Don Hutson

Donald Roy Hutson, Wide Receiver
Alabama, 1932-1934

As a baseball player, Don Hutson was a darn good receiver.

Arriving at Alabama on a baseball scholarship, Hutson played centerfield for the Tide and also made a name for himself running track. On the football field, Hutson became something special walking on to the team and changing the way college football teams looked at the forward pass.

Back in the 1930s, college football still wasn't purely a running sport. Few had used the forward pass as a weapon and no one had run routes with speed and precision like Hutson.

Alabama head football coach Wallace Wade had little interest in the small Hutson and didn't use the 160-pounder much until his junior season. By his senior year, Hutson grew to 6-1 and 175 pounds turning into a superstar as one of the most fluid route runners college football had ever seen. To say Hutson was ahead of his time is an understatement as he was really the inventor of the way modern wide receivers play football.

The 1934 Crimson Tide was 9-0 on its way to a national championship season. Facing Stanford in the 1935 Rose Bowl, the Tide scored 22 second quarter points on the way to a 29-13 win as Dixie Howell and Hutson combined to finish off the unbeaten season. In that second quarter, Howell gained 96 yards on the ground running for a 67-yard touchdown while Hutson caught four passes from Howell for 96 yards and a touchdown. With six catches for 165 yards and two touchdowns, Hutson had one of the great receiving performances in college football history and one of the great days college football had ever seen.

Hutson is considered one of the greatest NFL WRs of all-time and the first real star receiver to play professional football as a nine-time All-Pro and a charter member of the pro football Hall of Fame. He set the NFL record with 99 career touchdown catches that lasted until Steve Largent came along.

Don Hutson’s first touchdown came on an 83-yard pass from Arnie Herber in just his second game as a Green Bay Packer. He wound up with 99 career touchdown receptions, a record that stood for more than four decades. When Hutson retired in 1945 after 11 superb seasons, he held 18 NFL records, including 488 career receptions.

That was 200 more than his closest competitor. Hutson invented modern pass receiving. He created Z-outs, buttonhooks, hook-and-gos, and a whole catalog of moves and fakes. Although he had been an All-America at Alabama in 1934, there were plenty who doubted the skinny speedster could stand the pace of pro football. But it wasn't long before his mere presence on the field had changed the defensive concept of the game.

Don could outmaneuver and outrace virtually every defender in the league. He led the NFL in receiving in eight of his 11 seasons and in scoring five straight years. Twice, in 1941 and 1942, he was named the league’s MVP.

Like everyone in the days before free substitution, Hutson was a 60-minute player who spent most of his career as a very fine safety on defense. In his final six seasons, he swiped 30 opposing quarterbacks’ passes. Often after scoring a touchdown, he would kick the extra point. In one quarter of a 1945 game, he caught four touchdown passes and kicked five PATs for an amazing 29 points.

Had it not been for a unique decision by NFL President Joe Carr, Hutson might never have become a landmark pass-catcher. After college, Don signed contracts with both the pass-minded Packers and the NFL’s Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that rarely passed. Carr ruled the contract with the earliest postmark would be honored. The Packers' contract was postmarked 8:30 a.m., 17 minutes earlier than the Dodgers' pact. Thus Hutson became a Packer.

His best seasons were from 1941 through 1945, or when World War II was taking many of America's most able bodied young men away, when Hutson made 284 of his 488 catches, had five of his six best yardage seasons and caught 56 of his 99 touchdowns.

Honors:

* College Football Hall of Fame - 1951
* All-America - 1934
* All-SEC - 1934
* NFL Hall of Fame - 1963
* NFL 75th Anniversary Team
* Rose Bowl Hall of Fame - 1993