Always a Badger: The Pat Richter Story

By Vince Sweeney

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931599629
• ISBN13: 9781931599627
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Bower House
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Pat Richter: a worthwhile biography

Always a Badger: the Pat Richter story Biographies of sports figures usually prove a disappointment, even to those who admire of these individuals. Some contain an element of autobiography, where the figure is named as an author together with a well-know sports writer; and for the most part these books are not good. [Exceptions occur when the athlete is articulate, and the writer is well-above average--an unlikely combination. Don Drysdale's (with Bob Verdi) Once a Bum, Always as Dodger is just that.] Vince Sweeney's Always as Badger: the Pat Richter Story (Trail Books, 2005) is a pleasant reminder that straightforward biographies need not be all bad. Minimally, Hugh V. "Pat" Richter, Jr. has had a two-part adult life: first, as an extraordinary athlete; second, as an imaginative business leader in both private and public sectors. Having known Pat since my teenage years, and watched his work from a distance, I submit that these two features are specially intertwined. One learns much from competitive athletics that serves one's posterity. Sweeney's book establishes this theorem. I shall not dwell on Richter's athletic skills. These are of the stuff of legends, and well-documented elsewhere. What I can say is that his All-American football years, and his special performance in baseball [to a lesser degree in basketball] at Wisconsin were marked by an uncommon grace. This important disposition seemed to have a significant impact on those with whom he played. Readers will get a sense of this grace in early chapters, and providentially, the notion that it will play a role in Richter's later life. Richter's post-Madison athletic career was played out with the Washington Redskins. While his NFL records did not approach the fame of his Wisconsin years, the times and personalities prove fascinating. Among the names are these: Otto Graham, Vince Lombardi, Edward Bennett Williams, and Joe DiMaggio. Richter as the leader of the NFL Players Association in the "lockout" of 1970 proves an interesting tale. Mindful of a need for longer-term employment, Richter had been working on a law degree from the University of Wisconsin in his off-season times. That degree was awarded in 1971. He joins the then privately-held meat packing firm of Oscar Mayer. The 1971-1989 period shows a steady progress for Pat in that firm. One cannot but think that his mentor, P. Goff Beach [Mayer's CEO], had much to do with this; but I know that Goff found Pat one of the best that he had ever attracted to the firm. The reader will find that Richter was a great "reader" of trends in business management, that he understood the long-term consequences of the sale of the Mayer firm, and its subsequent mergers into General Foods and then Kraft. We have, then, Richter residing in Madison in 1989. If things were not looking up at the Mayer division of Kraft, then southwest of his office, things were looking terrible in the Wisconsin Athletic Department. How bad? Well,