Ask him anything about the Packers

Green Bay Packers fans, if there is anything you would like to know, any detail, factoid or statistic, no matter how obscure, from any one of the 1,538 games your favorite team has played since its first game in 1919, ask Jim Rice. He has the answers. They’re all in the comprehensive database he has assembled and the five books he’s written.

The Cedarburg resident and former Catholic school principal in Port Washington was a convert to Packers fandom but was so enthralled by the team’s victory in the 2010 Super Bowl that he decided to make a retirement project out of researching, assembling and publishing what amounts to a history of Packers games in installments written with a gazillion bits of football detail.

Rice grew up in New York City rooting for the New York Giants. He remembers being in grade school when the Packers beat the Giants 37-0 in the NFL title game in 1961 and 16-7 in 1962.

“I was a huge New York Giants fan and I cried my eyes out,” Rice said.

New Yorkers, however, loved the Packers’ legendary coach Vince Lombardi, Rice said. Lombardi was an assistant coach at Army and for the Giants before coming to Green Bay. Big Apple residents think they taught Lombardi everything he knew, Rice said.

Rice came to Wisconsin to attend Marquette University and earned degrees in history and education, and he never left the dairy state. He was the first principal of Port Catholic School when St. Mary and St. Peter of Alcantara combined, and spent a career in public and private school administration.

When he started his project he learned that three members of the Packers Super Bowl team were former Giants — running back Ryan Grant, safety and special teams player Charlie Peprah and wide receivers coach Jimmy Robinson.

That piqued Rice’s interest and it only got deeper when his research revealed more connections to his hometown team.

“Most people don’t know the Packers acquired Ray Nitschke through a trade with the Giants,” Rice said.

The Packers traded defensive end John Martinkovic for a third-round draft pick they used to take Nitschke in 1958. He became an anchor of the defense for the 1960s’ dynasty that won five NFL titles and two Super Bowls.

Decades before that, defensive tackle and end Cal Hubbard demanded a trade from the Giants to the Packers — he was from Missouri and perhaps a Midwest guy — that helped kickstart the Packers’ first three-peat from 1929 to 1931, Rice said.

After retiring from football, Hubbard became a Major League Baseball umpire and is the only member of the football and baseball halls of fame.

“Those were the things that kinda got me going,” Rice said.

Rice’s first book, “Giant Cheeseheads,” details every game between the Giants and Packers from 1928 through 2014.

The first book, Rice said, “was not a big deal because I loved it so much.”

Then he wanted to do more. Four books followed, “Great Games of the Gridiron” that goes through every NFL title game from 1933 to 1965; “92 years” that details every Packers-Chicago Bears game from 1921 to 2013; “Green Bay’s 13 championship season” chronicling every year the Packers won the title; and “The 101 Most Important Regular Season Games in Packers’ History” published in September.

Every cover photo is by the late Vern Biever, the Port Washington resident who created the profession of NFL team photographer. Rice came to befriend him.

The latest book led to the database. A one-time fee of $19 allows people to access all the information on the 1,538 games.

Rice’s research had him checking old newspapers.

“I’m reading about every Packers game in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, but I’m an old history teacher and should have been reading about World War I or World War II,” he said.

Rice regularly talked to Packers’ historian Cliff Christl, but not to any player or coach.

“Never interviewed a soul. Don’t want to. I think the Packers are one of the special things left in the world that are really untarnished,” he said. “I didn’t want to know about all the scars.”

Rice’s favorite Packer is Bart Starr. “I’ve heard so many stories about him from fans, like changing a tire for somebody on the high rise bridge in Milwaukee in a snowstorm.”

Charles Woodson and Donald Driver also make the list of being “better people than they were players,” Rice said.

Rice, 72, said he never envisioned writing so many books, but he loves writing and loves history, so “It was really a labor of love.”

His former employer, St. John XXIII Catholic School, is purchasing the collection for its school library.

Now, Rice said, he is done writing books but he is chronicling this season on the database that will be done in spring.

“I think I better write about this year just in case they win the Super Bowl,” Rice said.

For more information on Rice’s books and database, visit packerscentury.com.