Highlights Archives
Eighty-eight Years with the Pack
On August 11, 1919, Earl "Curly" Lambeau and George Calhoun gathered a group of young athletes together and made football history. For it was in a back room of the old Green Bay Press-Gazette building on Cherry Street that the Green Bay Packers football team was organized. This weekend, as the Packers travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers in preseason action, we look back on the team's founding and look ahead to a new book for kids on Curly Lambeau, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
The idea for a football team had come a few weeks earlier during a casual conversation between Lambeau and Calhoun. Lambeau's employer, the Indian Packing Company, agreed to provide jerseys and to allow use of its athletic field, and the club soon became identified with the company. With the company sponsor, the name "Packers" seemed an obvious choice. The team won 10 of their first 11 games, and their success led Lambeau to obtain a franchise in the American Professional Football Association (later to become the National Football League) in 1921. Financial troubles, however, forced him to forfeit the team by the end of the year.
But in 1922, with the help of Green Bay Press-Gazette general manager Andrew B. Turnbull, Lambeau found new backers, known as the "Hungry Five," who regained the franchise and formed the Green Bay Football Corporation. This unique situation, creating a corporation out of the team, makes the Packers the only publicly owned professional sports team and makes it virtually impossible for the team to ever leave the city. Lambeau was the team's star player from 1921 to 1928 before going on to coach the team for a total of 31 seasons. Lambeau's story is the subject of the newest book for young readers in the Badger Biographies Series, Curly Lambeau: Building the Green Bay Packers by Stuart Stotts. Watch for the book this fall!
The Packers have won more league championships than any other professional football team, and are the only team to win three straight titles — a feat they accomplished twice (1929-1931 and 1965-1967). Lambeau led the Packers to championships in 1929, 1930 and 1931, and after signing future Hall of Fame receiver Don Hutson in 1935, won three more titles. The Packers of the 1960s, under Coach Vince Lombardi, were one of the most dominant NFL teams in history, winning five league championships in seven years. Green Bay also won the first two Super Bowls (1966 and 1967), and in recognition of his accomplishments, the Super Bowl trophy was named after Vince Lombardi. The Packers returned to playoff contention in the 1990s under Coach Mike Holmgren. Holmgren's Packers won the 1997 Super Bowl, but lost the chance to repeat in 1998.
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:: Posted August 10, 2007
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