The Dallas Morning News March 24, 1968

Flip Side

Starr Time In Dallas

By marge Pettyjohn

Youthbeat Editor

A quarterback is the man who calls the signals and, in the case of professional football, initiates every play. But Bart Starr, famed quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, initiates more than football plays. On the field he's the perfect Packer. Off the field he's the perfect gentleman and, we would guess, the perfect father. A man who looks for opportunities to talk to youth groups, he's an ideal for young people to look up to. Responsive and wellspoken, he represents the consummate successful image. "There's no magic formula for success," he tells teens. `'You'll get out of life only what you put in it. It's your attitude that counts." What's wrong with today's kids? Nothing, declared Starr, who was in Dallas recently to receive the Field Scovell Award from the All Sports Association. "He pointed to the ingenuity of today's music to defend his statement. ''You can see how energetic and ambitious kids are today by just looking at their bands. Now every high school has two or three and they don't just copy each other. Many are creative and write their own music."

Starr recently returned from a tour of Vietnam which left indelible impressions of today's youth with him. "The boys over there were surprisingly young," he noted. "None of them were bitter, however, and the ones I talked to said they'd go back and fight if they got the chance. Their courage was amazing." If nothing's wrong with kids, what about parents? "Some parents try to discipline their children to the point of creating walking robots," said Starr with some compunction. The father of two boys, aged 10 and 4, he wants his children to be expressive. He emphasized their need for freedom to express their own ideas and thoughts. Teamwork, that's what it is. And not even too many athletic teams are deserving o f the word teamwork, believes the man who's seen the Packers through three national championships. But then, if every family worked together, as well as the Green Bay Packers, there'd be no problems.