Steve Okoniewski, former Green Bay Packers defensive tackle, dies at 74

Steve Okoniewski found out in an odd way that he was switching from the Bills to the Packers. He was home, eating at a diner in Missoula, Mont. It was late on a July night, but he wasn’t worrying about football. A labor strike had closed down all the NFL training camps.

He said another guy walked into the cafe and showed him the sports section, with the headline about how the Bills had traded him to the Packers. Somebody forgot to let him know.

“Honestly, I about fell over,” Okoniewski recalled to a reporter a few years ago. That’s how his career with the Packers got started.

On Tuesday, his old teammates and long-time Green Bay fans mourned his death. Okoniewski was 74. After a six-year career in the NFL, the defensive tackle turned to a new career as a football coach, educator and high school principal.

He was a standout offensive tackle at Montana in the early 1970s. And decades later, he is still the highest-drafted Grizzlies player in team history. The Falcons selected Okoniewski in the second round of the 1972 NFL Draft. Okoniewski then played for the Bills, Packers and Cardinals.

The Montana football Twitter account shared the news of his death, writing

“We lost a Montana legend. Steve Okoniewski was a Grizzly All-American and 2nd-round NFL Draft pick in 1972. After a six-year NFL career, he became an educator and a state-champion high school football coach in Montana and Wisconsin. Our hearts are with his family.”

We lost a Montana legend.

Steve Okoniewski was a Grizzly All-American and 2nd-round NFL Draft pick in 1972.

After a six-year NFL career, he became an educator and a state-champion high school football coach in Montana and Wisconsin.

Our hearts are with his family. pic.twitter.com/EuEoel6yJ8

— Montana Griz Football (@MontanaGrizFB) February 26, 2024

After retirement, Okoniewski lived close to Packers

The Montana Football Hall of Fame inducted Okoniewski was inducted in 2021. By then, he was a long-time resident of Wisconsin. He worked as a principal and a volunteer coach at a school a short drive away from Green Bay.

Packers great Bart Starr coached Okoniewski’s final weeks with the team. Okoniewski was Starr’s final cut of the 1976 training camp.

“He’s not blessed with the most physical talent, but there’s not a harder worker,” Starr said at the time. “You’d like to be able to transplant his heart into some other people.”

Okoniewski then coached and taught with that heart, helping high school kids who lived in his new hometown, the one he learned about from reading it in a newspaper.

“I didn’t play on successful teams, and I wasn’t the most talented player,” Okoniewski said in an interview in 2010. “I had to work extra hard because I didn’t have the natural abilities. . . . 

“But I’m proud to say, I was a Green Bay Packer and live in Green Bay.”