Arnie Herber: His final pass

Continued from last week

The front page of the Oct. 15, 1969, Green Bay Press-Gazette heralded the news of Arnie Herber’s death.

A day earlier, Herber lost his battle with cancer at a Green Bay-area hospital.

The Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company in De Pere — where he now served as secretary-treasurer in addition to sales manager — closed for the day of his funeral.

Herber was buried at Fort Howard Cemetery.

In the days and weeks following his death, local newspapers were peppered with articles on Herber.

“How nature could have flawed Arnie Herber’s body with the cancer that cut him down at the age of 59 is impossible to understand. In other respects, she had almost succeeded in producing the perfect human organism. I have not seen all the great athletes of my time, but I’ve seen one on whom nature had showered so many of its gifts. I doubt if there was anything in the way of athletic activity, Herber couldn’t master in a few effortless tries,” Madison Capital Times Editor/Publisher Miles McMillin stated.

“Football honors came to Arnie belatedly,” Green Bay Sports Writer/Historian Jack Rudolph reminisced. “Although named all-time quarterback on the Packers squad selected by votes of the fans a decade ago. Herber was generally forgotten elsewhere until 1966 when he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, the eighth Pacers and second Green Bay native so honored (the late Curly Lambeau is there, too, but as a club founder and coach.”

“A year later, Arnie was named to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame and just last month was selected on the NFL’s all-1930s squad. He was displaced as the Packers’ all-time passer by Bart Starr as part of the 50th anniversary of the club, but the old time fans, while unstinting in their admiration for the gentlemanly Starr, still insist the honor belongs to Arnie.

“However, a later generation of Packers fans knew the old passing ace only as a burly, grey-haired man reminiscing about the early days on a series of television commercials. They never saw him wind up and hit his moving target 70 yards downfield.”

In 1970, the Green Bay area Elks club established the Arnie Herber Sportsman of the Year Award in his honor.

The first awardee was Carl W. “Bud” Jorgensen, a Packers trainer who started with the team in 1924 and stepped down in 1969.

Over the next few years, Green Bay-area fans unsuccessfully championed for an Arnie Herber Street, similar to the Don Hutson Road and Curly Lambeau Street, which already existed at that time on the city’s west side.

In 1972, Herber was among ten 1930-era players to be enshrined into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.

Four years later, Herber’s widow, Bobbe, passed away.

She is also buried in the Herber family plot near Arnie at Fort Howard cemetery.

Watch future editions for our series on Ted Fritsch.