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On August 11, 1919, a score or more husky young athletes, called together by Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun, gathered in the dingy editorial room of the old Green Bay Press-Gazette building on Cherry Street and organized a football team. They didn't know it, but that was the beginning of the incredible saga of the Green Bay Packers.Lambeau and Calhoun struck the initial spark a few weeks before, during a casual street-corner conversation. It was apparently a "Why not get up a football team?" remark, but once they were interested they wasted no time.First they talked Lambeau's employer -- a war-time industry called the Indian Packing Company, where he worked as a shipping clerk for $250/month -- into putting up money for jerseys.Curly Lambeau
Because the company provided jerseys and permitted the use of its athletic field for practice, the club was identified in its early publicity as a project of the company. With this tie-in the name "Packers" was a natural, and Packers they have been ever since, although the Indian Packing Company had practically faded out of the picture before that first season was half over.That first season the team won 10 and lost only one, against foes from Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Games were played in an open field with no fences or bleachers, and interested fans "passed the hat." But the team was so successful by 1921 that Lambeau was backed by two officials of the packing plant in obtaining a franchise (Aug. 27, 1921) in the new national pro football league that had been formed in 1920. Cash customers didn't quite pay the freight and the team had to be forfeited at year's end.This was the first in a long series of troubles that the now famous team overcame, for in 1922 Lambeau gained other backers and bought the franchise back for $250, including $50 of his own money. Troubles continued during that season. One game was rained out and the insurance company wouldn't pay off because the official amount of rain was one one-hundredth of an inch short of that required in the policy.However, another storm late in the season, when the Packers were scheduled to play the Duluth Kelleys, threatened to throw Lambeau further into debt. But A.B. Turnbull, Green Bay Press-Gazette general manager, advanced Lambeau the Duluth guarantee. He then lobbied town businessmen ("The Hungry Five") behind the team, and formed the Green Bay Football Corporation.From those modest and somewhat tenuous beginnings, the Packers have gone on to earn national stature and virtual world-wide recognition by winning more championships (12) over the intervening 80-plus years than any team in pro football.These achievements, while representing a town of approximately 100,000 in competition with the country's largest markets, have endeared the Packers to the nation. The David vs. Goliath concept and the team's unique status as a publicly owned corporation has intrigued generations.The Packers' colorful saga spans 87 years from the "Iron Man" period of the first decade under founder Lambeau, to the present day, which finds Mike McCarthy presiding as the team's 14th head coach.Green Bay Packers - 1919Chapter 1: The Iron Man EraClarke Hinkle
With good financial backing, Lambeau picked up college stars from all over the country, plus some unknowns who turned out to be "greats." In 1929, tiny Green Bay won the first of three straight national professional football championships, pacing stalwarts from New York and Chicago in league standings (the playoff system began in 1933).The 1929-31 title teams featured all-time pro greats like Red Dunn, Verne Lewellen, Cal Hubbard, Bo Molenda, Jug Earp, Mike Michalske, Johnny (Blood) McNally, Bill Kern, Arnie Herber, Clarke Hinkle, Lavvie Dilweg, Tom Nash, Milt Gantenbein and Hank Bruder. In many games, players would play for almost the full 60 minutes. These teams were hailed all over the country as some of the greatest ever.Chapter 2: The Hutson Period
Trouble flared again in 1934, when a fan fell from the stands, sued and won a $5,000 verdict. After their insurance company went bankrupt, the Packers went into receivership and were just about to fold when Green Bay businessmen came to the rescue again, raised $15,000 in new capital and reorganized the club.About this time (1935), a rather slight, lanky end by the name of Don Hutson came to the club. He actually signed two contracts, with Green Bay and the Brooklyn Dodgers. But commissioner Joe Carr awarded Hutson to the Packers, because Green Bay's postmark was earlier.From his first game on, Hutson became the terror of the league and the secret of Green Bay's next three championships. His arrival and corresponding attendance increases allowed the team to buy itself out of receivership in 1935. With Herber and Cecil Isbell passing and Hutson catching anything they threw at him, despite any kind of a stop-Hutson defense, Green Bay won championships in 1936, 1939, and 1944.After Hutson's retirement, Packer fortunes again declined. The disastrous pro football war, between the NFL and the new All-America Football Conference, brought on another financial crisis after the 1949 season. From 1946-48, the financially strapped Packers lost two of their three No. 1 draft choices to the AAFC, unable to bid with the rival league. Desperate for new income, the Packers held an old-timers game and intra-squad scrimmage on Thanskgiving Day, 1949, and raised $50,000.In the midst of the turbulent times, Lambeau lost an internal power struggle -- which ultimately began when he used $25,000 to purchase Rockwood Lodge for training camp. Lambeau resigned, January 31, 1950, ending his 31-year run in Green Bay, to become the Chicago Cardinals' head coach.Chapter 3: Ronzani RegimeGene
Ronzani
Jack
Vanisi
To replace Lambeau, the Packers hired Gene Ronzani of the Bears, the most significant step in yet another major reorganization and rebuilding effort. Nearly $125,000 was raised in a giant 1950 stock sale all over the state. Under Ronzani, Green Bay's best season was 1952; the Packers were in the thick of the title chase until the season's last weeks. In 1953, the team played erratic ball and Ronzani resigned with two games remaining.Before he departed, though, Ronzani hired Jack Vainisi as full-time talent scout. Vainisi would receive credit for discovering the six Packers Hall of Famers drafted from 1953-58: C Jim Ringo, T Forrest Gregg, QB Bart Starr, HB Paul Hornung, FB Jim Taylor and LB Ray Nitschke.Chapter 4: Blackbourn Takes Over
The Packers overhauled their front office and coaching staff in 1954, hiring Verne Lewellen, all-time Packers great, attorney and businessman, as general manager. Reaching into the college ranks, Green Bay named Lisle Blackbourn, of Marquette University, its third coach. The Packers were 17-31 during Blackbourn's four years (1954-57).On April 3, 1956, voters approved a referendum to fund construction of a new stadium. The Packers dedicated the facility (renamed Lambeau Field in 1965), on September 29, 1957.Chapter 5: McLean Moves Up
Likable Ray "Scooter" McLean moved up from being an outstanding assistant coach to guide the destiny of the Packers for 1958. McLean resigned in December after a 1-10-1 record, the worst in Packers history, in his lone season as head coach.Chapter 6: The Lombardi Era
The Packers took their time after McLean's resignation choosing a new coach. Vainisi conducted Phase II of the 1959 draft by himself, as the team debated whether to hire a general manager as well as a coach, or one person for both positions. The search spanned from the CFL to the college ranks, and even included a GM application from Lambeau.On. January 28, when team president Dominic Olejniczak recommended to the committee a little-known New York Giants assistant, longtime committee member John Torinus replied, "Who the hell is Vince Lombardi?"Dominic Olejniczak
The committee, and the world, quickly found out. Within hours after his arrival on February 2, Lombardi told the committee, "I want it understood that I am in complete command here." Two days later, the Packers officially gave Lombardi both titles.In his first season, 1959, Lombardi went 7-5, winning unanimous 'Coach of the Year' recognition. Then in 1960, the Packers captured the Western Division title, only to lose the NFL title game at Philadelphia. However, Lombardi rebounded to win world championships in 1961, '62, '65, '66, and '67.His teams finished no lower than second from 1960-67 and became the standard of football excellence. Lombardi in nine years went 98-30-4 (.758), including 9-1 in postseason, winning his final nine playoff games.Chapter 7: Bengtson PeriodPhil Bengtson
Following the third consecutive title in 1967, Lombardi turned over the head coaching duties to Phil Bengtson and one year later announced that he was leaving Green Bay to become coach-GM of the Washington Redskins. Bengtson coached the Packers from 1968-70, compiling a 20-21-1 record. He resigned in December, 1970.Chapter 8: The Devine Days
Dan Devine, one of the nation's three most successful college coaches, succeeded Bengtson as head coach and general manager in January 1971. After settling for a 4-8-2 record during his first year, Devine and the Packers appeared on the road to new heights when 1972 produced a 10-4 record and the team's first Central Division title since 1967. But the Packers' Super Bowl hopes dissolved in the second half of 1973 and they slipped to 5-7-2. They continued their recession in 1974, going 6-8, and Devine resigned.Chapter 9: The Starr Trek
The most successful field general in pro football history, winning five world championships from 1961-67, Bart Starr accepted the challenge to lead the Packers out of the NFL wilderness, agreeing to a three-year contract as head coach and general manager, December 24, 1974. Starr asked for "the prayers and patience of Packer fans everywhere...We will earn everything else."Although he had a 4-10 record in 1975, the baptismal season of a massive rebuilding project, Starr gave fans new hope by assembling a sound organization and restoring a positive attitude, underscored by three victories in the last five games of the '75 season. He continued the resurgence in 1976, leading the Packers to a 5-9 record, highlighted by a three-game, mid-season winning streak. Major and key injuries slowed the comeback in 1977 but a strong finish produced a 4-10 mark. Hopes soared in 1978 when the Packers posted their first winning slate since 1972, an 8-7-1 record, only to be temporarily dampened in 1979 by a record rash of injuries which spawned a 5-11 mark. Another injury epidemic, one which saw 27 players on injured reserve during the course of the season, struck in 1980, forcing the Packers to settle for a 5-10-1 record.
Rebounding strongly in 1981, they rallied from a disappointing 2-6 start to mount one of the most dramatic comebacks in team history, closing with a 6-2 rush (an 8-8 mark), one win shy of the playoffs.The Packers continued the upsurge in 1982, when they qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 1972 by going 5-3-1 during the strike-interrupted season. They then embellished that performance by routing St. Louis 41-16 in the first round of the NFL's Super Bowl Tournament, before bowing to Dallas (37-26) despite a record-setting, 466-yard offensive effort. Starr was relieved of his head coaching duties December 19, 1983, after the Packers finished the season 8-8 and missed the playoffs on the season's final week.Chapter 10: The Gregg Era
On December 24, 1984, Forrest Gregg, a former Starr teammate and one of the premier offensive tackles in football history, became the Packers' ninth head coach. Gregg had led Cincinnati into Super Bowl XVI following the 1981 season. Gregg, whose 19-6 Cincinnati record over the 1981-82 seasons was the best in pro football, received a five-year contract.In taking over, he declared, "I took this job to field a winning team. That will happen."Gregg's prediction began to bear fruit in the second half of the 1984 season when the Packers rebounded from an injury-ridden 1-7 start to win seven of their last eight.
Because of injury and other complications, however, 1985 followed the '84 script, the Packers getting off to a 3-6 start before mounting a strong finish to again close at 8-8, winning five of their last seven.Gregg, convinced the time had come to rebuild a team that was 8-8 three straight years, and was "starting to get old," made sweeping personnel changes in 1986. The young Packers, their task complicated by injuries to key performers, got off to an 0-6 start, then began to mature in midseason and finished 4-12.Following the 1987 season, when the club finished third in the NFC Central (5-9-1), Gregg resigned (Jan. 15, 1988) to become head coach at his alma mater, Southern Methodist University.Chapter 11: Infante Signs On
Nineteen days later (Feb. 3), Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator Lindy Infante, recognized throughout the NFL as a brilliant innovator, signed a five-year contract. Plagued by turnovers and kicking problems, Infante's first team, in 1988, was 4-12, but left fans with hopes for the future by winning its last two games.Building on that positive note, Infante in 1989 led the Packers to a 10-6 record -- their best in 17 years -- and within one game of the playoffs, spicing that turnabout with a league-record four one-point victories.In 1990, subsequent high hopes for the team's first postseason berth in a non-strike year since 1972, evaporated when the Packers -- with a contending, 6-5 record after 11 games -- ended the year with five straight losses.The Packers' continued to decline in 1991 (4-12). New executive vice president/general manager Ron Wolf dismissed Infante December 22. Green Bay had hired Wolf, November 27, with full football operations authority.Chapter 12: The Holmgren Era
Wolf named Mike Holmgren, architect of San Francisco's four-time Super Bowl champions, to succeed Infante, January 11, 1992. Holmgren, sought by five other clubs, got a five-year contract.In his first season, 1992, the former USC field general directed the Packers to a 9-7 record and within sight of the playoffs. He became only the third Packers head coach with a winning record in his first season, punctuated by a six-game winning streak, the team's longest since 1965.Holmgren took his team to the playoffs in 1993 -- despite losing four starters to injury. Forging a second straight 9-7 record -- against a considerably more demanding schedule -- Green Bay got its first playoff berth in 10 years. In the first round, the Packers came from behind in the last minute to eliminate Detroit, 28-24. They then fell at Dallas, 27-17, in the divisional round.In 1994, the Packers registered a third consecutive 9-7 mark and second straight playoff trip -- the first time that had happened since the Titletown days of the '60s. Riding a three-game winning streak into the postseason, they parlayed a record defensive performance and a turnover-free offensive effort into a 16-12 victory over Detroit -- their first home playoff game since the 1982 season -- holding the incomparable Barry Sanders to minus-1 yard in 13 attempts. The Packers advanced without the services of All-Pro receiver Sterling Sharpe, whose neck injury, diagnosed after the regular-season finale, ended his brilliant Green Bay career. For a second straight year, the Packers' run ended in Dallas, 35-9.
Closing ranks with great results following Sharpe's loss, the 1995 Packers put together one of the hallmark seasons in their history. Winning six of their last seven games, they captured their first NFC Central Division crown since 1972, then made their best postseason showing in more than 28 years, forging all the way to the NFC Championship Game.En route, they closed the regular season 11-5 -- their best mark since the 1966 NFL championship club (12-2) -- and followed by dispatching the Falcons, 37-20, in a first-round playoff at Lambeau Field. Building on that triumph, the Packers mounted one of the premier performances in their postseason history, formally dethroning the defending Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers in their own stadium, 3Com Park, 27-17. Again, however, dreams of a Super Bowl floundered in Dallas, 38-27, in the NFC title game, after leading 27-24 at the end of three quarters.Putting nearly three decades of disappointment emphatically behind, the Packers rewarded their long-patient faithful in 1996. Shunting aside eight of their first nine foes, they swept to a 13-3 record and their second straight division championship. Then, they captured their first NFL title since 1967, dispatching New England, 35-21, in Super Bowl XXXI at the Louisiana Superdome.Displaying impressive consistency on both sides of the ball, they documented their superiority, outscoring three opponents 100-48 in a postseason sweep. Appropriately, the first two wins were before their Lambeau loyalists -- a 35-14 divisional triumph over the 49ers and a 30-13 win over the upstart Carolina Panthers in the NFC title game.In winning a 12th NFL championship, extending their own league record, the Packers joined an elite group of teams with three-or-more Super Bowls (Dallas, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Oakland and Washington).The Packers thus entered 1997 with an opportunity to win back-to-back Super Bowls for a second time -- and came breathtakingly close to achieving their objective. Sweeping to a second consecutive 13-3 mark, tying a club record with 13 wins, they primed for the playoffs by ending the season with five straight wins. After a third consecutive division title, they launched their bid at Lambeau Field in workmanlike fashion, turning back Tampa Bay in the divisional playoff, 21-7. The win padded their all-time home-field postseason record to 12-0, extending the longest such winning streak in pro football history. Forced to win on the road for a return to the ultimate game, the Packers smothered the 49ers on a soggy, rain-swept afternoon in San Francisco, 23-10. Garnering a berth in the Super Bowl, Green Bay held the Niners without an offensive touchdown.In a see-saw affair, Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego found the Packers trailing Denver at halftime, 17-14. Hopes of a repeat were high, however, when quarterback Brett Favre engineered an 85-yard drive, knotting the contest, 24-24, early in the fourth quarter. But the Broncos later scored with only 1:45 remaining and a last-minute Packers drive fell short when Favre's pass for tight end Mark Chmura fell incomplete inside the Denver 20, with only 28 seconds left, sealing the Broncos' 31-24 win.A third straight Super Bowl trip, a realistic goal at the outset, eluded the Packers in 1998, their 80th season. Historic accomplishment, however, did not as they advanced to the playoffs for the sixth year in a row, a team record, while posting a seventh consecutive winning season. Green Bay overcame multiple injuries, including the loss of Pro Bowl running back Dorsey Levens (out nine games) and center Frank Winters (stretch run and postseason), each with a broken leg. They set another team record by stretching their Lambeau Field winning streak to 25 games -- the second-longest in NFL history -- before falling to Minnesota Vikings October 5. They finished 11-5, equaling another team standard by posting a double-digit victory total for the fourth consecutive year (11-5 in 1995, 13-3 in both 1996 and 1997). The only other time Green Bay had strung together four seasons of 10-plus wins was 67 years earlier -- Lambeau's triple NFL champions of 1929-32 (12-0-1 in 1929, 10-3-1 in 1930, 12-2 in 1931 and 10-3-1 in 1932).In the wake of these considerable achievements, the Packers' season came to a dramatic and painful end in an NFC Wild Card game at San Francisco, when a 27-23 lead abruptly dissolved into a 30-27 49ers victory. Steve Young's 25-yard touchdown pass to Terrell Owens sealed the game with just three seconds left.Only five days later, Holmgren resigned to become head coach and direct football operations for the Seattle Seahawks.
