Leon Crenshaw went back to work today, back to grass drills and wind sprints. They kept him in the hospital for only four or five hours, gave him some intravenous injections and sent him back to training camp. Leon's one of a half a dozen Negro rookies trying out for the team, and I was thinking today that when I joined the Packers in 1958, there was only one Negro on the whole team. Now we eight Negros in the starting lineup, and four of them made the All-Pro team.
We have the Negros because of Lombardi. Don't get me wrong he doesn't like them very much. He calls them "moolies" and is much harder on them than anyone else. But he would use anyone to win. He would even use a Chinaman if he had too!
It is the people of Wisconsin that really hate the Negros. They are all upset with the civil rights situation in the South and will protest and raise money and all of that. But they don't want to live next to them. Green Bay is about the whitest place in the world. The Negro players are very uncomfortable about living there. They tell me they have to live in the "Toe" in Milwaukee. I asked them "What is the Toe?" They said "The Get-toe!" I guess that is where you can catch them.
(Instant Replay- The Unedited Edition, Jerry Kramer & Dick Schaap Random House 1968
2 comments:
Darren Sharper single handedly raised the minority population of Green Bay to such an extent that the Black, Green Bay players no longer feel like outsiders.
Lombardi was a NYC guy at heart, who didn't really like those Wisconsin crackers.
Especially the ones in Madison. Who can blame him?
He was glad to go the the Redskins in '69. It wasn't the GM job with the New York Giants - but it was East Coast.
Then he dropped dead at 57. Too much cheese.
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