Packers Legend Paul Hornung Dies
GREEN BAY, Wis. – A Green Bay Packers legend, the “Golden Boy” Paul Hornung, has died. He was 84.
Hornung, the No. 1 overall pick of the 1957 NFL Draft, was a scoring machine who was a driving force behind Vince Lombardi’s “Glory Years” teams. In fact, his 176 points scored during the 1960 season stood as the NFL record for 46 years. The Chargers’ LaDainian Tomlinson broke the record with 186 points in 2006, though that was a 16-game season compared to 12 for Hornung.
Hornung won the Heisman Trophy for a two-win Notre Dame team in 1956. For the Fighting Irish, he played quarterback and safety. After a couple so-so seasons as a quarterback and fullback for the ill-fated regimes of Lisle Blackbourn and Scooter McLean, Lombardi made Hornung a centerpiece of his offense upon arriving in Green Bay in 1959.
Hornung led the NFL in scoring in 1959, 1960 and 1961. In 1960, his then-record 176 points obliterated the old mark of 138 points scored by another Packers legend, Don Hutson, in 1942. In 1961, Hornung was named NFL MVP. In a game that season against the Baltimore Colts, he scored four touchdowns, kicked six extra points and added one field goal for 33 points. That was and remains the second-most points in a game in NFL history.
“Paul Hornung is the greatest player I’ve ever coached, and the greatest I’ve ever seen on the football field within the 20-yard line,” Lombardi said in 1967, shortly after the Saints selected Hornung in the expansion draft. “He was more than just a player; he was like a son to me.”
Famously, in the 1961 NFL Championship Game, Hornung was on leave from the Army and scored a game-record 19 points as the Packers romped 37-0.
“When Paul got that leave from the Army and walked into that locker room, you could just feel the confidence grow in that room,” Lombardi said in the book “Run to Daylight.”
Hornung's return was made possible by a conversation between Lombardi and President John F. Kennedy.
“Paul Hornung isn't going to win the war on Sunday,” Kennedy said at the time. “But the football fans of this country deserve the two best teams on the field that day.”
In 1965, he scored five touchdowns against the Colts and scored the clinching touchdown in the championship game against the Cleveland Browns.
“It was a pressure game, and (Hornung has) always been good under pressure,” Lombardi said of the Baltimore game. “A great pressure player. I like that word better than money.”
Hornung’s 30 points in the 1965 game against the Colts are the 10th-most in NFL history. He added 28 points against Minnesota in 1962. Of the top four scoring games in Packers history, Hornung holds three spots. His 176 points in 1960 and 146 points in 1961 are the top seasons in franchise history.
Hornung was drafted by the Saints in the expansion draft but retired due to a neck injury that held him out of Super Bowl I.
In 1986, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“This is the greatest day of my life,” he said in his enshrinement speech. “I have waited a long time to get here. But this weekend I will be able to take with me forever. Because this is the most important weekend of my life athletically. It started off in my hometown of Louisville. It is a day of thanksgiving for the Hornung family. I don't have time to stand here and thank (all) my friends, my former coaches, my teammates, but I do want to thank a little lady for encouraging a youngster to play football, got mad when I came in a little late sometimes and she is here. This is just as important for my little mother, who raised me all by herself.”
Today, Hornung is fifth in Packers history with 760 points, a total that would have been higher had he not been suspended for gambling in 1963. For his career, he rushed for 3,711 yards and caught 130 passes. He rushed for 50 touchdowns, scored 12 more on catches and booted 66 field goals. He also threw five touchdown passes and had four interceptions.
The gambling suspension put his Hall of Fame bid on hold. Finally, in his 15th year of eligibility, Hornung was voted into the shrine.
“When he left Notre Dame, he wasn’t an ordinary draft choice, he was the bonus club which the Packers won the lottery to pick the number one player in the nation and they picked Paul Hornung,” former Packers receiver Max McGee said during his Hall of Fame introduction of Hornung.
“Nowadays, they would call that an impact player, that's the modern term. Believe me, Paul was an impact player for the Green Bay Packers. He also was an impact player on half the females in the United States. Well, Paul came to Green Bay in time of turmoil, he had three coaches in three years and the good news is that the third coach was Vince Lombardi.”
At Notre Dame, Hornung became the first and only Heisman Trophy winner to play on a team with a losing record. The senior quarterback not only led the Fighting Irish in rushing, passing and scoring, but punting, kickoff and punt returns, and passes defensed. For good measure, he was second in tackles and interceptions. He even played on the basketball team as a sophomore, scoring 6.1 points per game.
"That's the way I had played football all my life," Hornung said on a Talk of Fame Network broadcast in 2017. "I always played on the defensive side of the ball in high school, grade school and all the way back. I don't ever remember playing the game where I got too much time off on the sidelines. So, by the time I got to Notre Dame, I was well-schooled in all that you had to do playing all those positions."
It’s been an awful year for Lombardi’s legends. This year alone, Willie Wood, Willie Davis and Herb Adderley preceded Hornung in passing.
“The Packers have lost another legend,” said Packers coach Matt LaFleur, who spent the 2014 season at Notre Dame. “That’s four for the year with him, Adderley, Willie Wood and Willie Davis. Anytime you lose legends like that, it’s always a sad day. They’re a big reason why the Green Bay Packers are the Green Bay Packers.”
Hornung, whose death was announced by the Louisville Sports Commission, had dementia. He is survived by his wife of 41 years, Angela.
“The entire Pro Football Hall of Fame family mourns the passing of Paul Hornung,” Hall of Fame President and CEO David Baker said in a statement. “He was an outstanding player and an incredible man. Known as ‘The Golden Boy,’ Paul was above all a leader to whom the Packers looked for the big plays in the big games – especially during the team’s dynasty years under Coach Vince Lombardi in the 1960s. Our thoughts and prayers are with Paul’s wife, Angela, and their entire family. We will forever keep his legacy alive to serve as inspiration for future generations. The Hall of Fame flag will be flown at half-staff in Paul’s memory.”
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