Fan Memories of Ray Nitschke

My thoughts drifted back to the other recent Packer deaths, Lionel Aldridge, Lee Roy Caffey, but Ray? He was indestructible. Once the Packer coaching tower fell on Ray! A bolt from the metalworks put a hole in Ray's helmet. An accident that would've killed most men didn't cause Ray to miss any practice. The ultimate football player, the ultimate Packer. They had to cut the uniform off him to get him to quit . I'll never forget Ray's face at Ray Nitschke day at Lambeau, he was miserable. He didn't want a "day", he wanted to be out there playing

But Ray was extra special, because he was with the first Packers that I followed as a fan. Being from Wisconsin, I was a Packer fan at birth. But in 1957, my dad took me to my first game, and I became a rabid, over the top Packer fan. 1958 was a bad first year for any fan. The Pack was 1-10-1. In the only game we won, we had to hold on to beat the Eagles. The Eagles tried an onside kick and rookie Ray Nitschke recovered it with 54 seconds to go to clinch a 38-35 victory. Ray recovered the kick, my dad jumped up and squeezed my mom so hard, he cracked one of her ribs. Thus Ray Nitschke became part of my families lore.

Ray was a tremendous player, a hall of famer and the heart and soul of the Packer defense. The image I'll have 'til I die of Ray is one from a Lion game. They show the re- play it quite a bit, even today. It's of Ray intercepting a pass and returning it for a touchdown. When Ray picks off the pass, he has a little problem. He can't run. His hamstring was so torn, he could only hop. Nitschke was one of the old school who would play if he was still breathing. But Ray took it all in stride and hopped into the end zone, tossing the ball to the ref and then struggling to the sideline. Ray played the whole game on one leg.

We'll never see that kind of player again. He was extra special and he was loved by millions of Packer fans and Ray loved them back. He stayed around the Packers after he retired and kind of continued to live for the team.

A bunch of us used to always go down to Tampa for the Bucs - Packer games, which were a lot of fun. There were a lot of good natured razzing between the Bucs fans and the Packer fans. Neither team was worth shit, but it didn't matter, they'd always throw a huge Packer party that had a few thousand fans attending. When the party got in full swing, the brats grilling and the beer flowing, you'd hear a buzz in the crowd. It was Nitschke, circulating thru the crowd. He'd shake hands, sign autographs, pose for photo's , anything the fans wanted. Once at the pre-game party, a friend of mine game up to me with a huge grin. I asked him why he was smiling so much. "Ray Nitschke just hit me on the head," he said. At the time I recall being slightly jealous.

Rest in Peace, Ray. It's a rare man who's loved by millions and you certainly fit that description.

I only wish you would've hit me in the head down there in Tampa.

-Mike Sheppard {shepman@eos.net}

We had flown up from Nashville on a quest. Jon (my neighbor), had acquired a certain piece of memorobilia that was crying out for Ray's signature. I just went along for the ride. Ray knew we were coming, and had told us that he would be in town that day, but he never actually committed to meeting us. When our plane landed, we called his house and Jackie told us we'd have to call again later because he had driven to town for a haircut (unlike anything in Mal's "memorial", I do think there is a little humor in that).

We went to the Packer Pro Shop to kill a little time. I went next door to the Packer Offices and picked up one of the complimentary copies of the Packer Report. Following Ray's usual column on the inside cover, I saw an editor's note explaining that Jackie had just gone into the hospital for treatment of a brain tumor. I suddenly understood why Ray had been so non-committal and hesitant with us. We were catching him at what had to be one of the most difficult times in his life. Still, he never told us "No" or mentioned anything about Jackie.

I went back into the Pro Shop to find Jon, and saw that he had picked up the phone at the check-out counter to give the Nitschke household another call. This time Ray was home, and as Jon offered to meet him anywhere, he said, "Why don't you just come over to my house ?". Well, we did, stopping to pick up flowers for Jackie along the way.

Once at his house, we rang the doorbell and he greeted us with the legendary gruffness we expected. We introduced ourselves, gave him the flowers, and gave him another gift we had brought with us. After a couple of "yeah, yeah" 's that made us think we'd be back on the road in record time, he suddenly said, "Go on and have a seat, would you like a Coke" and then barked upstairs "Jackie come on down, the boys are here from Memphis".

We spent the next ninety minutes talking football, listening to stories, looking at old Packer play books, trying on Ray's rings, and getting Ray's personal views on jumping in the stands, and on Deion Sanders, among other things. We met Jackie, their daughter Amy, and her dog Samantha (I think I got that right). We congratulated Amy on her pregnancy, and saw the joy in the eyes of the soon-to-be-grandparents. We got Ray's autograph on everything that we brought. We got our picture taken with him, and when we ran out of things to ask for, he gave us a couple of new posters (after signing them of course) and threw in a handful of his personalized Sharpies.

Jackie kept adding a copy of GQ magazine that Ray had posed for to our stack of goodies. Ray kept taking it back out saying "but that's your last copy". He finally relented when Jackie said "but Raymond, I can look at you anytime that I want to -- I don't need this" and he went ahead and signed it, too. Our time there ended with them getting us an invitation and directions to Tony Canadeo's house.

You have to understand that aside from knowing that we flew up from Tennessee to get a football signed, these folks didn't know us from Elvis. But, for a short time, they opened their house and their life to us. The love (for each other, for the game, and for their fans) in that room was real, and we were blessed to have been able to experience it. I can only wish that every sports fan is able to experience something like that in their life. And I can only hope that we can all somehow pass some of that on to the rest of the people in our lives. The Nitschke's are the real deal. It's people like them that make the Packers great, and that make the NFL great and that make life great.

Ray, if somehow you are picking this up on alt.heaven.football.heroes, thanks again from Eddie and "the mattress salesman", and give our best to Sweets.

God Bless the Nitschke's"

-Ed Kaiser {edkaiser@bigfoot.com}

I still have that old scrapbook. And while many of the pictures pasted in it have fallen out or deteriorated over the years, those autographs look as good as the day they were signed. More importantly, the memories that they bring, especially of a smiling Ray Nitshcke, will never go away. By the way, Ray was one HELL of a basketball player!

-Tim O'Connor, Madison, Wisc

I still have the autographed B&W 8x10 "Huck `n Buck photo that was popular in those days. One collector told it was worth 10 bucks. Pfffttt. It's worth the world to me.

God bless Ray Nitschke

-Geoff Blank {glblank@execpc.com}

It was 1989 (the "Majik Man" year). A semi-business meeting was scheduled for a Saturday in September in Chicago. Checking the calendar and realizing that the Packers were playing the Saints in Lambeau Field the following day, and being no dummy, I decided that I really needed to go to the Chicago meeting myself rather than sending someone else. I decided to take my dad to the game, something I had never done, since our tickets come from my wife's side of the family.

I boarded a plane at O'Hare about 5:00 in the evening on Saturday, heading for Appleton. The plane was scheduled to stop in Green Bay first and then continue to Appleton (makes no sense geographically, but must have made sense to United Express, or Air Wisconsin, or whoever it was at that time).

As I was waiting for the plane to get going, I noticed that the last guy to get on the plane, right as they closed the door, was none other than Ray Nitschke. (It is hard to miss him, even in a non-football setting.) For some reason, he was always a special Packer to me. My wife and I even named one of our cats after him (the cat is now 12 or 13 years old, and is showing his age).

I decided that I would ask for his autograph, but thought I would leave him alone until just before the approach to the Green Bay airport. When the time came, I pulled my copy of Ray Nitschke's Packer Report out of my briefcase, and walked to the front to ask for his autograph. We talked for awhile. I explained that I was a subscriber of his, living in California, but was going home and was going to the game with my dad. He said that was just great (and I think he really meant it, too). He wrote a nice note for me on a piece of stationery I handed him. I then started blubbering something about what a great honor it was to meet him. He brushed the blubbering aside with something like "aw, go on." He could not have been nicer. I'm looking at his note now:

                9/16/89
                To Tom Freeman
                "A Super Packer Fan."
                Best of Luck.  Always
                Keep Happy & Well - 
                Love Ya - God Bless
                Friend in Green Bay
                Old "66"
                Ray Nitschke

I've bumped into Nitschke several times since and was always impressed by his personal warmth, his abject genuineness. The big, wide smile. The sparkle in the eyes. As great a leader as anyone has ever seen on a football field, and a strong community leader as well. I heard a clip of his voice today on the radio. He was talking about the way Lombardi instilled a sense of community pride in his players. Nitschke said he was taught to "...repay those people who supported you, the people who made you".

I don't understand why I feel such a deep sense of personal loss by the passing of Ray Nitschke. I really don't. The man is among the alltime NFL greats, but it goes so far beyond that simple fact. He will be deeply missed by not just family and friends, but by the entire Green Bay Packer community. The man was certainly bigger than life itself.

- John Foote; Lodi, WI {footejf@aol.com}

I was a 13-year-old kid struggling with cerebral palsy. I idolized Ray because he was tough and didn't know the meaning of the word "quit". While reading about him in Jerry Kramer's "Instant Replay", it became clear to me that Ray loved kids and, amazingly enough, his phone number, said Kramer, was listed in the Green Bay phonebook. Somehow, I worked up the courage to call long-distance information and get the number. Bolder still, I called him out of the blue a couple of nights later from my home in West Chicago, Illinois. (I figured that I could at least someday tell my children that I spoke with the Great Nitschke once. Shows what I knew). What happened next still amazes me.

At the end of a 3-minute chat with this kid who was a complete stranger, Ray stopped me from hanging up. "Hold on, John," he said, "I want you to hear from you again. Call me ..." Something had clicked between us that would change both of our lives forever. A friendship that lasted until the day that he died at 61, some 28 years later, nearly to the day.

We continued to speak regularly every couple of weeks or so during the rest of 1971 through most of 1973. Mind you that though we'd never met in person, Ray always took time for me, no matter what. Once in '72, for instance, he'd been waiting on an urgent phone call from his dear Jackie to come pick up their newborn, adopted daughter Amy from the hospital of her birth, to bring Amy home for the first time. You might imagine just how jumpy he was when I called at this most inopportune time. Typical of Ray, he put me at ease, saying, "It's okay, John, I've got a few minutes. How are you?" (Dear Amy, a sweetheart, still grins at that story after all these years. "You were so special to my father, John, " she exclaimed. Coming from her, ever the apple of her Dad's eye, that was a great compliment!)

We finally had the chance to meet in person for the first time in September of 1973 when Ray came to Chicago to promote his new book "Mean On Sunday". We spent a good deal of time together that day, and Ray let me wear his 1967 Super Bowl ring, the one with three football-shaped one-carat diamonds on it. I needed two fingers to wear it! At day's end, Ray signed my copy of his autobiography with the postscript "I love you, too!" From that day forward we never ended a phonecall or visit without a mutual "I love you", and we both meant every word.

Shortly after Ray began to publish "Packer Report", I suggested to my Dad a promotion in the state of Wisconsin for a "Ray Nitschke Recliner" chair, when Dad was VP of the original Kroehler Furniture Company. That idea became a series of ads in Packer Report and on TV, and sold a lot of recliners in Packerland! Ray kept his "Nitschke chair" for years until I cut him a deal on a roomful of La-Z-Boy furniture, the company that Dad and I work for now. I still have an old "Nitschke Recliner" print ad, however!

As it so happened, when I attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, (1976-80), Ray made sure that I had tickets for every Packers' game there, and came down from Green Bay to see the game with me a couple of times. He always said then, "John, if you are anywhere near Green Bay in the future, call me so that we can get together!" He meant that, too. When my buddy John Strub and I went back to Milwaukee for a visit a couple of years later, Ray offered to take us all to lunch if we'd take the drive up from Milwaukee to Green Bay. After a fun lunch, Ray gave John and me a private tour of all of the Packers' facilities. Finishing the tour at the newly-opened Packer Hall of Fame, Ray let the staff there know, "These two are my good friends, so you let them do whatever they want!" That was "Uncle Ray"!

Something else wonderful came of my Milwaukee days. Thanks to God for the ability, and Ray for the inspiration, I made nose tackle for the 1976 Marquette University football team. Exceptional upper-body strength, (and the knowledge that I might otherwise get creamed), allowed me to knock down much larger opponents despite being 5' 9" and 155 pounds! I used the forearm shots and head-slaps--legal at that time--that Ray had taught me. Those lessons clearly saved my bacon! Moreover, I was blessed with an open-field tackle for a loss on the last play of my last game, much like the movie 'Rudy'. No one else, to the best of my knowledge, has ever played college football with cerebral palsy. Ray was so very proud of me!

Before I moved to Kansas City in 1980, Ray and I were able to visit face to face at least once a year, and in those get-togethers I came to know his wife Jackie rather well. Well enough, in fact, that she soon became my "Aunt Jackie", one amazing soul! One could see easily why Ray was so in love with her, and she with him. Officially, Ray's death was classified as a heart attack, but frankly, there can be no question that he died of a broken heart in the truest sense of the word.

After 1980, Ray and I saw each other less often, but still called each other quite regularly. Once in awhile, too, I'd find one or two old football cards of his and send them along for Ray to autograph. Never once did Ray ever fail to send back not only the couple of cards I'd mailed, but one or two extra besides! He found out that I collected his cards, so when he'd find some, or an extra 8x10 glossy, he'd sign and save those for me also. Since I was, moreover, forever running into people who were big fans of his, I once asked him to send me a dozen signed photos that I could give to clients that expressed an interest. He sent me fifty instead. (I have only one of those left!) For those he loved, Ray could never do enough. Our last weekend together in Green Bay in September, 1996 perhaps best illustrates that.

Ray had invited me up for the Chargers' game. "You'll see all my old teammates introduced at halftime, John. It's the annual Homecoming Game..."

Once there, Ray introduced me to his boyhood friend Ruben Melesio, who is every bit as loving and generous as Ray was. Ruben made sure that I shared a hotel room with him, no charge, to save me the trouble and expense of a room reservation that I'd made some distance away. Such are the kind of great people that Ray called his true friends! Ruben and I have been real pals from that day.

The night before the game Ray dropped the bombshell surprise. "Put your shirt and tie, on John, we're going someplace." Just where, he wouldn't say. He flashed a small grin and said only, "You'll find out!"

Ray took me to a private reception for Packer alumni, knowing that I would be one of the very few people there that weren't actually ex-players or coaches. He made it clear to everyone that he introduced me to that I was a dear friend, and thus everyone in the room treated me like a big-deal member of the Packer Family, and signed a football for me. I was shamelessly thrilled, but the evening was just beginning....

I'd said a silent prayer when I first entered the room, asking the Good Lord to "please let Kramer be here tonight", knowing that Jerry Kramer, I was told, wasn't always able to come to these reunions. I wanted very much to tell him that I'd gained my "Uncle Ray" thanks to "Instant Replay". I'd asked around, and no one had seen him. Quite suddenly, he appeared in the buffet line. "Gerald Louis Kramer", I exclaimed, "you don't know me, but I owe you BIG time!" He looked very puzzled, of course, and asked me to explain. Once I did so his eyes misted and he wore a most grateful expression. He no sooner said, "Thank you", when Ray, who'd overheard everything from a few feet away, said loudly enough for all to hear, "You hear what he just told you, Jerry? You can't put a price on that, Jerry! That's what it's all about, man!" (Ray was right, of course!) Needless to say, when I thanked Ray profusely at night's end, he shrugged it off as having been "no problem", but we both knew how much this had meant.

By the time game day arrived, I'd almost lost count of how many people had stopped Ray to ask for autographs during our comings and goings of the weekend. Even though Ray's wife Jackie had been dead only a few weeks, he treated every fan with the same boundless enthusiasm and joy that had always been his hallmark. (I told him later that his public behavior at this especially grevious time in his life was the bravest thing I'd ever seen. "What else can I do, John? I gotta keep going", he replied.) Near game's end, with our Packers crushing San Diego 42-10, the crush of the fans became even more incredible! Since word got around of Ray's whereabouts, a line as far as I could see had formed of fans frantic to meet this beloved and very approachable legend. (He met with everyone, and I stopped counting after 350 signatures!) The crowd was well-behaved, but the stadium police feared that things could get out of hand quickly. Though I chuckled quietly to myself, thrilled for Ray, while my ribs were elbowed and feet stepped on in the good- natured melee, I understood when three burly cops decided to take action for our safety. The trio grabbed Ray and me, quickly and quietly escorting us both to Ray's car for a safe trip home. Ray's last words to me at the airport were, "I love you!"

I heard those same words in person for the last time in October, 1997, when Ray finally was able to meet my wife Nelfa and daughter Maya during Ray's final visit to see me in Kansas City. (Five-year-old Maya wore the Nitschke jersey that her "Uncle Ray" had sent her some time back, which delighted him!) They were so happy to meet Ray, and he them! My wife said, "John, he's every bit as wonderful as you ever said that he was, and more!" Little Maya agreed! Following that visit, we talked still more often, then, until Ray's last words to me, "I love you, God bless you," just two weeks before his death.

We'd planned another trip to Green Bay together during that call. Ray was going to ask his friends Brett Favre and Reggie White to say hello to me after the game. That won't ever happen now, but Ray did leave a parting gift to me that I treasure. Much to my surprise, after his funeral, family members, teammates, and friends of Ray's--independent of one another--came up to me to say how much I had meant to him, and how constantly that he spoke to others about me! In fact, the last person to stop me before I left for the airport was one of the stadium cops who had escorted Ray and me from Lambeau nearly two years before. It was obvious that Ray'd said plenty about me to this gentleman. How else would this cop have known so much about me, since he'd heard my name only once while I was in his presence at the game? Simple. Ray had been talking me up. I'd never known that! It was his way of saying "Goodbye, John, and thank you", in a monumental way.

Ray is simply the finest human being I'd ever met, and my biggest influence. I will ever miss him dearly. Thanks, Ray, and Jackie, too! We'll meet again...

Love,