7/30/26 - Jeff Query

Name: Jeff Query

Team: Green Bay Packers

Position: Wide Receiver

Card Year: 1991

Card Maker:  NFL Pro Set

Card Number: 160

This has been a busier week than the past two had been so I'm glad to have pulled a card like that of this week's athlete - Jeff Query of the 1990 Green Bay Packers. I have a lot of these NFL Pro Set cards so it's not surprising another has come up. However, this one is special. When I first looked at the back of this card, I was convinced that was just Keefe from the Righteous Gemstones, but nope - that's the real hair of Jeff Query, a rare breed in the National Football league.

As it states on the back of the card, Query was drafted from Millikin University in the fifth round of the 1989 NFL draft. He remains the only player to ever have been drafted out of Millikin University, part of a small percentage of NFL players to have played college football at a division three school, and part of an even smaller percentage of NFL players to have been drafted out of a division three school. The 1989 draft was not a particularly strong draft for wide receivers. The most prolific wide receiver career that resulted this draft was that of Andre Rison out of Michigan State - a good but not great receiver. However, this does not negate Query's accomplishment of making an NFL roster. 

It should also be noted that he still has the 10th overall single game receiving performance (190 yards), the 8th and 10th overall single season receiving yards (783, and 830 yards respectively), and the 3rd overall career receiving yards (2548 yards) in Millikin University Football History. 

In his rookie year, Query was the WR3 behind Sterling Sharpe and Perry Kemp with Magic Don Majkowski, in his only season starting all 16 games, at quarterback. This is the Green Bay Packers in their final few seasons before the arrival of Brett Favre - territory that given my age, I'm not all that familiar with. As a Lions fan, perhaps I would have enjoyed it a bit more than the Favre years. In any event, Query saw some time at receiver in his first year while managing punt returns and occasional kick returns. Per the official 1989 Green Bay Packers season recap, he had some hiccups (5:50) as well as some successes (7:21) and (11:09).

His second season with the Packers was his most productive with the team despite there being a shake up at quarterback as Majkowski tore his rotator cuff in the 10th game of the season against the Cardinals. Majkowski was replaced by Anthony Dilweg who tossed Query this very pretty touchdown pass (2:35), one of his two for the season, against the Rams. Query played one more season for the Packers but was released from the team after the 1991 season, unfortunately for him, just one season before Brett Favre would end up the starter after another Majkowski injury. 

He was claimed off waivers by the Bengals for the 1992 season but only played as a receiver and was no longer returning punts, and was injured late in the season going on IR. He came back for his most productive career season in 1993 catching 56 balls for 654 yards and 4 touchdowns, starting all 16 games for the Bengals. Unfortunately, this was for a truly terrible Bengals team - one that only scored 14 offensive touchdowns all season. Query remained in Cincinnati for one more full season, and then in 1995 was released by the team and was signed by Washington where he would appear in one game, with no receptions. This would be the last stop of Jeff Query's career.

Jeff Query had an unlikely NFL career on some subpar teams with truly subpar quarterback situations. From what limited Linkedin research I could do, it appears that Jeff is now retired after a career with Subsea7, an offshore energy services company - that is, of course, assuming that there isn't another Jeff Query who graduated from Millikin University.

Sources

Pro Football Reference

Millikin University Football Records 

Jeff Query LinkedIn

7/26/26 - Rumeal Robinson

Name: Rumeal Robinson

Team: New Jersey Nets

Position: Point Guard

Card Year: 1993

Card Maker: Fleer 

Card Number: 136

So the last athlete's card I pulled, that of Hartford Whaler Adam Burt, led to a story that while was unexpected, was ultimately pretty tame. Rumeal Robinson's story, however, takes some turns that while certainly interesting, are far more unfortunate, both for himself and those around him than really those of any of the athletes I've profiled so far.

At least as far as the card is concerned - this one is pretty straightforward. No silly copy on the back, but some detailed stats and a nice action shot in front of Robinson's last name in glowing neon blue. This was still pretty early in his career in his first and only complete season with the New Jersey Nets - nothing nefarious has happened - yet anyway.

Rumeal Robinson was the star point guard for the 1989 University of Michigan National Championship team. He is most remembered for his overtime game winning free throws against Seton Hall to win the championship for Michigan. He did this despite the fact that on replay, it's very much unclear as to how he was fouled. This can be debated by any Michigan or Seton Hall fans reading this - it is not the focal point of this blog.

Robinson played one more season at Michigan, earning second team All American honors and going on to be drafted by the Atlanta Hawks as the 10th pick in the first round of the 1990 NBA Draft. He is also one of only eight players born in Jamaica to have played in the NBA.

While Robinson had two triple doubles during the 92-93 season, and was the March 14, 1993 Player of the Week, this season with the Nets was arguably the last season of what was a very limited amount of production in his career. He was traded in the middle of the 93-94 season to Charlotte and finished the season there. In the 95-96 season he signed as free agent with the Portland Trailblazers but was soon released and began a confusing cycle of contracts next with the Lakers, then Suns, and finally back to the Blazers. He never played close to a full season after the 92-93 season of this card with the Nets, and his NBA career was over by 1997. 

But here's the real story:

Well before any of his college successes or pro disappointments, Rumeal Robinson had been effectively abandoned by his mother at the age of 10 and adopted into the home of Helen and Louis Ford, who were both pillars of their Cambridge, Massachusetts community. The Fords had several foster children as well as their own children in the house and dedicated their lives to providing a stable childhood to them all. Robinson was able to grow, both as a person and an athlete under their care and in 1986 accepted an offer to play basketball at the University of Michigan. 

After being drafted by the Hawks in the 1990 draft, Robinson purchased both Helen and Lou their own Rolex watches and Mercedes. He moved into a large house in Atlanta and in a story not uncommon to many new pro athletes of the time, began to spend money faster than he was making it on any number of things - strippers, clothes, cars, dogs, cigars - really any luxury item. He moved from Atlanta to a high rise in Miami and continued this spending throughout the course of his struggling NBA career as well as for a few seasons spent outside of the country after the NBA no longer had a place for him, playing in Croatia, Italy, and Venezuela. By the end of his basketball career in 2002, he had spent everything that he had made.

Robinson did have a legitimately solid business idea in developing a flagship resort on the northern end of his native Jamaica, known as "Harmony Cove" and was skilled at getting investments from others, including asking his adoptive mother, Helen Ford, to take out a mortgage on her already paid-off home to help start the project. She believed in Rumeal and followed through on what she thought was the mortgage, but she actually signed paperwork that sold the house to Robinson's assistant. Robinson then ran an ongoing scheme involving home appraisers to 'sell' the house to others in his circle for increasingly larger sums - eventually up to one million dollars, pocketing the profits. Money that was supposed to go to the Harmony Cove project, but instead like his NBA earnings, got spent as quickly as it was made.

Beyond this, a friend of his got him in touch with a loan officer at a small bank in Iowa, Community State Bank, who had money problems of his own. Robinson was willing to kick back some of the money he wished to take out, for the officer to overlook his credit and expedite the time to process the loan. This occurred repeatedly for several loans of various amounts, with the loan officer eventually making around $100,000 in kickbacks before being found out by the company and ended up facing two years in prison. Rumeal unsurprisingly made very few payments on any of these loans, and he too quickly found himself in a courtroom facing charges of federal wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and issuing false statements to financial institutions. 

Helen Ford attended the hearing to testify against Rumeal after she had been evicted from her own home, the home that Rumeal Robinson grew up in, upon finding out that she had been swindled when Robinson asked her to file for the new mortgage. The Harmony Cove project had never advanced beyond the fundraising phase, with all of that money stolen and spent, and Robinson willing to screw over his own mother in order to maintain his spending habits. As a result, Robinson was given the maximum six and a half year sentence in federal prison for his crimes and was released in 2016. Helen Ford was still allowed to live in the house that had been hers and paid off, but was then forced to make monthly payments to be able to do so. Robinson has a LinkedIn page showing him to be in the Greater Boston area and working for "Omnicrom LLP" a company that I haven't been able to find any further information on. 

This was certainly not where I had expected this story to go, and certainly not where I would want it to go given the people, especially Helen Ford, who were harmed by Robinson's actions. My initial thought when pulling his card was, "oh a guy from the 90s Nets? This will be bad". It turns out I was right, just in ways that I never would have expected. While this was a gripping story - the first where I could watch a TV documentary in doing research (Check out the American Greed Episode on this linked below if you have Peacock) I hope the next blog is on an athlete with a bit more of an upbeat of a story. 

 Sources

University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library 

College Basketball Reference 

Pro Basketball Reference 

Detroit Free Press - Mitch Albom Archive 

American Greed - Season 11 Episode 8 

FBI Archives

ESPN Article - Bringing Down the House 

Rumeal Robinson LinkedIn

 

7/21/26 - Adam Burt

Name: Adam Burt

Team: Hartford Whalers

Position: Defenseman

Card Year: 1995

Card Maker: Topps 

Card Number: 184

So this is an interesting one. I like when I can find out pretty easily what guys are up to in the current day, and that certainly was the case with the player on this week's card, Adam Burt from the 94-95 Hartford Whalers. 

Aesthetically, there's a lot to like in this card series - the beveled transparent team name, the gold foil scratched script font for the athlete name, the Hartford Whalers logo in general.  You'll never convince me anything about the Carolina Hurricanes is better than the Whalers, regardless of Stanley Cups won. The Whaler's logo is just a great sports logo. But that is not my primary focus here. We're here to learn a little bit about the athlete on the card, defenseman Adam Burt.

Burt was born in Detroit (just like me!) and played pee-wee hockey for the Detroit Compuware team (a company I vaguely remember existing growing up!) before eventually being drafted by Hartford in 1987 after playing with the North Bay Centennials in the Ontario Hockey League alongside other future successful NHL players - Kevin Hatcher of the Hatcher Brothers, and Darren Turcotte. He saw a little bit of playing time towards the end of the 1988-89 season but his real rookie season was 1989-1990, playing 63 games with the Whalers. The card states that he was an NHL All Rookie Team selection, however from what I found, this was not the case, but maybe this was referencing a different publication? Who is to say?

Burt had a successful career as a defenseman for Hartford, up through the end of the team's existence before becoming the Hurricanes at the end of the 1998 season. He didn't have any individual seasons that were too statistically significant, but he had good size and wasn't afraid to fight when called upon. A quick youtube search finds videos of Burt scrapping with some of the most likely suspects of 1990s hockey, Rick Tocchet, Darren McCarty, Dale Hunter, and Joey Kocur just to name a few. But more interestingly, Burt also squared up with Wayne Gretzky during a five on five brawl during his rookie year, despite initially backing off and Gretzky hanging on, at least as he's told the story. 

Burt played for the Whalers, and then the Hurricanes through part of the 1998-99 season when he was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers for winger Andrei Kovalenko. He only spent one more season with the Flyers, but in that time, he ended up playing in the longest NHL game of the modern era - a playoff game in the 2nd round of the 99-00 playoffs against the Pittsburgh Penguins that went into 5 overtimes. Fortunately for Burt and the rest of the team, the Flyers prevailed with a 2-1 win, thanks to a Keith Primeau goal in the 5th OT. The Flyers won the series and made it to the conference finals, only to lose to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions, the New Jersey Devils.

After that season with the Flyers, Burt was traded to the Atlanta Thrashers, but suffered a herniated disc that required surgery during the 00-01 season. He officially retired from the NHL in 2002 after a solid 12ish year career as a reliable, occasionally chippy, veteran defenseman. 

But the story doesn't end there. When doing the research on Adam Burt, fairly recent articles popped up among the hockey reference sites and wikipedia page because Adam Burt is now (and has been for some time)...a Christian Minister! After 9/11, Burt was called upon to act as a Pastor at his church's then newest location in Manhattan NYC despite having no formal training. He is now the lead pastor of the Every Nation Church in Morris Plains, New Jersey. But wait there's more!

In 2009, New York Jets defensive tackle Kenyon Coleman attended Burt's church and asked him to 'try out' for a position as the Jets' team chaplain, in which he had to compete against other clergymen to win the position, and he did! From what I could find, he has been the team chaplain ever since (however this position was not listed on the Jets website so do not quote me). While I don't doubt Burt's efforts, if there was a team that God had completely forsaken, I think most folks would agree that it is the New York Jets. 

Finally in 2026, Burt wrote an inspirational book with a title inspired by the lengthy playoff game he played with the Philadelphia Flyers - The Longest Game and claims to draw from Burt's time in the NHL as well as his experience as a pastor. A preview can be viewed at the link provided above on the Every Nation church's website.

All in all, this was a fun rabbit hole to go down. I always like when I can find recent updates on players, and depending on the magnitude of their careers, it's sometimes a lot easier than others. I didn't have the highest expectations when I pulled out a Hartford Whalers' defenseman whose name I didn't recognize, but people will surprise you which has absolutely been the case in learning about Hartford Whaler and New York Jets Team Chaplain, Adam Burt. 

Sources

Hockey Reference 

Hockey DB

NHL.com Interview 

UPI Archives 

Every Nation Church Bio 

Christian Broadcasting Network 

7/16/26 - Kent Hrbek

 

Name: Kent Hrbek "Herbie"

Team: Minnesota Twins

Position: First Base / Designated Hitter

Card Year: 1993

Card Maker: Topps 

Card Number: 9

I've returned after some time out of town, by picking career Minnesota Twins slugger, Kent Hrbek. It was a lucky pull as I've recently been feeling that the players selected have had far too many vowels in their names. But I digress! This card is from 1993 - almost the very end of Hrbek's career with the Minnesota Twins (He retired after 14 seasons, all with the Twins, in 1994), and while the 1992 season was a bit less productive than the recent previous seasons, he still hit 15 home runs in 112 games. I appreciate the notes on the card that Hrbek 'enjoyed' both 17 and 23 game hitting streaks at points in his career. It's really not enough just to achieve something - you're hoping guys are having a nice time as well.

Hrbek was born and grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota and was drafted by the Twins in the 17th round of the 1978 draft out of Kennedy High School. After a few years in the Twins farm system, Hrbek made 24 game appearances in 1981. In 1982, his true rookie season, Hrbek batted .301 with 23 home runs and 92 RBIs earning his only All Star game appearance and finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting, losing to Cal Ripken Jr. but finishing one place ahead of Wade Boggs.

Hrbek was productive throughout the 80s despite only playing more than 150 games in a season once in his career. In 1984 he was runner up in the American League MVP voting behind World Series Champion Pitcher Willie Hernandez of the Detroit Tigers. While he never again made an All Star game, nor finished high in MVP voting, Hrbek was on both the 1987 and 1991 World Series championship teams, with 1987 being his best home run hitting year with 34 in the regular season as well as this being the year he hit his iconic World Series game six grand slam. Whereas he is known for this play during the 1991 World Series against Atlanta, which if you read the comments is infuriating Braves fans to this day. 

Hrbek was often injured throughout his career and retired in the 1994 lockout season at the fairly young age of 34. His number was retired by the Twins in 1995, only the 3rd number retired by the team at the time. As of 2021 he was still employed by the Twins organization in a mostly representative role, and still has his namesake restaurant at Target Field. In April 2025 he suffered a stroke just days after another Twins hero, Tony Oliva also had a stroke. Both Hrbek and Oliva have recovered.

Despite that frightening setback, Kent Hrbek continues to enjoy his retirement from baseball while still being very much a part of the Twins organization. Having learned this much about him, I believe he did really enjoy those 17 and 23 game hitting streaks, among so much else he accomplished in his time with the Twins.

Sources:

Baseball Reference

Twins Trivia 

ESPN Classic 

Minnesota Twins Retired Numbers 

Minnesota Good Age Profile 

CBS News 

Fox 9 Interview