Packers of the Past: Perry Kemp

GREEN BAY -- For six of his seven years in professional football, Perry Kemp was coached by Lindy Infante. The two were together on three different teams – one in the USFL and two in the NFL.

Commodore Perry Kemp, who turns 63 on Dec. 31, broke into professional football as a wide receiver in 1984 as a member of the Jacksonville Bulls of the United States Football League (USFL). Infante had been named the team’s head coach the year before. 

In his rookie season, Perry Kemp caught 44 passes for 730 yards and two touchdowns, ranking him third among the team’s thirteen different receivers – three spots ahead of future Green Bay Packers teammate Aubrey Matthews, who recorded Jacksonville’s longest catch that season – a 74-yard touchdown reception. Kemp had the team’s second-longest catch – 58 yards – and led the Bulls with 16.6 yards per catch.

The following season, while former Heisman Trophy winning HB Mike Rozier was amassing 1,361 yards on the ground, Kemp was the team’s second-leading receiver, hauling in 59 passes for 915 yards and four touchdowns, while again leading the Bulls by averaging 15.5 yards per grab.

Once the league’s pending cessation became clear, Infante headed for Cleveland, where he became the offensive coordinator of the NFL’s Browns. Kemp, meanwhile, caught on late in training camp as a free agent with the Cowboys in Dallas.

“Right after I signed they signed Herschel Walker and the wide receiver coach was also the offensive coordinator, and he says, ‘Perry, I’m sorry. We’ve got to let you go because we’ve got to put all this time and energy into Herschel. But we want you to come back.’ The next year everybody in their front office called me to get me to come back,” Kemp told Packerland during a visit to Green Bay in July.  

In 1987, Kemp reunited with Infante in Cleveland.

“I thought I had a better opportunity in Cleveland because (head coach) Marty Schottenheimer went to my high school. He went to school with my uncle. Lindy Infante, of course, he believed in me,” Kemp told us.

With a high-powered offense which featured the one-two punch of Earnest Byner and Kevin Mack out of the backfield, tight end Ozzie Newsome and wide receivers Webster Slaughter and Reggie Langhorne, Kemp was cut early in the pre-season schedule. 

But he would be called back to Cleveland three weeks after the Browns played their fourth and final pre-season game, Sept. 5 in Milwaukee against the Packers.

“Lindy believed in me, so when they went on strike Lindy called me,” Kemp recalled. “I came back down (from Canada) and really I was a player-coach on the field because nobody knew the system, especially in that short of time, like I did, so I was helping everybody, pointing them in the right direction and everything.”

After the games that were scheduled for the third week of the season were cancelled, weeks 4, 5 and 6 were played with replacement players who were mostly left out of work by the recent folding of the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes and the 1986 dissolution of the United States Football League, as well as others who had been preseason cuts.

In three games with the Browns, Kemp caught 12 passes for 224 yards. His best game came against the Bengals in Cincinnati, where he hauled in five passes for 70 yards and two touchdowns, in a 34-0 win. 

Following that game, the Browns – led by quarterback Bernie Kosar – went on to reach the AFC Championship game for a second consecutive season. With the Browns trailing Denver 38-31 with 1:12 left in the game, Earnest Byner was stripped of the ball at the 2-yard line by Broncos' defensive back Jeremiah Castille in a play since dubbed “The Fumble.”

Seventeen days after the Browns lost in heartbreaking fashion to the Broncos in the AFC Championship game, Tom Braatz, executive vice president of football operations for the Green Bay Packers, tabbed Infante as successor to head coach Forrest Gregg, who in 1980 had hired Infante in Cincinnati. Infante’s offense, quarterbacked by Ken Anderson, had led the Bengals to the 1981 AFC title, and a berth in Super Bowl XVI.

Infante wasted little time in reuniting himself with Kemp in Green Bay, where the one-time Pennsylvania Western University standout spent the rest of his professional career.

“It was cold, the people were very friendly, they loved us and I loved them,” Kemp told Packerland. “We had a great team. We just didn’t pull it all together at one time. One week, some players played great. The next week, other players played great. But, I think we weren’t really together as a locker room or we’d have won more.” 

In 62 games over four seasons with Infante in Green Bay, Kemp amassed 2,341 yards and six touchdowns on 182 receptions. 

But in 1988, Kemp wasn’t the only new wide receiver in Titletown. In April, the Packers had drafted Sterling Sharpe 7th overall.

“Well, you know, I was just clearing routes out for Sterling Sharpe and maybe Don (Majkowski) might throw to me, maybe he wouldn’t, but you play your role, so when it’s my turn I catch it,” Kemp said. “I have to catch everything because I don’t get too many balls. They have a Sterling Sharpe No. 1 draft pick. But me and Sterling were tight and I had a great time here in Green Bay.”

In four seasons under Infante, Kemp was the second-leading wide receiver behind Sharpe. His best season was Sharpe’s rookie campaign in 1988, when Kemp grabbed 48 passes – from both Majkowski and Randy Wright – for 620 yards. That season included Kemp’s best day as a pro – six catches for 108 yards, in an 18-6 win over Minnesota on Dec. 11 at Lambeau Field.  

As a member of the 1989 team, dubbed the “Cardiac Pack,” Kemp again hauled in 48 passes, this time for 611 yards and two scores. His best day that year came in the regular-season finale, played Dec. 24 in Dallas. Kemp grabbed six Don Majkowski throws for 85 yards, in a 20-10 win, which tied the Packers with Minnesota at 10-6.  

The following season, Kemp recorded 44 receptions for 527 yards and two touchdowns. His best game that season came on Nov. 11 against the Raiders in Los Angeles, where Kemp snagged four balls for 80 yards, including a 28-yard TD which gave Green Bay a 10-point fourth-quarter lead. 

In 1991 – his final season – Kemp totaled 42 receptions for 583 yards and two scores. His biggest day that year was an eight-catch, 66-yard day in Detroit on Sept. 8. And, with future MVP Brett Favre watching from the Falcons’ sideline as a backup, Kemp hauled in five passes for 86 yards and a TD, in a 35-31 loss in Atlanta on Dec. 1.

Kemp’s final catch as a pro came on Dec. 21, 1991, in a 27-7 win over the Vikings in Minnesota. Kemp recorded one catch that day for four yards. Infante was fired the next day by new GM Ron Wolf. Kemp was not re-signed by the Packers the following season.

“I went through some dark days after I left,” Kemp admitted to us. “I was probably depressed for maybe two years after I left. You know, you play football all your life and now you don’t have it and people don’t want to hire you because you don’t have job experience. The transition is pretty tough on everybody, even if they made enough money to be retired forever, it’s still tough because you played football all your life and now it’s gone,” Kemp added. “The camaraderie is gone and now you get to see your friends only maybe once or twice a year, if at all. It was a great experience here though. I loved it and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”