NFL 100: At No. 62, Ray Nitschke, the conscience of Canton who ‘most personified what the Hall of Fame really meant’ (2024)

Welcome tothe NFL 100,The Athletic’sendeavor to identify the 100 best players in football history. You can order the book versionhere. Every day until the season begins, we’ll unveil new members of the list, with the No. 1 player to be crowned on Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Ray Nitschke spent two decades informing new Pro Football Hall of Famers none was bigger than the rest.

All wear gold jackets, the lone standard for greatness. Neither championships nor individual trophies weighed more.

Nitschke was Canton’s conscience.

“He told them how important it was and emphasized there’s no one in the Hall of Fame better than anyone else,” said fellow Hall of Famer and Green Bay Packers linebacker Dave Robinson. “We’re all equal, going in with 80 percent of the vote. You can’t go any higher.”

Yet while Nitschke himself would protest the notion, he did rise above the room.

Every year, in a private space only Hall of Famers may enter, Nitschke presided on the first afternoon of induction weekend until his death in March 1998. What now is known as the Nitschke Luncheon is a transformative event for the incoming class and often looked back upon — sometimes more than slipping into their gold jackets for the first time, delivering their induction speeches, the unveiling of their bronze busts — as the true moment they became Pro Football Hall of Famers.

In that room full of alpha males is where Nitschke stood up and explained what it means to join football’s greatest team.

“He was a natural-born leader,” Hall of Fame right tackle Ron Yary said. “Someone’s got to be the leader and step forward, and that was a great quality he had. If you wanted a leader to emulate, you couldn’t pick a better person.”

Nitschke guided a Packers defense that won five NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls. He was MVP of the 1962 title game. His No. 66 was the fourth number retired in the franchise’s rich history.

Nitschke made only one Pro Bowl team because Detroit Lions middle linebacker Joe Schmidt was a perennial selection from 1954 to 1963. Nitschke was selected in 1964. Then Chicago Bears middle linebacker Dick Butkus went to eight straight.

But in 1969, when Hall of Fame voters honored the NFL’s 50th anniversary by naming its 16 best players, Nitschke was one of only five defenders and the lone linebacker. Nitschke also made the NFL’s 75th and 100th anniversary rosters.

“Ray Nitschke had a style of play, a personality, a consciousness about being fully imbued into that which brought life to something called professional football,” said Hall of Fame linebacker Willie Lanier, the current Nitschke Luncheon master of ceremonies.

“Having played with the Green Bay Packers and the number of championships they won, the number of Hall of Famers that played for (coach Vince) Lombardi, who happens to have his name on the trophy, seemed to signify a purity of someone who accepted his role in the game and played it with a fervor.”

Nitschke was known for his viciousness on the field, a ferocity that welled within him from childhood. His father died in a car accident when Nitschke was 3. Nitschke’s mother died from a blood clot when he was 13.

While he wasn’t bombing his classes or getting into fistfights, he played quarterback and safety at Proviso High in suburban Chicago. His bad grades and temper couldn’t derail such a phenomenal athlete. The St. Louis Browns offered him a baseball contract, but he wanted to play Big Ten football. The University of Illinois converted him to fullback and linebacker.

Nitschke’s rage was effectively channeled.

“He wasn’t the biggest or the strongest or the smartest,” Robinson said. “He definitely wasn’t the fastest. But he was a Hall of Famer from the tip of his toes to the top of his head.

“No matter how much he was bleeding, he wouldn’t leave the game. Ray played in the 230s, but he hit like he was 300 pounds. He hit you with every ounce of his body. He gave it all to you. He protected his turf.”

Yary witnessed the fury before he entered the NFL in 1968 with the Minnesota Vikings as the first draft choice. In that year’s Chicago College All-Star Game, played against the reigning NFL champs, a maniacal Nitschke gave Yary a glimpse of what lie ahead in the pros.

“It was a big-time hit,” Yary said. “The contact he made with Larry Csonka impressed me, but what I remember was Ray Nitschke getting up and laughing like he just won the $1 million lottery.

“Here’s a guy, after all these years, in an exhibition game. That was a statement about how much he loved the game.”

Nitschke wasn’t merely a hitter. He was a playmaker, recording 25 interceptions and 23 fumble recoveries over his 15 seasons.

Nitschke left his savage persona on the field and occasionally on camera for “The Longest Yard” and Miller Lite commercials. He also was a humanitarian, loved children and relished being an ambassador for Green Bay and the NFL.

“When he walked off the field and put on his horn-rimmed glasses,” Robinson said, “you’d think he was a CPA — unless he took his teeth out.”

In retirement, Nitschke became an inner voice for Hall of Famers.

Cincinnati Bengals left tackle Anthony Munoz didn’t get to hear Nitschke speak at the luncheon. Munoz was elected in January 1998, six weeks before Nitschke died of a heart attack at 61.

Munoz, however, had a chance to absorb Nitschke’s words.

“We had one-on-one time together, his face right up in my grill,” Munoz said. “You knew he was one of the meanest and toughest and best-of-all-time middle linebackers for the great Green Bay Packers, but you could see the love for the game when he looked me in the eyes and said, as only he could, with that voice, ‘Anthony, what a privilege for us to have played this game. There are too many guys who think it was a privilege for the league to have them.’

“That was years and years ago, but I can hear him say it like it was yesterday. His humility and appreciation for having had the opportunity to play the NFL will always stick in my mind.”

The Nitschke Luncheon is a solemn initiation for the new inductees, who are not allowed to speak. As a microphone is passed around the room, elders explain the magnitude of the honor.

“This is the only team you can’t get cut from or traded from,” Robinson said. “You can’t even die from this team. When you die, you’re still in the Hall of Fame.”

The gravitas is unmistakable. A common response for the muted, new inductees is to look around the room at legends such as Jim Brown, Roger Staubach and Mean Joe Greene. Reality becomes difficult to fathom.

Andre Reed finally got to his first Nitschke Luncheon in 2014 after eight years of being a finalist.

“It felt like I was in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ or something,” Reed said afterward. “I’ve been trying to get to the Emerald City, and the Emerald City was right in that room. You can’t pay your way into that room.”

What is said in the room stays in the room.

The men who speak try to recapture Nitschke’s message.

“Ray Nitschke most personified what the Hall of Fame really meant,” Robinson said. “When he got up to speak, you knew he was speaking from the heart.

“He laid down the law to all the new inductees of what was acceptable and unacceptable, and everybody followed what Ray said.”

There was a time when the Hall of Fame allowed NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, family members or the occasional reporter into the Nitschke Luncheon. Those days are over. The Hall of Famers want to say whatever is on their minds.

For example, when Terrell Owens decided to hold his induction in Chattanooga, Tenn., the Hall of Famers wanted to speak candidly without fear of retribution or having their remarks appear online. The discussion was heated, but remained private.

The Nitschke Luncheon is like a family reunion and for many Hall of Famers ranks as the favorite part of induction weekend.

Among the recurring themes is that Canton should be treated as their second home. New inductees are encouraged to return every year to help maintain the Hall of Fame’s legacy.

“I won’t mention any names,” Robinson said, “but there are some people that come in and get the gold jacket and never come back. Those are the ones that would piss Ray off. Those are the ones that don’t understand what this is all about.”

After Nitschke’s death, iconic defensive end Deacon Jones took over as master of ceremonies. Lanier took over when Jones died in 2013.

Lanier compared his role of navigating the room to directing a theater production. He knows which Hall of Famers speak with fire, which are circ*mspect. When a certain message needs to be delivered, Lanier knows who to call upon.

“Bobby Bell, for instance, will make a comment to everyone in the room for them to look around closely and acknowledge the others they see,” Lanier said, “because next year a certain number will not be here.

“That becomes a most profound reality. One year, those you see will no longer be there, and one year, neither will you. I have found his comments to be poignant for anybody.”

Emotionally impactful is just what Nitschke would appreciate in order to hammer home — as forcefully as stuffing Joe Don Looney in the backfield — what it means to be a Hall of Famer.

A substantial aspect of Nitschke’s legacy forever will be respecting the Hall of Fame’s legacy. As much as he insisted they all are equals, his passion set him apart.

“He’d be the first to tell you not to put him on a pedestal above all the other linebackers,” Robinson said. “Ray wanted everybody to know we’re all equal.

“But there was only one Ray Nitschke, and there will never be another.”

(Top illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photo: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)