Pat Harder
Milwaukee (WI) Washington | |||||||||||||
College: | Wisconsin | ||||||||||||
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NFL draft: | 1944 / Round: 1 / Pick: 2 | ||||||||||||
Career history | |||||||||||||
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Career NFL statistics | |||||||||||||
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Player stats at PFR | |||||||||||||
Marlin Martin "Pat" Harder (May 6, 1922 – September 6, 1992) was an
University of Wisconsin
After graduating from
Professional career
Harder was drafted second overall in the
Harder was traded to the Detroit Lions in 1951. He helped the Lions win back-to-back NFL Championships in 1952 and 1953; in the two games of 1952, he was sent to kick three field goals and six extra points. He made all but one field goal. In the National Conference playoff game on December 21, he was both fullback and kicker. He scored two touchdown runs to start the first half and kicked the extra point on those runs and two touchdowns scored by his teammates to go with a field goal for a total of 19 points in the 31–21 victory. This set a new record for points scored by any player in a playoff game that was not surpassed until 1994.[2]
Harder retired from professional football in 1953. Despite his late start, he was named as one of the three fullbacks to the
After retirement
Harder served as an NFL official from 1966 to 1982, working as the umpire on the crew of legendary referee
The most famous game he worked came on December 23, 1972, when the Pittsburgh Steelers won their first playoff game on Franco Harris's Immaculate Reception against the Oakland Raiders. Harder was also an alternate, as was Tunney, for the 1967 NFL Championship game, famously known as the "Ice Bowl", when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21–17.
He also served as vice-president of a car leasing company in Milwaukee. He died in Waukesha, Wisconsin on September 6, 1992.
Harder was posthumously inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1993. In 2005, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's third HOVG class.[3]
The popular chant "Hit 'em again harder, harder, harder" was a University of Wisconsin cheer aimed at Pat Harder and can still be heard at high school and college games today.[citation needed]
References
- ^ "1944 NFL Draft Listing". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2024-02-17.
- ^ "NFL Points Scored Single Game Playoffs Leaders". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2024-02-17.
- ^ "Hall of Very Good". Archived from the original on October 5, 2016. Retrieved July 14, 2016.