I'm not sure which is sweeter, this photograph or the fact that the little boy in it has held onto it for more than 50 years. The dapper little guy in the picture grew up to be Appleton Mayor Tim Hanna, and the gentlemen standing with him is my dad. I'd been hearing about this [...]
In marked contrast to all the hoopla surrounding the modern NFL draft, Herb Adderley signed his first NFL contract on the hood of a car in an unfamiliar parking lot. The Packers' No. 1 pick in the 1961 draft, Adderley, then 21-years old, negotiated his contract alone. Though the draft took place in Philadelphia, Adderley's [...]
Lee Folkins may be the most reluctant-to-be-drafted player in the history of the NFL. The University of Washington tight end didn’t even know he’d been selected in the sixth round of the 1961 NFL draft until a reporter called and asked him if he was excited to play for Green Bay. “I told him it [...]
In what turned out to be one of the NFL's strongest classes ever, my dad, Ron Kostelnik, was chosen 26th overall and, at the time, he didn't even know he'd been drafted. In December of 1960, my dad's mind was on other things. A defensive tackle for the University of Cincinnati, he had just played [...]
I wore my dad's jersey into Heinz Field because I wasn't sure how Steeler fans would treat me and my giant green and gold Packer coat. If they got nasty, I figured I could explain that, though my dad played for the Packers for eight years and the Colts for one, he was from Pennsylvania [...]