Steve Wright, who played tackle for the Green Bay Packers from 1964-67, died Sunday at a care facility in Augusta, Ga. Wright was 82.
While Wright played in relative obscurity during his four seasons in Green Bay and also at his other four NFL stops, he was the model for what is now the Walter Payton Man of the Year trophy. The trophy's sculpture was created in Wright's likeness and it hasn't changed.
Drafted in the fifth round in 1964, Wright played sparingly as a rookie. At the time, the Packers were blessed with three outstanding veteran tackles: Norm Masters, Forrest Gregg and Bob Skoronski. Masters and Gregg started the first seven games as the left and right tackles, respectively. Skoronski, who had played tackle his first six seasons, had been moved to center to replace Jim Ringo.
But Lombardi scrapped those plans before the eighth game, moving Gregg to right guard, where second-year man Dan Grimm had been starting for an injured Jerry Kramer; Masters to right tackle; and Skoronski back to left tackle.
A year later, Lombardi was intrigued enough by Wright's size – he stood 6-foot-6 and weighed 250 pounds – and potential that he moved Gregg to left guard in place of Fuzzy Thurston and started Wright at right tackle for the first 11 games.
Again, Lombardi ditched that experiment in the 12th game, and Wright played sparingly thereafter as the Packers won NFL championships in 1965, '66 and '67. In April 1968, Wright was traded with linebacker Tommy Crutcher to the New York Giants for tackle Francis Peay. Wright played in at least parts of five more seasons with the Giants, Washington, Chicago and St. Louis Cardinals.
"Coach Lombardi was tough and wanted perfection, but unfortunately I wasn't perfect," Wright told Martin Hendricks for a Packers Plus story in 2015. "He'd chew me up and down one minute and 15 minutes later tell me to do what I tell you to do and you'll be OK."
Wright even admitted in that interview that what Kramer once said about him was probably true. "As Jerry Kramer put it, 'Steve is just happy to be here. He doesn't have that burning desire,'" Wright said.
Wright was playing with the Giants in 1969 when artist Daniel Bennett Schwartz was commissioned by the NFL to create a sculpture to be titled, "The Gladiator." Schwartz asked the Giants to send over a model, and they sent Wright.
While it might seem today like Wright was an unlikely choice, he certainly looked the part, cutting an imposing figure with his long legs, bird-cage facemask and old-time weathered cape draped over his shoulders.
The trophy was renamed in honor of Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton in 1999. In 1969, when Packers quarterback Bart Starr was the first winner, it was called the Gladiator Award. Thereafter, it was known as the NFL Man of the Year Award.
