The 11th time has turned out to be the charm for Jerry Kramer.
The University of Idaho and Green Bay Packers offensive lineman has already been called the best guard from the first half-century of the National Football League.
This summer, after a 45-year wait, Kramer will officially be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The 2018 class was voted on and announced Saturday in Minneapolis, which is the host city for Super Bowl LII. Along with Kramer, the inductees include Robert Brazile, Ray Lewis, Brian Dawkins, Brian Urlacher, Bobby Beathard, Randy Moss, and Terrell Owens.
Kramer, now 82, was drafted out of the University of Idaho in 1958, and became a member of the Packers squad that won five NFL championships and the first two Super Bowl games.
Kramer’s goal-line block in the 1967 NFL Championship game, dubbed the “Ice Bowl,” cleared the way for Packers quarterback Bart Starr’s game-winning touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys – and a berth in Super Bowl II for the Packers, who went on to defeat the Oakland Raiders.
Kramer retired from the NFL in 1970. While many of his “Lombardi Legend” teammates from the Packers were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Kramer has been nominated, but passed over, ten times.
The first sign that the wait would soon be over for “number 64” came in August of last year, when Kramer was named a senior finalist for the Hall of Fame, along with former Houston Oilers linebacker Robert Brazile.
In an interview with KTVB’s Mark Johnson, Kramer called the Hall of Fame “the cherry on top of the sundae” that has been a legendary football career.
“It completes the story,” Kramer said. “And it completes the journey.”
The journey began with Kramer's birth in Jordan, Montana, then a move with his family to Sandpoint, Idaho, where he played football for Sandpoint High School before accepting a scholarship to the University of Idaho in Moscow in 1954.
After retiring from the Packers, Kramer made his home in southwest Idaho -- first in Parma, then Boise, where he now resides.
Boise Mayor David Bieter issued the following statement Saturday night:
"Congratulations to my personal football hero Jerry Kramer for being voted into the (Pro Football) Hall of Fame. A former U of I Vandal and one of the best Green Bay Packers ever, this tribute is much deserved and long overdue. Go Pack!"