Bertha only knows how to cook pancakes because that is what she learned from her Auntie. Plus rice which she learned how to cook from her Uncle. I think she called it perverted rice or something but it is pretty good.

Anyway Willie causally asked if they could have something other than rice because he was starting to feel like a Chinaman and that is when Big Bertha brained him with the skillet. So we don't have a defensive end this weekend for the game against the Eagles.

Coach Lombardi has a strict no tolerance policy against domestic violence. He once cut Jerry Norton for beating up his maid. Now Jerry claimed it was an accident because he was practicing his punting and she walked right into his kick. She sort of got kicked in the punt so to speak.

But Coach didn't stand for that. He cut him then and there.
(Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition, Jerry Kramer & Dick Schaap Random House 1968)

Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition.

We flew to Chicago today for the All-Star game tomorrow, minus Jim Grabowski, our regular fullback. Jim was on riot duty with the National Guard in Milwaukee, and I don't think they will let him go just for an exhibition game.

The National Guard was called out because they are having the County Fair and they always have race riots in Wisconsin. So the National Guard has to be around to stop the fighting between blacks and whites. I wonder if we will ever get past this. Will this still be the way it is in the year 2000. I don't think so. We will be too busy taking a rocket ship to visit the moon and flying around with our jet packs for that kind of stuff to still be going on.

I know that Wisconsin will change for the better. I can just feel it.
(Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition, Jerry Kramer & Dick Schaap Random House 1968)

Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition.

No practice today, thank God. I thought Sunday would never come. To relax, Don Chandler and I played a golf match against Max Magee and Zeke Bratkowski, our room against their room. Max and Zeke, the old men of the club at thirty-five, have been buddies for ten years, ever since they were pilots together in the Air Force.
We had to decide how may strokes Max and Zeke ought to give Don and me. We were all lying about how bad we were. Finally, we found an impartial judge, Bart Starr, who people around here no less saintly than the pope himself. We knew Bart would never do anybody wrong, so we let him fix the strokes.

Unfortunately, Paul Hornung heard us taking about giving strokes and he got all excited and confused. He ran in the locker room and grabbed Max Magee by his little Magee and told him he would give him as many strokes as he needed.

That Paul. He is such a kidder.
(Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition, Jerry Kramer & Dick Schaap Random House 1968)

Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition.

Today was an easy day, our annual picture day, when the publicity photos are taken of all the players. The photographer set up one shot of me and Fuzzy Thurston and Forest Gregg and Bob Skoronski, the regular offensive guards and offensive tackles. The only person missing was our captain and center Jim Ringo. Which is not surprising because Ringo was always a little off. Plus Lombardi had traded him in 1964.

Ringo was always staring at people with a slack jawed grin. He just looked like a moron. And he liked to steal. You would have to lock up your wallet and jewelry if he was around. He always bragged that he came from a long line of thieves. His whole family were thieves and outlaws. Plus he was just weird. He would stare at you and say that he wanted to be your "huckleberry." I don't know what that is but if sounds kind of gay. I think that is why Vince traded him to the Eagles. Or because Ringo stole his rosary beads. One or the other.

Either way he was not our problem anymore. He just wasn't our huckleberry anymore.
(Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition, Jerry Kramer & Dick Schaap Random House 1968)

Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition.

"What is it, Coach?" I said. "What's the matter?"

Finally, he managed to say, "I had to put Paul--" He was almost stuttering as he kept moving his hand inside his pants at a furious pace. "I had to put Paul on that list," he said, "and they took him."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't say anything. Vince had put Paul Hornung on the list of Packers eligible to be selected by the Saints, the new expansion team in New Orleans, and the Saints had taken him. Paul Hornung had been my teammate ever since I came to Green Bay in 1958, and he had been Vince's prize pupil ever since Vince came to Green Bay in 1959, and it may sound funny but I loved Paul and Vince loved Paul and everybody on the Packers loved Paul. From the stands, or on television, Paul may have looked cocky, with his goat shoulders and his blond hair and his strut, but to the people who knew him he was a beautiful guy.

He had some strange ideas. He talked about how he took a shit all the time. He called it "Pinching a loaf." And he kept a weird looking Spaniel of some sort. It wasn't a cocker spaniel. It was more of a cockeyed spaniel. It liked to eye the cocks of all the players in the locker room.

In fact Paul spent a lot of time hanging around naked in the locker room. He would also look to get in the whirlpool with another player. Especially the rookies. They were too scared to say anything. Even when it was a one man tub. Paul would make them sit on his lap
(Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition, Jerry Kramer & Dick Schaap Random House 1968)