Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins had an opportunity to meet Bart Starr, and he didn’t miss it. Now Cousins is this year’s recipient of the Athletes in Action/Bart Starr Award.

The award has been presented annually since 1989 to “the NFL player who best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field and in the community.”

With his team at Lambeau Field to play the Green Bay Packers in his second NFL season as the backup quarterback for the Washington Redskins, Cousins met Starr on Sept. 15, 2013.

“We took the field as the visitor team, and he was standing by the Packers tunnel, waiting for their team to take the field,” Cousins recounted to reporters on Wednesday. “And we were just standing around waiting, so I said, ‘You know, I may never get to meet Bart Starr again,’ so I ran down toward their tunnel and just tapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand, introduced myself and just told him, basically, ‘Well done.’ Well done on the life he’s lived, and not only what he’d done on the football field, but who he was as a man and person and just the example he set and really the foundation he built for our league.

“To win an award that has his name on it is a great honor, and then what the award stands for and what Bart stands for really means a great deal to me.”

Starr was a Sidney Lanier High School and Alabama quarterback who had a Pro Football Hall of Fame career with Green Bay.

Starr played for the Packers from 1956 through 1971 and was Green Bay’s coach from 1975 through 1983.

With coach Vince Lombardi, Starr led the Packers to five NFL championships, including victories in the first two Super Bowls. He won the NFL’s Most Valuable Player Award in 1966 and was the MVP of the first two Super Bowls. Starr joined Johnny Unitas and Sonny Jurgensen as the quarterbacks on the NFL’s All-1960s team and entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.

Starr died at age 85 on May 26, 2019, in Birmingham.

Cousins will receive the award at the 36th annual Super Bowl Breakfast on Feb. 11, the day before Super Bowl LVII, at the Desert Ridge Marriott Resort in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.