Before his NFL career, Bakken played football at Madison West High School in Madison, Wisconsin. He went on to play three seasons at the University of Wisconsin, where he played on the 1960 Rose Bowl team as a sophomore and led the Big Ten in punting average in 1960 and 1961. He was named to the Madison (Wisconsin) Sports Hall of Fame in 1984, and was later inducted into the UW Athletic Department-National W Club Hall of Fame.[2]
Professional career
Bakken was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams in the seventh round of the 1962 NFL draft.[3] He did not make the team and was instead picked up by the St. Louis Cardinals, where he played his entire NFL career. He played 17 seasons, scoring a total of 1,380 points while never missing a game between 1963 and 1978. He cracked the 100-point threshold in a season three times (1964, 1967, and 1973) and was selected to kick in the Pro Bowl four times. For a time, he was president of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA).[4]
Bakken was the first NFL kicker to attempt nine field goals and successfully convert seven in a Week 2 28–14 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers at Pitt Stadium on September 24, 1967. That single-game field goal record was broke by Rob Bironas with eight in a game in 2007.[5]
^"1962 Los Angeles Rams". databaseFootball.com. Archived from the original on April 11, 2007. Retrieved July 18, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
