Now wouldn’t this have been marvelous? Mr. T, then Lawrence Tureaud, tried out for the Green Bay Packers back in 1972.
Mr. T was a star running back at Chicago’s Dunbar High in the late 60s and got a football scholarship to Prairie View A&M. That was short-lived, however, as he got expelled after a single year on campus.
His tryout with the Packers was seemingly a last-ditch effort to make football a career and it didn’t go too well.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Mr. T told The Post Game. “I had a bad knee. I’m going to tell you, between me and you, I’m so glad I didn’t play football. I’m proud to be an actor. See, as an actor, you live longer. Football players, the brain and all that stuff, ooh-eee, that’s not good.”
The Packers were in the midst of the post-Lombardi doldrums at the time. They were led by coach Dan Devine, who is among the worst coaches in Packers history.
If there’s a guy who knew nothing about personnel, it was Devine.
Ask Monty about the John Hadl trade the next time you see him. He’ll lose it.
It’s almost a wonder Devine didn’t sign Mr. T and then try to convert him to nose tackle.
Somehow, that 1972 team won the NFC Central, but that’s the only success Devine ever had at the pro level. He managed to torpedo the franchise for the rest of the 70s through his total failure as a general manager before skipping town for Notre Dame in late 1974.
On the bright side, if that nitwit Devine had signed Mr. T, then we probably would have never been given the gift of Bosco Albert Baracus.
Whatchu talkin’ bout wit your jibba jabba?!