Today’s NFL players have become whole businesses. They hire trainers, nutritionists, accountants, managers, physical therapists and agents to support them year-round. When the average career span in your profession is just slightly over three years, you want to make the most of your time there. I think it’s a wise, though expensive, investment.
But, do you want to know who performed all of those tasks for the players on Coach Lombardi’s Packers? Their wives.
If Elijah Pitts looked like he needed a little more iron in his diet, Ruth cooked him a steak. If Ron Kostelnik or Henry Jordan seemed like they might not make their weekly weigh ins, Peggy and Olive told them to put away the ice cream and take a brisk jog around Colburn Park. The wives cooked the pre-game meals, and the ones who cooked the especially good ones, the ones with the homemade biscuits, set extra places for the single players.
The wives I know managed the budgets, iced the injuries, discussed the contracts and gave the pep talks. Some of those with access to home projectors even reviewed game film at night after the children had gone to bed.
I’m not saying women like Barbara Gregg, Vicki Aldridge, Cherry Starr, Dana Caffey, Ruth Ann Skoronski, Olive Jordan, Peggy and Ruth knew better than the teams of professionals players hire today.
But, their husbands averaged more than 11.5 years in the NFL and brought home two Super Bowl and three World Championships. That’s a lot of hardware.
Who are you going to hire?
