America's Quarterback: Bart Starr and The Rise of The National Football League - Hardcover

ONE
BUBBA’S GHOST
 
 
Suddenly, someone screamed.
The sound of pain rang out from the house next door like an alarm, shattering the peace of an ordinary Sunday afternoon in 1947.
Then a kind of darkness descended upon Bart Starr’s world.
*   *   *
Long before this turning point, his story began with a very different sort of scream, a life-affirming wail, in the bleak year of 1934, when the context for most everything was the widespread economic hardship of the Great Depression. Despite the hope embodied by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal, unemployment still hovered near 24 percent and vast numbers of Americans struggled just to provide food, clothing, and shelter for their families. Beyond the widespread despair, the world kept turning. Going to the movies remained a unifying thread of American culture, as audiences flocked to see Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in the comedy It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra’s first big hit. Donald Duck made his first appearance in a Walt Disney cartoon, a pivotal early step in the building of an entertainment collosus. Newspapers contained numerous stories about notorious bank robber John Dillinger, whose bloody rampage ended in a hail of bullets outside a Chicago theater, betrayed by the infamous lady in red. More than half a century after Thomas Edison perfected the electric lightbulb, the Tennessee Valley Authority began supplying power to previously unwired parts of the rural South. The sports pages focused on colorful and lethal boxer Max Baer, who utilized his devastating right to knock out Primo Carnera to become Heavyweight Champion of the World. In the year when radio penetration of American homes reached 50 percent and millions routinely sought comfort in FDR’s fireside chats, the World Series broadcasts contained commercial advertisements for the first time, with Ford Motor Company paying the staggering sum of $100,000 to be the sole sponsor as the St. Louis Cardinals bested the Detroit Tigers in seven games. Few Americans cared so much about the still-struggling National Football League. In the far north outpost of Green Bay, Wisconsin, a group of local businessmen raised $15,000 to prevent the NFL’s Packers from folding.
Another milestone in the history of the Green Bay Packers failed to make the papers. On January 9, 1934, Ben and Lulu Starr of Montgomery, Alabama, welcomed Bryan Bartlett Starr into the world. Happy and proud, they named their first born after the father (Bryan was Ben’s middle name) and the doctor who delivered him (Haywood Bartlett).
Ben, the great-grandson of a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, had been born in the small southeastern Alabama town of Dadeville. When both of his parents died shortly after World War I, he was raised by his grandfather in Anniston, about one hundred miles north of Dadeville. Forced to drop out of high school to help support the family, Ben worked as a mechanic and welder. He was a large man with dark hair, a square jaw, and a commanding aura.
On a fateful night in 1932, he met Lulu Inez Tucker, a pretty, petite brunette, at the home of a mutual friend. Lulu, the daughter of railroad engineer, grew up in the capital city of Montgomery. The connection was immediate, and they were married less than four months later. Romance moved fast in those days.
The newlyweds set up housekeeping in Montgomery, where Ben landed a job as a blacksmith. Two years after Bart’s arrival, Lulu gave birth to a second son, Hilton. They often called him Bubba.
Better jobs took the Starrs to Columbia, Tennessee, and back to Montgomery, before the march to World War II prompted the father’s Army National Guard unit to be mobilized. Two years at Fort Blanding, near Gainesville, Florida, were followed by an extended assignment at Northern California’s Fort Ord, where the family stayed behind when Ben was shipped off to the Pacific.
The frequent moves proved to be a kind of education for young Bart. “I will always be grateful for the things I learned from having to adapt to different circumstances and environments,” he said.
Free to roam the area adjacent to the military housing neighborhood of Ord Village, Bart and Hilton sometimes sat for hours, watching the waves crash into the picturesque Pacific shoreline, often wondering about their father, who existed for four years only in the form of letters. Like many young boys of the time, they closely followed the progress of the war through reading newspapers and watching newsreels. The epic struggle against Hitler and the Japanese was a constant fact of life—manifested by rationed staples and movie stars hawking war bonds—but at times, it could seem distant, especially as they rode the school bus through the fertile agricultural fields and along the towering cliffs each morning and afternoon. Bart often was distracted by the natural beauty of the landscape just outside the window.
The Starr household was managed like an extension of the military, even after Ben was shipped overseas. Lulu was a wonderful cook and a very loving mother, but was also a strict disciplinarian who made sure Bart and Hilton attended church, creating a wholesome environment in keeping with their Methodist faith. The boys were taught to understand their responsibilities to live an orderly and obedient life consistent with the military way—and the consequences for exceeding her boundaries.
Like all boys, they tested the limits.
After learning that the army conducted training exercises in a forest near their home, Bart and Hilton began scavenging the area for discarded equipment. Fearing for their safety, Lulu forbade further maneuvers but they kept sneaking off, looking for canteens and other prized loot. Somehow, she found out and administered a paddling neither boy would ever forget.
“If I catch you in there again, you’ll really get one,” she warned.
Bart knew she meant business.
“We couldn’t figure out how she knew we were back in there,” he recalled.
She could smell their disobedience.
The boys didn’t realize that the area was covered with numerous eucalyptus plants, producing a pungent order that betrayed their activities.
The lure of the forest was difficult to resist, but the boys knew their mother meant business.
“We got the message and stopped going in there,” Bart said.
During a Saturday outing to the movies—as they settled in to watch Cowboy Serenade, starring matinee idol Gene Autry—Bart and Bubba stumbled upon a different sort of treasure.
Bart’s ten-year-old heart raced as he pointed toward the movie screen.
“Look! There he is!”
Hilton stared at the flickering black-and-white film with a skeptical eye.
Could it be?
The newsreel of General Douglas MacArthur’s dramatic return to the Philippines in October 1944 moved fast, so the Starr boys sat through the feature presentation three times just to get two more looks at the stern-looking, unidentified man in the background. Each time, they carefully studied the soldier’s face, comparing it to their prized memories. Desperate, like millions of American children, for any sort of connection with a father who had been away fighting in World War II for nearly three years, the brothers eventually walked out of the darkened theater convinced that the anonymous GI was their very own daddy.
“We were so pumped up,” Bart said. “We came out of that place two feet off the ground.”
The bond between the boys was unshakable, but their personalities contrasted sharply. Hilton, who wore glasses from an early age, was aggressive, tough, and known to have a mean streak. Bart was introverted and timid, and tended to keep...