“Once I was standing on the sidelines when [Green
Bay Packers defensive end and teammate] Willie [Davis] came out of the game
with a dislocated finger. I saw the bone sticking through the skin. The trainer
grabbed the finger, yanked the bone back in place, then taped the finger to the
adjoining fingers. Willie ran back to the game.”— Jerry Kramer (with Dick
Schaap), Distant Replay (1985)
Remembering Pro Football Hall of Famer—and successful
post-football businessman—Willie Davis
(1934-2020).
When I was growing up in the late 1960s and early
1970s, my high school, St. Cecilia (Englewood, NJ) took special pride in the
Packers, the team built by our football coach through much of the 1940s, Vince Lombardi.
A July 1960 trade that Lombardi helped engineer for Davis became one of the
building blocks of that pro sports dynasty.
In his autobiography Closing the Gap: Lombardi, the Packers Dynasty, and the Pursuit of Excellence, Davis credited his
coach not only with helping him feel more comfortable, as an African-American
in largely white Green Bay, but also in having faith in him as a player but
also as a student with the discipline to complete his MBA in 1968 by working
through the offseason.
Motivation, self-discipline and faith—essential ingredients
for success in whatever field that your career takes you to…
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