Although the statistics are staggering, it’s hard to truly quantify the impact that Don Hutson had during his 11 years catching passes for the Packers. When he entered the league in 1935 out of the University of Alabama, the passing game was far from sophisticated. Coach Curly Lambeau, who had seen Hutson play in the Rose Bowl, knew he had a weapon on his hands. It took Hutson one play to prove his coach correct.
On September 22, the Packers played host to the rival Chicago Bears. With a crowd of 13,600 packed into City Stadium, Green Bay took the ball at its own 16-yard line. Quarterback Arnie Herber threw a pass as far as he could throw it. Hutson blew past Bears safety Beattie Feathers, caught the pass in stride, and scored the first of his 99 touchdowns, a record that stood unmatched until Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Steve Largent cracked triple digits 44 years later. “He would glide downfield,” Lambeau said, “leaning forward as if to steady himself close to the ground. Then, as suddenly as you gulp or blink an eye, he would feint one way and go the other, reach up like a dancer, gracefully squeeze the ball, and leave the scene of the accident—the accident being the defensive backs who tangled their feet up and fell trying to cover him.”
When he retired after the 1945 season, Hutson had 488 catches. The runner-up on the all-time list had 190. Longtime football reporter Peter King compared Hutson’s dominance to that of basketball’s Wilt Chamberlain, hockey’s Wayne Gretzky, and baseball’s Babe Ruth, who single-handedly outhomered his competition.
In 1942 Hutson caught 74 passes. His nearest rival caught only 27. Hutson led the NFL in pass receptions eight times and led the league in scoring five times. Twenty percent of his receptions were touchdowns. He anchored championship teams in 1936, 1939, and 1944. Small wonder then that Hutson was a charter member in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and his name graces the Packers’ indoor training facility across from Lambeau Field.
One of the best receivers ever, Don Hutson, who led the NFL in receptions eight times and scoring five times, poses in the 1940s.
In a game against the Detroit Lions at State Fair Park in 1945—the last of his 11 NFL seasons, which culminated a series of “I think I might retire” stances that would have made Brett Favre envious—Hutson caught four touchdown passes and kicked five extra points in the second quarter, a record that stands today. In Richard Whittingham’s book, What a Game They Played, Hutson credited the wind for his punishing performance against one of the league’s top defenses. “It all happened because of the wind,” he said. “I remember vividly how it was blowing straight down the field, like maybe 30 or 35 miles an hour. It was all a matter of judging the ball in the air, and we were much better at it that day than the Lions. With the wind with us, we’d throw these long passes, and I was able to get down there under them. I think their defensive backs didn’t think the ball would travel as far as it did. And sometimes when we were throwing into the wind, I’d have to circle back like I was going for a lazy fly ball just as I did when I played center field. There was never another game like that, at least one that I played in.”
Hutson was undoubtedly a star on the team and in the league. Longtime Milwaukee columnist Bud Lea, who grew up in Green Bay, said his friends argued about who was going to be No. 14 when they played pickup games in the sandlot.
Hutson was well-compensated for his efforts. Rumor has it that Packers officials, not wanting to create resentment, had Hutson paid by two different banks with each thinking it was paying him a salary that topped out at a then-princely sum of $25,000. He was worth every penny.