Bart Starr, Packers legend who led team to first Super Bowl titles, dies at 85
The greatness of Bart Starr almost never happened.
The 17th-round draft choice nearly walked away from the Green Bay Packers - a franchise he would quarterback to five league championships and victories in the first two Super Bowls - before his career even got off the ground.
"Bart didn't think he was going to make the team, literally was going to leave training camp, and (coach Vince) Lombardi talked him back into staying," said Joe Horrigan, executive director and historian of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "It was the little town that couldn't, the coach who had been rejected, and the quarterback who no one thought could be who he was.
"If you were making a movie, and you put all those ingredients in it, you shook it up and poured it out, it would be the Green Bay Packers and Bart Starr would have the leading role."
Starr, who had been in failing health since suffering a stroke in 2014, died Sunday in Birmingham, Ala., where he was born and raised, the Packers announced. He was 85.
"The Packers
