I BEGAN MY rookie year as the fifth receiver on the team. I was playing behind Antonio Freeman, Bill Schroeder, Corey Bradford, and Jaheen Arnold, whom the Packers had acquired from the Pittsburgh Steelers, but since I had started training camp as the thirteenth wide receiver on the team, I suppose I shouldn’t have felt too bad about not starting.
Early in the season I could see I wasn’t in the plans of head coach Ray Rhodes, at least not yet, but I never got down on myself, because of the praise I was getting from Packers general manager Ron Wolf. I never would have made the Packers without him. His faith in me pushed me every single day. I would see him while I was on the practice field. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses, and he’d stand with his hands folded across his chest, usually talking to a scout or one of the veteran players. He was close to Antonio Freeman, Reggie White, and Sean Jones, and I would look over to where he was standing and say to myself, I cannot let this guy down. He’s done so much for me. I have to make this guy proud. At the same time I couldn’t wait for the day when I could stand and talk with him without the pressure of having to make the team.
At the end of my first week of practice Ron sent an assistant to the locker room to get me.
“Ron wants to see you in his office,” I was told.
I couldn’t imagine what that was all about.
“I wanted to congratulate you,” he said. “And I have something for you. Follow me.”
We walked from his office in Lambeau Field down to the Packers Pro Shop store.
I thought perhaps I’d find my jersey with the number 80 on the back being sold.
“Do you own anything with Packers on it?” he asked.
I had the team-issued practice and workout gear, but it wasn’t mine. I couldn’t take it home.
I had to admit I didn’t.
Ron and I walked around the store, looking at different items, checking out the prices.
“I’m going to let him pick out anything in the store,” he told the salesclerk.
I wasn’t used to people buying me presents.
Anything? I wondered. As many as I want?
I was told I could pick any one item.
“Anything you want,” he said, and he turned to go, leaving me to decide.
“Thank you, Mr. Wolf,” I said.
As he walked out the door he waved me off.
I walked around the store feeling as happy as a person could feel. I looked at everything. There were replica jerseys of Brett Favre, Dorsey Levens, Reggie White, and Antonio Freeman. I considered buying a Favre or White jersey and having the player sign it for me. But fall in Wisconsin was coming soon, and I didn’t have a winter coat. On a rack was a baseball-style, black leather jacket with a big Packer G on the front. I couldn’t help staring at it. I thought it was awesome.
I was concerned that the price, three hundred dollars, would be excessive, but Mr. Wolf did say I could pick out anything I wanted, and I really wanted that jacket. I didn’t have any status, and I figured if I wore that coat downtown, people would know I played for the Packers. I wanted to be somebody. I wanted people to notice me.
I was such a rookie. Later Antonio Freeman would tell me, “You don’t have to do that. People will know you play for the Packers.” And of course he was right about that.
My mom has that jacket now. It was from a guy who believed in me. If I should ever get inducted into the Hall of Fame, and if we’re both alive, Ron Wolf will be there to induct me, and I will wear that jacket.
“Don’t ever get rid of that leather jacket,” I told my mom.
It’s still sitting up in my room at home.
UPON MY ARRIVAL in Green Bay I made a vow to myself that I would embrace every moment. I would also embrace the fans. I had heard some guys described as jerks by fans, and I didn’t want to be one of those players. My rookie year I was a nobody. My jersey wasn’t even in stores. But after training camp practice or minicamp practice I would stand outside and sign autographs for hours just to show the fans I loved them. Things work in mysterious ways, because to this day you see the love and support that the fans have given me and that has to be because of the love and support I showed them through those early years of my career.
When I joined the Packers I had no idea about the magical history of the franchise. As I said, I didn’t even know where Green Bay was. I didn’t know about Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, and the other Packer greats when I arrived in town. I had no idea of the excitement I was about to be involved in until I played in the Family Night scrimmage at Lambeau Field.
The offense was to scrimmage against the defense. It didn’t seem like any big deal to me. As I walked out the old tunnel that all the Packers of the past had walked through, I was standing next to Brett Favre. I didn’t know what to expect.
“This ain’t Alcorn State University,” Brett said to me. “This ain’t seventeen thousand people. Tonight there are going to be fifty-five thousand people in the stands.”
I thought he was crazy.
“No way there are going to be fifty-five thousand fans,” I said. “For a scrimmage?”
I walked out of that little tunnel, and I looked up and heard the roar, and I could see that the stadium was jam-packed with the Green Bay faithful. That’s when I said to myself, This place is special. I’m not in Mississippi anymore.
When I joined the Packers I joined a team that had just seen legendary Reggie White retire. Reggie had a great work ethic that was well documented. I would see him from time to time, and what I learned from him was invaluable.
“The way you practice,” he told me, “is the way you’re going to play the game. You can’t take time off. Give it your all—every play.”
And that’s exactly what Reggie would do. There were actually times when I would look around and say to myself, I’m playing on the same field that Reggie White, one of the greatest players of all time, played on.
Reggie held the title of Minister of Defense. Guys who played with him said he was a minister in the locker room. He didn’t like people to cuss around him. He was a Christian man, and I’d heard that if anyone in the locker room did anything wrong, he’d be the first to come over and say, “You can’t do that. It’s not that I don’t approve of it. God doesn’t approve of it.”
My rookie year he came up to me once and said, “Drive, you’re going to be a superstar one day. You just keep working.”
I have never forgotten his kindness.
Reggie died in his sleep in late December 2004 at age forty-three. The year before he died I asked him to sign a jersey for me. He called me Hammer. I don’t know why. Maybe he got it from the old saying that it’s better to be a hammer than a nail. Maybe he thought I looked like M. C. Hammer. He signed the jersey, “To Donald Hammer, Reggie White.” It was the last time we ever spoke. I still have the jersey hanging on my wall at home.
ONE PACKER I loved to practice against was cornerback Mike McKenzie. He was a third-round pick out of Memphis the same year I was drafted. He had dreadlocks and a swagger about him that said, I’m one of the best defensive backs in the whole world. I’d practice against him every day, one-on-one. It’s one of the reasons I improved as quickly as I did.
Mike was an interesting cat. He didn’t try to get to know anyone. He didn’t come up to you and say, “I want to be your friend.” You had to earn his friendship. And I did that. Mike and I talk to this day. He and I both know who our true friends are.
I WAS ECSTATIC when I made the team, but the thrill wore off quickly when I didn’t play in the first nine games of the 1999 season. I didn’t even travel. I had to watch the Packers road games from my home.
My rookie season in Green Bay was Tina’s senior year at Alcorn. I had to go to Green Bay by myself. I was making decent money for the first time in my life, $125,000 a year, and I found a nice duplex apartment in De Pere, Wisconsin, that I rented for $875 a month.
Tina was back at school, and she was nervous because I was gone. The first thing she said to me after I arrived at camp was “You’re going to leave me and go out and find a white girl to marry. It’s what you guys [football players] do.”
I started laughing. She was so funny.
“Tina,” I said, “I’m not going to find a white girl to marry. I love you. I promise I love you, and I’m going to be good.”
We laugh about it to this day. I think what she was most nervous about was that I was going to be away from her. And in truth many athletes do leave and do find another girl to marry, leaving behind their college sweethearts. So her worries were understandable. I don’t know what made her say “white girl” but she said it, and I told her, “We’re going to be together forever.”
That first year in Green Bay I was very lonely without her. The first nine games I wasn’t playing, and I missed her and wanted to see her, so I would fly her up every other weekend. Right after practice on Friday I would drive three and a half hours to Chicago and pick her up at around 1 P.M., and I’d drive back to Green Bay. We’d spend the weekend together, and then on Monday or Tuesday I’d drive her back to Chicago.
She would cry. I would cry. We had a lot of love for each other, and we missed each other.
We got married the following March, and after the ceremony she moved straight to Green Bay.
WHEN WE PLAYED at Lambeau that 1999 season, I stood on the sidelines in street clothes and watched. Even so, the whole time I worked hard to win over Brett Favre whenever I could. In practice he threw to the starters, and I worked with one of the backup quarterbacks, Matt Hasselbeck, Doug Pederson, or Aaron Brooks, but then after practice the starters would leave and Brett would stay behind to throw to rookie receiver Corey Bradford and me. Brett could throw rockets, and we needed to get used to catching his throws. I’m sure Brett just wanted to see if we could catch his fastballs. Corey preferred catching with his body. I always caught with my hands.
NFL football is brutal, and I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt, and I would get to play.
The opportunity came in the tenth game of the season, against the Dallas Cowboys, a great defensive team led by Deion Sanders at cornerback. Not only did Corey and I dress for the game, but the coaches even put in a special play for us. They called it the SWAC package, because I had played at Alcorn State and Corey had played at Jackson State, and both schools were in the Southwest Athletic Conference.
On the second play of the game, we went into the huddle and Brett called the SWAC package. As you might have guessed, the play called for us to run down the sidelines as fast as we could and head for daylight.
Corey ran down the right sideline, and I ran down the left. Corey beat Deion, and he beat him down the field, and Brett hit Corey right in the hands. But as he ran to catch the ball, he popped a hamstring. The ball fell to the ground, as did Corey.
I was a rookie playing my first NFL game, and not knowing any better, I ran over to see if Corey was okay. Meanwhile, the coaches on the sideline were screaming at me, “Donald, get in the game!”
I didn’t know what to do. My friend was lying there in pain. I ran back to the huddle just lost. I kept running routes, but I was frustrated because Favre wasn’t looking for me.
We had the ball trailing Dallas 20–13 with little time left. There were three plays left. The ball was snapped, and I ran down the left sideline. Deion, perhaps sensing I wasn’t going to get the ball no matter how open I was, didn’t chase. I was wide open. I waved my hands, and Brett threw the ball.
I dove to make the catch, and I was excited because I was sure I had scored a touchdown. But when I looked up, I realized I was fifty feet out of bounds.
I’ve got to be nuts, I thought.
On the next play Antonio Freeman and I switched positions. He was in the slot and I went wide. Dallas was playing a zone, and Freeman ran to a seam. Brett threw him the ball, and Dallas safety George Teague intercepted it and ran it ninety-five yards for a touchdown to seal the Dallas win.
My brother Moses came to the game, and he was ecstatic.
“You beat Deion Sanders. Oh yeah,” he said.
I had yet to catch a single pass in the NFL.
That day came in our fourteenth game of the season, against the Carolina Panthers at home. I got to play because Corey Bradford had suffered a concussion and wasn’t able to play. I made three key catches that day, two on third down to move the chains, and an eight-yard touchdown pass. Brett called “two jet flanker drive,” and I went in motion, ran across the field, and got myself wide open. Brett threw it, I caught it at the one-yard line, and I made a little move to get into the end zone.
I started to do my own little dance, something I had learned on the dance floor. I was so raw I didn’t know about the Lambeau Leap—a Packer player celebrates catching a touchdown by leaping into the stands. It was started by LeRoy Butler years before and has been copied by players all over the league. Don’t be fooled, though. The only legitimate Lambeau Leap is celebrated by a Packer at Lambeau Field.
When I returned to the bench Antonio Freeman was all over me.
“What are you doing?” he said. “What was that? Next time you score a touchdown, jump into the stands.”
I told him I’d do the Lambeau Leap the next time I scored at home.
That would not happen for another two years.