On book tours, literary legacies and Jerry Kramer

In one of several surreal moments last week, I found myself stuck in Packer game day traffic and chatting with a legend.

I had called NFL Hall of Famer and Packer great Jerry Kramer the day before to thank him for his body of work.

On a sunny afternoon last Wednesday, I had been walking my youngest granddaughter and thinking about literary legacies.

In addition to being the pulling guard on Coach Lombardi’s vaunted sweep, Jerry Kramer was a prolific author. The book he authored with the legendary Dick Schaap, Instant Replay, set the gold standard for sports books.

On a personal level, it also gave me a peek into a side of my dad, Packer Hall of Famer Ron Kostelnik, that I might never have known. Thanks to the eternal power of print, those insights remain for the generations that follow.

Someday in the not-too-distant future, my three granddaughters will also be able to read about their great-grandpa, thanks to the Jerry Kramer literary legacy.

My daughter Katherine and I worked to preserve stories about the Lombardi-era wives for their families as well in the book we wrote, Lambeau Ladies: the Boundary-Breaking Women behind Lombardi’s Packers.

If you have a warm thought about someone, I think you should share it. So, I picked up the phone and called Jerry.

I’d been prepared to leave a message, but Jerry answered right away and we had a nice chat about his books. We also talked about his friendship with my dad, whom he called “Cully”, after the Culligan Man (because my dad was always looking for water during practices back in the day.)

I hung up, pleased that I had taken the time to call and grateful that he had answered.

The next day, as we sat in our car, stopped dead on Highway 41, the phone rang and it was Jerry. He called to follow up on our chat and to share a few more gems about my dad.

Before we hung up, Jerry said something I think anyone attempting to achieve the level of sustained success those Lombardi-era Packers accomplished back in the 1960s should hear.

“All Coach Lombardi ever asked of us was everything we had to give,” Jerry said.

It’s a mantra I’m going to adopt as I lean into this wonderfully busy phase of my life.

Go Pack Go!

(We enjoyed other surreal moments on the second phase of our book tour last week as well. We met various members of Flo Bettis’ family on a couple of our stops, we got to present our four-generational project at a four-generational book store, and we touched base with some of the other daughters of the 1960s Packers. It’s been a lot of fun and we’re so grateful for the support!)