Starr, "Bart" (Bryan Bartlett)
Football
b. Jan. 9, 1934, Montgomery, AL
Starr won headlines as a freshman quarterback at the University of Alabama when he threw four touchdown passes in a 1953 Orange Bowl victory over Syracuse University. However, the arrival of the one-platoon system in his sophomore year turned Starr into a part-time player, and he was virtually forgotten as a senior in 1955, when Alabama lost all 10 of its games.
The Green Bay Packers chose him in the seventeenth round of the 1956 NFL draft of college players. Starr was a backup as a rookie and shared starting time with other quarterbacks for three years before taking over the job during the 1960 season, Vince Lombardi's first year with the team.
During the next eight years, Starr guided the Packers to six division championships, five league titles, and victories in the first two Super Bowls. A superbly accurate short passer, he led the league in completion percentage in 1962, 1966, 1968, and 1969, and was the NFL passing champion in 1962, 1964, and 1966. From 1964 through 1965, he threw 294 consecutive passes without an interception, a record at the time.
Because the Packers used a ball-control offense that featured running, he never threw more than 295 passes a season and didn't have the high yardage and touchdown totals of other top quarterbacks. But he may have been just as important to the team as a signal-caller. Although the Packers sent plays in from the sidelines, Starr changed the play at the line of scrimmage about half the time after sizing up the defense.
In the famous "Ice Bowl" game for the 1967 NFL championship, the Dallas Cowboys were winning 17-14 with 16 seconds to play and the Packers had a third down with less than a yard to go for a touchdown. On the previous two plays, halfback Donny Anderson had slipped on the icy field when taking handoffs and had gained virtually nothing. Using Green Bay's last time-out, Starr went to the sidelines and suggested running the same play, but with him keeping the ball instead of handing it off. He scored the touchdown and the Packers won 21-14.
Starr was named the most valuable player in the first two Super Bowls. He completed 16 of 23 passes for 250 yards and 2 touchdowns in Green Bay's 35-10 victory over Kansas City and he had 13 completions in 24 attempts for 202 yards and 1 touchdown in the 33-14 win over Oakland.
He retired after the 1971 season with 1,808 completions in 3,149 attempts for 24,718 yards and 52 touchdowns. He also rushed for 15 touchdowns. Starr coached the Packers to a 52-76-2 record from 1975 through 1983.