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| Jerry Kramer collage, stolen from my friend and neighbor Janice Rainey Johnson's Facebook wall. She's related to Jerry and mighty proud. |
For a while, it seemed like grazing on all that food on a rainy day, evaluating this year's commercials and, for some, watching Justin Timberlake at halftime would be the major motivators for our celebration of "Super Sunday."
After all, it's an East Coast Super Bowl, so it's hard for many of us in the West to get too excited about the game.
Happily, that outlook toward Super Sunday all instantly changed for folks in Sandpoint yesterday when news exploded via social media and through the sports world that one of our native sons had added the supreme dimension to his longtime status as a local and national football legend.
Yesterday afternoon, Jerry Kramer, former Sandpoint Bulldog, former University of Idaho Vandal, former Green Bay Packer guard and author of the football classic Instant Replay, received the knock on the door, not the telephone call.
With that "booming" knock on the door: You're in, Mr. Kramer.
You are a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Later, No. 64 joined others on an NBC special, associated with the Super Bowl, honoring pro football players, present and past.
When 82-year-old Jerry slowly walked to stage during his introduction as a new member of the Hall of Fame, it was evident he has waited a long time for this honor.
Half a century!
Nonetheless, there's that age-old reminder about saving the best for last.
So, this distinction provides a permanent and "oh so sweet" exclamatory punctuation mark to a storied and legendary career!!!!
Jerry Kramer's stock in football immortality sky-rocketed yesterday.
Lots has been said about Jerry being snubbed for this honor for many, many years, but that discussion can now go down as "yesterday's news," especially after news of the knock on the door for the hometown football hero lit up the media.
I doubt we'll hear any complaining again.
Instead, those who grew up in the time of the Jerry Kramer/Cotton Barlow Sandpoint football era of the 1950s, those who played Bulldog football decades later when Jerry came home and presented the NFL golden football to his alma mater, and all those players or fans of the decades in between who just plain knew our little town had a famous pro football player-----yesterday's announcement was truly transcendent.
The news touched a wide swath of Jerry Kramer admirers, stretching through generations.
I'm betting, though, that along with Jerry, his family members, former teammates, etc., anyone associated with Sandpoint, Idaho, pretty much wherever they happened to be in the world, yelled, "YES!" in one breath and " About time!" in another.
And, so on this Super Bowl Sunday, there'll be Eagles for some, Patriots for others, but in the hearts and minds of every single Jerry Kramer fan, on this Super Sunday for Sandpoint, we're all Green Bay Packers. We all cheer for No. 64!
Bring on the cheese, please, and, of course,the Idaho spuds!
Congratulations, Jerry Kramer!
You're from Sandpoint, and we couldn't be any prouder.
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