Book recounts the histories of Green Bay Packers in Pro Football Hall of Fame
It says something about the success of the Green Bay Packers that enough of its former players are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame to provide material for an entire book.
Green Bay is represented by 28 individuals in the hall, and Michael Jacquart's "Green Bay's Greatest: Profiles of the Packers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame" includes them all. Jacquart, who lives in Iola, said one reason for writing the book was to keep long-ago Packers fresh in fans' minds. And long ago is closer than you'd think.
"As the years go by, there are so many people who don’t even remember the Lombardi years any more," said Jacquart, a member of the Professional Football Researchers Association. For the record, half of the Packers in the hall of fame were from the Lombardi era, including Lombardi himself.
The book includes biographies on every Packers player in the hall, with the exception of LeRoy Butler, who was inducted in August. Butler has a shorter entry in the section on Packers Who Should Be (or Will Be) in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"The toughest part was LeRoy Butler. Everybody was pretty sure he would be in, but I could not talk the publisher into an extension," Jacquart said.
Also included in that section are Aaron Rodgers, Sterling Sharpe, Gale Gillingham, Jack Vainisi, Boyd Dowler, Bob Harlan, David Bakhtiari and Davante Adams.
The book includes statistics for each player and coach and other biographical facts, such as birth and death dates, parents, high school and college attended and post-football career. For example, Arnie Herber attended Green Bay West High School; Mike Michalske had nine uniform numbers during his Packers career, the most by any player in team history; and Jim Ringo did not miss a game in 10 consecutive years with the Packers.
"A lot of people who buy these books are stat junkies," Jacquart said.
He said it took about six months to write the book.
"Writing is actually the easiest part of a book. Citations, proofreading, releases for text and photos, compiling photos, and writing bibliography and index are more work." he said. And there is a lot of that in this book, which is well-sourced, with extensive chapter notes, bibliography and index.
In researching the book, Jacquart said there were things he didn't know or was reminded of.
"I knew Johnny Blood was a character. I didn’t know he was that much of a character," Jacquart said. "Vince Lombardi, you think you know about him, but I had no idea he was that far ahead of the curve in race relations. When Bart Starr died, I was a little surprised with the number of quotes from people who had nothing to do with football."
Jacquart previously published "A Century of Excellence: 100 Greatest Packers of All Time."
He will be the speaker at Neville Public Museum's Dinner Program at 5 p.m. Nov. 10. Tickets can be purchased at the Neville Museum website.
The book is $29.95 and is available at Bosse's News & Tobacco in downtown Green Bay and at Barnes & Nobel and Amazon websites.
Contact Richard Ryman at rryman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RichRymanPG, on Instagram at @rrymanPG or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RichardRymanPG/.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Book recounts histories of Packers in Pro Football Hall of Fame
