Born in West Germany, former Green Bay Packers quarterback David Whitehurst grew up in Georgia as a fan of the team that would draft him in the eighth round of the NFL Draft in 1977. While playing college football at Furman, he even wore number 15 in honor of Bart Starr, his favorite Green Bay player, and who suddenly was his coach.
His dreams of one day being an NFL star for the franchise he loved would never come to pass, however – he immediately was relegated to being the backup to Lynn Dickey, for whom the team had traded the season before.
And then, early in 1977, Dickey got hurt. A broken leg would keep him sidelined into the 1979 season.
On came Whitehurst – and the results were, well, mixed. The lean, 6-2 quarterback with long brown hair would make his first NFL start on Monday Night Football in the first ever Monday night game played at Lambeau Field. He went 12 of 24 with three picks in a 10-9 Packers loss.
His career as a Packer was up and down from there, with flashes of talent blended with head-scratching mistakes. Over his seven years in Green Bay, he threw for 6,205 yards on 51.4% passing, but managed only 28 touchdowns against, gulp, 51 interceptions.
Still, Whitehurst relished being a Packer, despite seeing very little action after Dickey’s return. And then, in 1981, the Packers picked another quarterback sixth overall in Rich Campbell. It appeared Whitehurst’s time might have come to an end. As he tells it, he heard about the pick on the radio while driving home after having just bought a house in Green Bay.
“I was wondering how I was going to pay for this house,” he told UPI in 1981.
But in early November, Dickey was again sidelined for a game against the Seattle Seahawks at Lambeau Field. Instead of going with his rookie first-rounder, Whitehurst got the start. He completed 19 of 31 passes for 205 yards and three touchdowns in a 34-24 Packers victory.
After being routinely booed during his stint as a starter with Dickey sidelined, nearly 50,000 Packers fans cheered him as he walked off the field following the victory.
“I'd love to say 'I showed you guys,'’' he told the media after the game. “But I don't really feel that way.”
He continued on as Dickey’s backup through the 1983 season as Campbell struggled to get a foothold in the NFL on his way to becoming one of the Packers’ all-time first-round busts. And then, following the 1983 season, Starr was fired as head coach. His former teammate Forrest Gregg was hired to replace him, and Whitehurst was released. He signed with the Kansas City Chiefs as a backup, but never played.
Ironically, Whitehurst had just signed a new contract not long before being cut – after turning down an offer to presumably become a starter in the USFL. He preferred, however, to remain in Green Bay, even as a backup.
“At one point, yes, I was considering it,” he said at the time. “But toward the end of the season, I wasn't.”
After leaving the NFL, Whitehurst started his own residential construction company, David Whitehurst Homes. He became far more successful in business than on the field.
Interviewed at a Packers alumni golf outing last year by the Green Bay Press-Times, Whitehurst expressed zero regrets about his time with the team.
“How fortunate I was to come to Green Bay to begin with, and to have Bart Starr as my head coach [was] unreal,” Whitehurst said. “When I was a kid, the Green Bay Packers were my favorite team. And then, Bart Starr was my favorite player.”
Perhaps fellow Green Bay alum Davante Adams summed it up best back in January when he said, “Once a Packer, always a Packer.”