AL.com‘s Joseph Goodman has revealed that former Super Bowl winning quarterback Bart Starr was a victim of hazing during his time at Alabama.
For the longest time, over 60 years, Starr and his wife Cherry kept the secret. The hazing was reportedly so bad that it disqualified him from military service, and affected not only his college career, but his professional career as well.
For the longest time, the Starrs explained the back injury was due to an injury that Bart suffered during a punting exercise. Cherry Starr revealed that to not be true, and gave AL.com the details of what ended up being a big part of his career and life in general, where Bart suffered gruesome ritualistic paddling for initiation into the university’s A-Club for varsity lettermen.
“He was hospitalized at one point in traction,” Cherry told AL.com. “That was in the days when they were initiated into the A-Club, and they had severe beatings and paddling. From all the members of the A-Club, they lined up with a big paddle with holes drilled in it, and it actually injured his back.”
She would add that he never disclosed the incident that involved the club because he thought “it would make him look bad.” As AL.com reports, at 82 and with declining health, Bart cannot discuss the events of his career.
“But his back was never right after that,” Cherry said. “It was horrible. It was not a football injury. It was an injury sustained from hazing. His whole back all the way up to his rib cage looked like a piece of raw meat. The bruising went all the way up his back. It was red and black and awful looking. It was so brutal.”
Nick Germanos, who was a tight end at Alabama and was teammates with Starr, told AL.com that the beatings he received from the A-Club were worse than anything he experienced in the military, where he served in the Marines Corps. “It was hell,” Germanos said. “Lord have mercy it was a rough initiation.”
Starr’s injury led him to have a poor 1954 season in which he was either sidelined due to injury or playing through immense pain. This led to head coach Harold “Red” Drew being fired, and started the events that led up to Paul “Bear” Bryant becoming head coach in 1957.
Starr took a medical examination with the Air Force after his rookie season with the Green Bay Packers, but failed. He would go on to play 15 more seasons in the NFL, and of course, win five championships, and the first two Super Bowls.
Bart played through the chronic pain his entire career, taking flights to Madison for back adjustments. But nothing ever cured him of his back pain.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s when Starr would get serious help at the hands of Dr. James Andrews, where they found a small fissure in one of his vertebrae. Starr would have surgery, which gave him some permanent relief. But it couldn’t make up for the years of excruciating pain that he suffered on and off the field. And now we know the truth – that it was due to brutal hazing while in college.
