In 1988, the day before Super Bowl XXII would toss its determining coin and grant the opening kickoff at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego—the NFL’s home of the San Diego Chargers—a tradition was born. It was spawned in faith, propped up by the hope of something better, and girded dutifully in unconditional love, set within the prescriptions of Christian belief. It was built as a means to recognize athletes of the National Football League who served as compassionate, giving, role models.
Athletes in Action that began its outreach of committed Christian faith in 1966, successfully launched its first annual Super Bowl Breakfast event that year, which has been held every year since then at the host city for the NFL’s annual Super Bowl championship extravaganza. In 1989, following its inaugural launch the year before, the Bart Starr Award began its tradition of honoring a current NFL player for demonstrating outstanding character, integrity and leadership in the home, on the field, and in their community.
This year’s Super Bowl 50 breakfast takes place in the host city of San Francisco, at the elegantly adorned Hilton San Francisco Union Square. The emcee for this year’s edition is Brent Jones, the former NFL 11-year veteran, three-time Super Bowl champion tight end and a 2013 (BASHOF) Bay Area Sports Hall Of Fame inductee, plucked enthusiastically from San Francisco 49ers.
Joining Brent are fellow NFL stars and coaches including Super Bowl Champion coach/player, NY Times bestselling author and NFL analyst, Tony Dungy; legendary NFL Hall of Fame, “knuckles in the turf,” guard from the Green Bay Packers, Jerry Kramer, and Hall of Fame inductees Roger Staubach and “Iron Mike” Ditka.
With them will be newly-minted NFL Hall of Fame inductee from the Oakland Raiders, “Mr. Raider” Tim Brown; current New Orleans Saints and earlier Super Bowl Champion XXXIX tight end, Benjamin Watson, and the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Clark Hunt.
More football luminaries, yet to be announced at the time of this writing, will come from the ranks of other NFL teams, athletes, and coaches, supporting the AIA’s 2016 Super Bowl 50 Breakfast this year.
Last year’s recipient of the Bart Starr Award was the newly crowned, NFL’s all-time leading passer, multiple All-Pro Super Bowl XLI Champion and current quarterback for the Denver Broncos, Peyton Manning. The honor roll of past recipients is star-studded, with its “Who’s Who” list of NFL greats. Included is Seattle Seahawks receiver Steve Largent, the initial Bart Starr Award recipient; NFL Hall of Fame offensive tackle Anthony Munoz; the Green Bay Packers revered “Minister of Defense,” the late Reggie White, as well as quarterbacks Kurt Warner, Trent Dilfer, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Warren Moon.
When the Athletes in Action roundtable leadership made its decision to create an award to honor a current NFL player who best exemplified their representative Christian faith-filled qualities of committed beliefs that forged its organization’s foundation, they felt there was but one man whose name should grace their prestigious honoring award–Bart Starr. AIA approached the former Super Bowl Champion and NFL Hall of Fame quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, and quite humbly, Bart agreed to lend his name to the award. The fit, with its catch-phrase cliché, was indeed, “a match made in heaven.”
Starr’s legacy of accomplishment, along with his off the field servant’s heart, exemplifies the standard for the AIA’s Bart Starr Award.
Bart Starr was elected into the NFL and Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1977, following his brilliantly forged 16-year career as the Packers quarterback. Four years later, in 1981, he would be enshrined in the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. During his tenure as the Packer’s signal caller, he played in six pro bowls and led his team to five world championships; was honored as the Most Valuable Player in Super Bowls’ I and II; tabbed as the NFL’s MVP in 1966 and selected as the NFL Man of the Year in 1969. He is one of six players from the Green Bay Packers to have his number—15—retired.
Starr has the highest playoff passer rating of any quarterback in NFL history–104.8–and a playoff record of 9–1. In 1967, Bart became the inaugural recipient of the Byron “Whizzer” White Award that is given annually by the National Football League Players Association for work in the community, and for being the player who best displays the qualities of a true professional athlete.
On October 17, 1970, at a testimonial reception honoring Bart Starr held at the Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena in Green Bay, Wisconsin — the following was conveyed in a speech by then President Richard Nixon:
“We honor him as a very great practitioner of his profession, the proud profession of professional football… And as we honor him for that, we honor him not only for his technical skill but, as I’ve indicated, also for something that is just as important: his leadership qualities, his character, his moral fiber… But I think the best way that I can present Bart Starr to his friends is to say very simply that the sixties will be described as the decade in which football became the number one sport in America, in which the Packers were the number one team, and Bart Starr was proudly the number one Packer.”
Two years later, Bart Starr would retire from his prolific signal calling duties, hang up his well worn black leather cleats once and for all, and depart his beloved Green Bay Packers — that is, as an honored and revered player on the field; for the following two years, he would serve as a game analyst for CBS-TV.
Sitting in the booth pushed him to step back onto the hallowed turf endowed by his mentor and coach, Vince Lombardi, to walk the home team’s sideline at Lambeau Field again as the coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1975 through 1983.
In 1965, the year before AIA would strike its founding charter, Bart Starr with his wife Cherry would begin a spiritual sojourn of servitude by co-founding a faith-based, non-profit community outreach program for at-risk teens–Rawhide Boys Ranch in New London, Wisconsin–along with their friends, John and Jan Gillespie.
Heading south from New London, where the scenic Wolf River cuts through the 500-acre ranch facility, the Rawhide Boys Ranch provides a safe haven of enabling support for juvenile court-referred boys ranging from ages eight to seventeen. Their dedicated mission statement reads:
Being dependent on God, we inspire and equip at-risk youth and families to lead healthy and responsible lives through family-centered care, treatment, and education.
Academic, as well as vocational classes align the student curriculum at the Starr Academy. Rawhide Boys Ranch programs, include intensive residential care for troubled young men. For those of you curious about the work that began among four faith-filled friends over fifty years ago, you can take a little stroll of its grounds, by visiting their website at: www.rawhide.org.
“This guy is the most decorated, as far as championships go quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. But the first thing you hear about Bart when you talk about him, is not the incredible talent and ability that he has, but the kind of person that he is.”
Aaron Rodgers ~ 2014 Bart Starr Award recipient
Bart Starr is a man of admitted and committed Christian faith, who dutifully aligns his life, both on and off the field, with a spiritual playbook — The Bible. He is an individual of impeccable character, and an honorable man who has served his family and community faithfully throughout the years. He is a giver, and an exemplary role model for athletes, business owners and their support staff alike, so it’s no small wonder that the leadership of Athletes in Action unanimously chose Bart Starr as the person to name their award after.
This year’s Super Bowl 50 breakfast honoree waits in the wings. Who will it be? Which NFL role model to follow in the legendary footsteps of Bart Starr will find his name inscribed at the bottom of the AIA Bart Starr Award?
And let us not lose heart in doing good; for in due time, we shall reap; if we do not grow weary ~ Galatians 6:9
To learn more about attending, and being a part of this year’s gala Super Bowl 50 Breakfast, please visit the website: http://www.superbowlbreakfast.com/
To view the promotional video filmed at the 2015 Super Bowl XLIX Breakfast, go to this YouTube presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em61LO9teOI&feature=youtu.be
And to learn about Athletes in Action and its worldwide outreach within the realm of athletics, you can find them here: http://athletesinaction.org/
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