While most people his age were going out and having fun in the early 1970s, Tommy Kramer was working out.

But that’s a price he was willing to pay. After all, for as long as he could remember, all he ever wanted to be was an NFL quarterback.

“My hero was Johnny Unitas early on and then Joe Namath after that,” Kramer said. “So (being a pro quarterback) was my goal. . . . It was something that in my mind, that was the only thing that was driving me.”

So he went out and made it happen.

After prolific careers at San Antonio Lee High School, where he won a Class 4A state championship, and Rice University, where he set every school passing record, Kramer’s dream came true when the Minnesota Vikings made him the 27th pick in the first round of the 1977 NFL draft.

Kramer played for 14 seasons in the NFL — 13 with the Vikings before finishing his career with the New Orleans Saints in 1990 — throwing for nearly 25,000 yards and 159 touchdown passes.

But it was during his time in high school and college that he became a true legend, and Monday, he’ll be enshrined with the Class of 2009 into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

“It’s a great honor,” Kramer said. “I’ve lived in Texas all my life, other than the 15 years I lived in Minnesota, so I was very excited about (being elected).”

Kramer, who was one of 11 kids in his family, grew up just outside of Seguin for 10 years before moving to Hallettsville.

But it was when his family moved to San Antonio that things really took off.

“I was fortunate enough to get with our seventh-grade class, we had a lot of good athletes,” Kramer said. “We never lost a football game until our senior year of high school in the playoffs.”

During Kramer’s junior year in high school, 1971, Lee reached the state title game against Wichita Falls.

Late in the game with his team trailing by six, Kramer showed the knack for late-game comebacks that eventually earned him the nickname “Two Minute Tommy.” Kramer threw a touchdown pass with about two minutes remaining and kicked the extra point that handed the Volunteers a 28-27 victory and the state title.

Lee lost to Baytown Sterling in the 1972 state semifinals to end Kramer’s high school career, but he was just getting started. Word had gotten out about his ability to throw the football. “I could’ve gone anywhere I wanted to go (for college) coming out of high school,” Kramer said.

Tommy Kramer threw for more than 375 yards in a game three times as a senior at Rice.
Rice University photo

“I didn’t really want to go out of state,” he said. “I wanted my parents to be able to see me play. But the main thing was I wanted to go to a team that was putting the ball in the air because I wanted to play pro football. The quickest way to do that is to go to a school that’s putting the ball in the air all the time, and at that time, Rice was doing that as much as anybody. Plus, it’s a great educational school. “

And Kramer made his presence felt almost immediately.

In 1972, the NCAA began allowing freshmen to play at the varsity level, and Kramer split time at quarterback for the Owls in his first season in 1973.

“We went in as freshmen, and it was almost clear from the first day of practice just seeing Tommy throw the ball that he was destined to be on the varsity,” said Jeff Rose, who played defensive tackle for Rice from 1973-77 and is now on the university’s board of trustees. “He probably had, I would call it, 3 1/2 letters because in our freshman year we still had some pretty good players around, but Tommy was right there.”

“Our sophomore year, it was just clear that he was a leader. He knew that position; he was made for that position. It’s what he wanted to do.”

Kramer put up modest numbers in his first three seasons under head coach Al Conover. But in 1976, the Owls soared to the top of the nation’s passing charts with new coach Homer Rice at the helm. As a senior, Kramer completed 269 of 501 passes for 3,317 yards and 21 touchdowns — all of which were school records at the time and stood until Chase Clement broke them in 2007 and ’08. Kramer’s career numbers in those categories still rank in the top three in Rice history.

Lighter side on display

While Kramer was serious in the huddle, he wasn’t against having fun with his teammates.

“We would be in the weight room bench pressing, and Tommy had this little one-arm hook on the lat pull-down bar, and he’d put that one-handed grip on that thing, and he’d stand there and pull it like a throwing motion. And I said, ‘Tommy, what are you doing?’ And Tommy would say, ‘Making money,’” Rose said with a hearty laugh. “It was funny.”

During his senior season, Kramer was a serious Heisman candidate despite the Owls’ 3-8 record because he threw for more than 375 yards in three different games — including 409 in the season finale against Houston.

Tommy Kramer (9)

“Tommy Kramer was being mentioned as a Heisman candidate,” Rose said. “On the defensive side of the ball was Wilson Whitley, who won the Lombardi Trophy. And it is well-documented, with film, that Wilson Whitley never laid a hand on Tommy Kramer all day, not only because he was getting blocked but because of Tommy’s quick release.”

Kramer, drafted by the Vikings to be the heir apparent to NFL Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton, said moving to Minnesota was quite an adjustment.

He played in six games his rookie season, starting one. But one game from that year still stands out in his mind. Facing San Francisco, the Vikings trailed 21-7 in the fourth quarter, when coach Bud Grant walked by Kramer and said, “OK, you’re in.”

“I didn’t get to warm up or anything,” Kramer said. “I had a big old overcoat on, and I had some sauna rocks I’d taken out of the sauna at halftime to keep my hands warm. So I dropped that thing and those sauna rocks fall out of the pockets. I tried to run out there and I could hardly bend my ankles, but then once the adrenaline got started it was a different story. I threw three touchdown passes in the last eight minutes and we beat Frisco, 28-27, to get us into the playoffs.”

That was the jump start for a career that saw Kramer lead the league in passer rating on his way to NFL Comeback Player of the Year honors in 1986, the same year in which he struck for six touchdown passes against the Green Bay Packers. He was also the first NFL quarterback in history to throw for more than 450 yards in two different games.

In 1978, Kramer was involved in the play that began the in-the-grasp rule for sacks when he was lifted off the ground by the Rams’ Jim Youngblood, spun around three times and then slammed to the ground. Kramer laughed that today the play would be flagged for a 15-yard penalty, but it wasn’t that day, even though “the whistle had blown three times before I hit the ground.”

Injuries derailed Kramer’s career in the late 1980s, and he retired after the 1990 season, which he spent with the New Orleans Saints.

He said life after football has had its ups and downs for him, but that it’s “how you bounce back from it that matters.”

For the last nine years, he’s been working in San Antonio at United Laboratories as an industrial strength chemical salesman.

Rose, who said he keeps in touch with Kramer about as much as any of his college teammates, said Kramer seems happy in recent years and that he’s still held in high regard at Rice.

In fact, whenever anyone asks Rose when he played at Rice, he quickly aligns himself with Kramer.

“There’s probably not a week that goes by that I don’t tell somebody about my relationship with Tommy Kramer,” Rose said. “I (always say) I played with T.K., and we led the nation in passing. That’s how I identify myself with Rice athletics — and I was a defensive player. That’s what we did. That’s who we are.”

Kramer said he’s looking forward to being inducted into the Hall of Fame for the state he loves, and is especially looking forward to seeing the new Southwest Conference wing at the Hall of Fame.

“I think it’s going to be fantastic,” Kramer said. “I’ve followed football ever since I was a little kid, followed everybody in the Southwest Conferece, so I knew a lot about a lot of people. ... Once you’re from Texas, you don’t really leave other than for whatever period of time, but you always want to come back to it.”

jorts@wacotrib.com

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