The Ice Bowl

As I walked out into the icy grip of Chicago’s polar winter on New Year’s Eve to my car to head over to the fitness center, I recalled that it was on this day 50 years ago that the most noted football games in N.F.L. history was played —the famed Ice Bowl.   As my teeth chattered, I remembered that the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys played a football game in weather that was even colder—about 10 degrees colder. 

I was only a young boy at the time, but was in Wisconsin, about an hour away at the family farm that day.  I have very vivid memories of that morning, waking up on a bright sunny but bitterly cold day.  I remember my grandparents astonishment at the news reports that the championship game would be played at the outside thermometer registered -15 degrees.   None of the cars would turn over and my father and grandfather shuttled pans of hot water outside in an attempt to warm the engine blocks enough to get some life into them.

The game was played in inhuman conditions.  The referee blew the whistle at the end of the first play and his whistle stuck to his lip and pulled part of his lip off with it.  The halftime entertainment was cancelled because of the same issue.   The electric tarp installed to heat the field only caused condensation that froze, making playing on the field feel like “playing on concrete with sharp edges.”  It was the stuff legends are made of.   The Packers squandered a 14 point lead were down 17-14 after two turnovers and needed a final desperation drive to win.  With less than 20 seconds left, Bart Starr followed guard Jerry Kramer into the end zone to seal the Packers 3^rd straight N.F.L. title.

50 years ago.

In addition to being an hour away on that fateful day, I have two other connections.  A former colleague of mine actually attended the game.  He was eight years old and said that he recalled it as a surreal experience.  Almost everyone in the crowd wore a wool facemask hat which gave the cheers a muffled sound.  Because of the vapor from everyone’s breath, there was almost a permanent fog over the crowd.  He said he remembers his father scraping the frost off of his glasses with his fingernails.  Today, taking an 8 year old to a place outdoors with a 40 below wind chill would be considered tantamount to child abuse. 

I also had the good fortune to meet Jerry Kramer a few years ago in person at our local bookstore.  He had reissued his diary “Instant Replay” in hardcover and was there to sign his book.  Instant Replay and Ball Four by Jim Bouton were on the required reading list of every preteen boy at that time.  My son was just starting his football journey in high school at the time and it was a thrill to meet the player that actually made the key block in that storied game.  Although in his 60’s, Kramer still had powerful hands and a stout frame.   It’s hard to imagine that he played on a championship team at 6’3” and 245 pounds.  Today, that is about the average size of a lineman on the local high school team.

While there are several highlight films of the game available on Youtube and on the NFL website, perhaps the best account is in David Maraniss’s 2000 biography of Vince Lombardi:  When Pride Still Mattered.  Maraniss devotes an entire chapter in his book to that game and I recommend it to anyone that loves the game and its history.

The Ice Bowl is from another era - before domed stadiums, pro-turf, big salaries, kneeling at the national anthem and CTE.   Both coaches and several players are gone now—Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, Ray Nitschke, Don Meredith, Fuzzy Thurston.  But this cold New Year’s weekend triggered memories of that bitter cold day half a century ago.