Green Bay Packers: Legends in Green and Gold
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About this ebook
William Povletich
Showcasing the Packers colorful history, author William Povletich uses rare photographs to visually narrate this classic story of David versus Goliath, as played out on the pro football gridirons of the 20th century. Povletich is a lifelong Packer Backer and award-wining documentary producer. His latest film, Henry Aaron�s Summer Up North, debuted at the 2005 Wisconsin Film Festival to rave reviews.
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Green Bay Packers - William Povletich
Kerschner.)
INTRODUCTION
Their football legacy is second to none—12 NFL championships, 25 Hall of Famers, and names like Lombardi, Lambeau, and Favre that are synonymous with a winning tradition. In a day where big money and ever-increasing television markets dictate escalating player salaries and team relocations, the Green Bay Packers continue to succeed as a professional sports anomaly. While surviving certain bankruptcy, enduring numerous seasons of mediocrity and playing in the smallest market of any major sports team in America, the Green Bay Packers have risen to become recognized as one of the greatest franchises in sports history.
The fact that these achievements have come while representing a community of approximately 100,000 residents and competing against teams from the country’s largest cities, the Green Bay Packers have endeared themselves to the nation’s football fans as the only publicly owned sports franchise in the United States.
Green Bay Packers: Legends in Green and Gold chronicles the team’s phenomenal successes, heartbreaking letdowns, and legendary moments from their inauspicious inception in 1919 to their unprecedented 12th NFL championship against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI. Through the use of rare photographs, the Packers colorful history will showcase the classic story of David versus Goliath played out on the professional football gridirons of the 20th century.
Photograph of Curly Lambeau courtesy of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.
ONE
Birth of a Legacy
The Curly Lambeau Era
1919–1949
Those who witnessed the early years of the Green Bay Packers on such gridirons as the Polo Grounds, Wrigley Field, and Griffith Stadium usually looked upon them as a colorful and gutsy team from that little town in Wisconsin. Even though the Packers had found success in their first two seasons as a town team, there was a definite big-city disdain for their civic pride background when they entered the new national professional football league in 1921. Many questioned how Green Bay would produce a top-flight franchise in such a small community compared to the financially secure teams from Chicago and Minneapolis.
Those big-city owners had reason to question the Packers’ ambitious leader, Earl Curly
Lambeau, when he applied for a franchise. Aside from Green Bay, the smaller communities that supported professional teams during those formative years all eventually folded under the financial pressures. Within a few years of entering what became the NFL, teams from Muncie, Indiana; Akron, Ohio; and Rock Island, Illinois, were no more. If the Packers were to survive in professional football, the team would have to prove itself immediately and wouldn’t be afforded a second chance.
The inauspicious beginnings of the Green Bay Packers can be traced back to the evening of August 11, 1919. Leaving Notre Dame after his freshman year of college to work at the local Indian Packing Company, Earl Curly
Lambeau longed to continue playing the game he loved as a star athlete at Green Bay’s East High School.
(Photograph courtesy of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.)
Along with local sports editor George Calhoun, Lambeau gathered together a group of local athletes in the editorial room of the old Green Bay Press-Gazette building. It was during this initial meeting that the foundation was laid to create the Green Bay Packers football organization.
(Photograph courtesy of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.)
Curly’s employer at the time, the Indian Packing Company, provided the team with finances for team jerseys and equipment. Because of the initial sponsorship, the club was immediately identified in its early publicity as a project of the company. The tie-in name, Packers, quickly became a natural fit as a team nickname. Lambeau, a Notre Dame alum, chose his alma mater colors of blue and gold for the team uniforms.
(Photograph courtesy of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.)
In the Packers inaugural season of 1919, the team won 10 games and lost only one. They competed against other town teams from Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. In a very casual atmosphere, games were played in open fields as interested fans passed the hat
to financially support their favorite team. There were days when the collected sums reached upwards of $200. At season’s end, each Packer received a magnificent sum of $16.75 and anxiously awaited the start of the 1920 season.
(Photograph courtesy of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.)
Those early Packers teams played their home games at Hagemeister Park, which was nothing more than a big vacant lot with a football gridiron marked on it. The modest field had no ushers, no cheerleaders, no bands and no seats. Most fans parked their cars and watched or stood alongside the sidelines practically spilling out onto the field of play. Despite a successful campaign in 1920 that saw the Packers outscore their opponents 227-24, the cash ledgers showcased nothing.
(Photograph courtesy of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.)
But thanks to their success as a town team, Lambeau was backed by two officials of the packing plant and obtained a franchise in the newly formed American Professional Football Association. As the 1921 season progressed, the Packers soon discovered that passing the hat didn’t quite pay the bills in the pros. After only one season, the team was deep in debt and the professional football franchise was forfeited at year’s end.
(Photograph courtesy of the Neville Public Museum of Brown County.)
It was the first in a long series of monetary troubles for the small-town Packers. With the help of the Press-Gazette’s sports editor George Calhoun, Lambeau recruited other financial backers and bought the franchise back for $250, in time for the newly reorganized and renamed National Football League’s 1922 season. Later that year, the Packers canceled a game due to inclement weather—a decision that almost broke the franchise for good. It was later discovered that the team’s insurance policy would not provide compensation, because the rain total was one-hundredth of an inch short of the