The Story And Significance Of Henry Jordan - Seven Time All-Pro Selection At Defensive Tackle

Henry Wendell Jordan was an American professional football player who was a defensive tackle for 13 seasons in the National Football League with the Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers. He played college football for the Virginia Cavaliers and was selected in the fifth round of the 1957 NFL draft. He played in the NFL from 1957 to 1969 and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Jordan was selected in the fifth round of the 1957 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns, who traded him two years later to the Green Bay Packers in Vince Lombardi's first season for a fourth-round draft choice. At Green Bay, Jordan was elected to four Pro Bowls (1960, 1961, 1963, and 1966), and he was the Pro Bowl MVP in 1961. Jordan was All-NFL seven times, and he was a defensive leader on a Green Bay Packers team that won five of six NFL title games in eight seasons and won the first two Super Bowls.

A tenacious competitor on the field, Jordan was the vibrant and jovial wit among Lombardi's Packers, and was highly regarded by his teammates. Highly quotable, his outgoing personality put him in demand as an after-dinner speaker.

Most notably: “Lombardi treats us all the same, like dogs.”

Jordan retired at age 35 in February 1970, after an injury-filled 1969 season. In 1970, Jordan relocated south to Milwaukee to create and oversee Summerfest.

In 1974 Jordan was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. In 1975 he was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.

In 1977, seven years after leaving Green Bay, Jordan died at age 42 of a heart attack after jogging on February 21, 1977.

In 1995, Henry Jordan was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He was represented in the coin toss ceremony at Super Bowl XXIX by former teammate Ray Nitschke, who was also named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary team. The ceremony brought together former NFL stars of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, with surviving members of that year's Hall of Fame class representing the latter decade (one of them, then-Congressman Steve Largent flipped the coin on their behalf).

In 2000, the Warwick High School athletics field (Newport News, VA) was named in his honor.

In May 2009, he was named to the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame, which honors athletes, coaches and administrators who contributed to sports in southeastern Virginia.