[Music] baby in the caramel your life oh you always got a thin slice like it got along another one so you can hang on ma they were here before the National Football League these Green Bay Packers under Curly Lambeau the Packers have been great for the NFL you would not have the NFL without their Green Bay Packers its small-town America its blue-collar America it's owned by the fans the interesting thing in with Packers history is there's so much Legend and lore Green Bay is a very religious a very religious City the first religion is the Packers I consider it the greatest story in sports gentlemen is the most important way we have [Applause] [Music] you when you talk about football in Green Bay you always talk about the Packers and you always talk about 1919 but football and Green Bay goes back to the late 1800s the Tallinn team era just groups of young men who wanted to play this new game most cities across the United States at least in the Midwest and the East had town football teams Green Bay included there's an article in a Green Bay paper in 1895 it talks about the first amateur football team playing and how people love the game right from the start they would follow the football game passionately until the snow flies some years they played a game of two other years they might have played five or six it's kind of haphazardly organized there's nothing to aspire to you just play ball beat the stuffings out of each other and then have a beer afterwards they would make dates for a game but sometimes the game never came off depending what the weather was like or depending if the team could actually show up for that scheduled date in Green Bay amateur football is loosely organized and is not connected to the original Packers when the Packers were founded in 1919 they just started out it's another one of those Talent Eames this was just going to be the Indian packing team nobody had any idea what they were creating a recognized anomaly not only in the NFL but the entire history of sports a legacy unlike any other people can take a tremendous amount of pride in the fact that you have this small city having this great big larger-than-life football franchise can never happen again it's kind of amazing that it happened the first time the Packers are explained by fate in random odds and a miracle of sorts they somehow managed to survive and yet it's not only survived it's been the most successful team in the history of League a single greatest achievement of the Green Bay Packers is that they're still in Green Bay what is it about Green Bay Wisconsin the place in its people that create such an unlikely history the late 1700s and into the early 1800s the French are primarily settling with the Native Americans that are here there wasn't a lot of ethnic until the 1840s and the Germans and the Irish and the Dutch started to come into the area the Belgians were a little bit later they wanted to become Americans and therefore they wanted to learn English and become Americanized because this was going to be their home so they come immigrants whose perseverance bring them to a little settlement on the bay of Lake Michigan here they build their homes build their lives and Curly Lambeau builds a football team curly in his family they were ruined we would call Walloon Belgians sure the french-speaking Belgians they were very itinerant family wherever there was work you went to work you learn to trade in terms of being a Mason or a plumber or an electrician it's a blue-collar town with blue-collar people blue-collar values a great place to raise a family everybody felt like they were the same there were four kids in every house if you didn't have four it was like there was something wrong with you the Lambos much like other Belgian immigrants a Catholic family of hearty stock lived on the northeast side of Green Bay where a lot of the Belgian immigrants had settled truly was baptized at st. Peter and Paul it's a hard life maybe that's why they're drawn to his physical brutal sport it was kind of a rough game and I think for some reason people like to see violence for Curly's grandfather violence is inherent on 1891 seven years before curly was born his grandfather Victor Lambeau encountered his wife on a Monday afternoon as reported in the daily State Gazette October 5th Victor Lambeau the well-known East River mason and contractor met his wife at the corner of Main Street in Webster Avenue in a jealous rage drawing a revolver from his hip pocket shot and injured her then committed suicide Murray his wife lived for almost another thirty years born April 9th 1898 Earl Curly Lambeau is born in a small brick home on the east side of Green Bay fittingly the same side of town on which the Packers begin a dynasty Green Bay came about as a result of a merger between city of Fort Howard which was the west side and the city of Green Bay which was the east side I married up West Side girl and that was that was probably a breach of etiquette the Fox River runs right through Green Bay if you go from one side of town to the other side of town it almost felt like you needed a passport if you were East Sider or West Sider there was a difference in Green Bay I mean that River went right up to heaven a lifeline for cargo and transportation the Fox River is also the dividing line between booming business and bawdy Affairs they had not merged until right around the turn of the century so there was there was always that east-west issue when they were separate cities they didn't like each other once they were merged people on each side of the river still didn't like each other it was working class who lived on the west side and it was more professional people yeah I've done the east side I say the upper class was on the east side and we worked really hard on the west side and I'm not sure what they eat for many years families would say well I just don't go over to the west side I don't know anything over there I don't know anybody over there how often do you see your brother well I never see him he lives on the west side you know we only had two high schools east and west side that was a very heated rival of real there was quite a competition there because there were very good football players on both sides of the river east and west as all football the week of that east-west game if you wandered on the opposite side of the city you could be in trouble if you were our West Sider on the east side and somebody spotted you the headline in the Green Bay Press Gazette sets the tone strangers not wanted at practice field both high school football squads are being protected against spotters student patrols guard the practice stunts every afternoon and strangers are very politely told that their absence who would be appreciated even though there was a rivalry the spirit was good it was fierce but there was a pride in each side there's no question that that rivalry fueled the interest in football in Green Bay the passions that people still have for the game a football star at Green Bay East High School Curly Lambeau is a name the West High School Wildcats will not soon forget started for years which was unusual in a senior year he led East to a 7-6 victory over West before 5,000 people he scored the only touchdown he so only touched on kicked the extra point and it was hailed as this great high school phenom to quote the 1916 East high school annual captain Curly Lambeau his trusty tow and wonderful ground gaining ability gave East High the first football victory over crosstown rival West High in eight conscious after his senior year Curley was going to the University of Wisconsin to play football he showed up perhaps briefly never checked out equipment never practiced never enrolled at the University and went back home why don't know but he had to know before he went there that freshmen were not eligible to play giving it another try lambo enrolls at Notre Dame Curley played as a freshman in the fall of 1918 at the University of Notre Dame for Knute Rockne he played his freshman year down there and hit a really good freshman season but he had contacted tonsillitis in January 1919 Curley returns to South Bend Indiana before the start of the second semester in a letter from curly to his sweetheart miss marguerite van kessel from his sickbed in Soren Hall at the University of Notre Dame February 5th 1919 travelling here seemed to make things worse and every night I had a fever it kept up until a week ago Sunday when my neck started to swell the next morning I saw a doctor he told me to rush to the hospital at once then I spent eight days of torture and suffering this will be all I write tonight as I am rather lazy and discouraged but Marguerite as long as you remain true to me and love me as much as ever I am still happy he think closes professing his love he dropped out of school and never went back there's different stories about why he left school that's something I don't think we'll ever know the answer to Curley returns to Green Bay and goes back to work at the Indian packing company he was working as a clerk of some sort he was getting paid apparently pretty well and going back to Notre Dame didn't seem to be an option he was married on Saturday August 16th 1919 Curly Lambeau was passionate about football and he wanted to put together a team and he wanted to keep playing he ran into George Whitney Calhoun Calhoun national what he's gonna do but football he said well you know I'd I'd like to play there's all kinds of myths or legends about how George Calhoun and Curly Lambeau met nobody really knows whether it was on a street corner or in a bar or whatever casually said well why don't you start your own table a bond is struck between green baize new team and the city's daily newspaper the Green Bay Press Gazette without curly there is no Green Bay Packers and he had the help of course George Calhoun who was a editor at the Green Bay Press Gazette he came right out of central casting he's the guy that you've seen in every movie from the 30s the 40s that was George Cohen there was a cloud of blue smoke hovering throughout the newsroom and it was it was memorable I never really had a conversation with him other than I care how are you doing it in those days the men didn't think much of women in the newsroom you like to drink mostly beer he liked to chew cigars he was fond of Limburger cheese just a good crusty old newspaper man you gotta love him he's just one of the editors a guy who works in the office putting out the paper he's interested in sports and he wants to make this thing go August 11th 1919 the Green Bay Packers organized the inaugural meeting is held at the press cassette building in a dingy room on the second floor Curly Lambeau was there George Calhoun the Press Gazette was there hard to say who else was there was that the press cos that it was that date and beyond that much speculation which makes the Packers history even more fascinating because there's so much myth to it some of the mystery as to the allure we're never going to really know what was said in that meeting with Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun that mystery doesn't take anything away it adds to the history that's all we know for certain of the first meeting of what may be the most storied professional sports franchise in North America more is known about the second meeting held three days later the follow up meeting was the 14th been from that point forward the press cos that covered the team probably as thoroughly as any paper in any pro football city Carrodus sorry the paper and calling for a meeting of players that were interested he actually listed a number of players own said and intimated that they better report on 25 young Huskies showed up and they started practicing three nights a week Gus Rose now a one-armed player who was a teacher at West High School the Dwyer brothers Dutch in Riggi from a Westside railroad family and wally lad row who worked at Indian packing with Curly Lambeau was named captain Calhoun was named manager they were just starting an amateur town team Indian packing company was going to sponsor him and they were gonna play football curly Lambo is the organizer the coach he went to his boss Frank Peck and asked him if he would help with sponsoring team read to buy some equipment some uniforms probably righted some footballs give me a packing sponsor the package for two years both of those years were their semi-pro seasons it was not any more glamorous it wasn't any bigger than that the end the press Cosette's for a story it refers to the Indian packing team as both the Packers and the Indians two days later paper refers to the team only as the Packers where did the town teams end and the Packers begin for me it's always been 1919 that's the first time that they were called the Packers it's the first time Curly Lambeau was captain of the team Green Bay has an official football team the Green Bay Press Gazette is fully immersed in the happenings my grandfather was a lawyer in Green Bay he got the idea of starting a paper called the Free Press he later merged it with the the Gazette and it became the Press Gazette Andrew Turnbull who was a publisher of the Press Gazette was a big promoter of the Packers from the get-go Turnbull became one of the key architects of the corporate side of the Packers Green Bay Press Gazette had more to do with the Packers surviving in the 1920s than the Packers did the standing behind the Packers is just part of making Green Bay something special they had no employees of an other than Curly Lambeau all the other work was done by volunteers the businessmen in town actually the Press Gazette served as the Packers offices throughout the 1920s the paper is writing about a team it is basically running and its editors have a front row seat what george whitney calhoun does for this town football team he really drums up interest in them he knew that the Packers were going to be a big item for the Green Bay Press Gazette his primary job is to write stories for the press to Zeb to get Green Bay excited about the Packers Calhoun was de facto the marketing manager for the Green Bay Packers and my dad was right there working for him they would literally call up the sports writers and the editors and shill Packers are coming to town you know it's gonna be a big game sell some tickets the games that they played they like to hype them up they certainly sold papers for the Press Gazette unlike any other event in Green Bay so it was a symbiotic relationship in that sense cow could tell story after story after story about the Packers you always got good coverage every city went to Cal it was the first PR person for the for the Packers there's no doubt about that he writes all kinds of publicity materials he reaches out to other teams he gets information when the Packers are finally in a league he's the contact to the league the two people that are responsible for starting the Green Bay Packers Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun one's a PR guy that spins the story and the other is a habitual liar Curley knew he was lying to you but he was so good at it you just wanted to believe him and you wrote it down and wrote it as though it was the truth what he told when he was being honest or not you're not exactly entirely sure who knows what the real truth was Green Bay's citizens who stand witness to these early seasons could never have imagined the Packers would ever reach beyond the Fox River at this point the Packers are nothing more than an alumni team a majority of them former East High and West High players 12 of whom played in the East West game in the fall of 1916 in the same class as Lambeau in other words he is forming the packers with former high school friends 1919 these guys are gonna play football I love Indian packing team Green Bay is a city of 30,000 it's not a big city so there are not a lot of places to play teams arrange their own schedules games were announced week to week playing fields our town parks or sandlots packer home games are played in a roped off section of Haga Meister Park it was a big area that covered an area that we note that it is Joanna's Park and East High School first season they were selling snake oil football basically but it's football and it's in Green Bay they played in an open field with no bleachers it wasn't a whole lot they had to do other than find some teams willing to come here and play their first game September 14 1919 the Packers played their first game at Hagen Meister Park against the Menominee North End Athletic Club Tigers first opponent sounds like a fairly formidable football team there's not a lot known other than they defeated them very easily 53 to nothing the Menominee herald-leader identified it as the Liana's colts which was just a neighborhood team that had been put together in a couple days Kirti Lambeau as the best player and captain called the plays on the field you couldn't play call a play from the sidelines on the field by the captain and he was captain and star the team was built around him Lambeau was the first and only coach that made the forward pass his basic offense most of the coaches of your running game is your basic offense but in the case of Lambeau he was a pastor himself in high school the ball was fatter made it harder to pass the rules were stacked somewhat against the past you had to throw five yards behind the line if you threw incomplete in the end zone it the ball went over to the other team the Packers closed their first season 10 and 1 outscoring their opponents 565 to 12 you wonder Ohana they outscore them so easily they're putting these games together almost on the fly the only loss their final game to the Beloit ferries and the Packers actually lost their one game six to nothing very controversial way the Packers had three touchdowns called back by a local official by the name of George Zipp Zabel the Green Bay Press Gazette has a headline that streams the champions robbed by officials able one of the interesting things about that 1919 team some of those players played with the Packers and then played college football later that first season winners on the field losers at the bank there was no way to collect admission there was no fence there was just a rope around Haga Meister Park Calhoun and others had passed a hat hopefully people drop some spare change in it to pick up a little cash to live on the first year 1919 they didn't make any money they said if you like the first half put something in the cap for the second half the ballplayers used to get their fifty cents a day out of the game but they're still out there participating and sacrificing their life for the game of football 1920 things change Neil Murphy a local typewriter salesman is named business manager he took care of the scheduling of the teams arranging with the managers of who would meet who and where on what dates kept charge of the money Murphy's first order of business is to get permission to build a fence around Hagan Meister Park without a fence around a field where you got an athletic contest going on it's pretty tough to charge admission how do you build a fence you get lumber donated and you have the Green Bay Press Gazette put an article in the paper all those interested in the fence around the field bring your hammers a Hegel Meister Park Murphy gets the fans out to build this fence so he can charge him to walk through on Sundays to watch the games ingenious dad was on the sidelines getting the gate receipts handling all the things that you have to do he played a very underrated and very important role in Packers history because the Packers made money in 1920 the team made $6,000 Packers players play on Sunday for the sum of change in their pockets as they continue to work nine to five jobs to make a living when needed fans willingly dig into their pockets for their Green Bay Packers Riga Dwyer had played football Green Bay West he was an end started for the Packers in 1920 he was a fairly decent football player but he had a terrible accident on the railroad in late November he slipped under a railroad car at about 3:00 in the morning cried for help was rushed to local hospital at an arm and a leg amputated he was in really really tough shape and they actually ran a benefit game for him to help in his expenses Neil Murphy organized it they picked up two teams mostly a Packers in a squad game Bellevue ice-creams and the northern paper mills one more East highs uniform the other Wars st. Norbert's uniforms raised enough money that Murphy was able to take a check for more than four thousand dollars that presented to Dwyer in a hospital bed tough story but also heartwarming and what they did for him to raise had money and help with his medical expenses at the end of the second season December 1920 Acme packing companies Chicago purchases Indian packing the Indian packing company Packers become the Acme Packers on August 27 1921 the American Professional Football Association admits the Acme packing company team of Green Bay Wisconsin to its membership they were really the Acme Packers you could say for two months I don't believe the Packers ever paid a franchise fee there's no record of it George Halas said it was never charged in order to join this group he had to put up $100 for a franchise I think it's worth a little more than that now but I there was never a doubt as to what type of game we had Curly Lambeau over the years said that he paid from $5 to $25 to $50 to 250 dollars his story changed every time he told her the league in 1921 was really made up of small town teams just like the Green Bay Packers when Green Bay was admitted to what became the NFL was the seventh largest city in the state of Wisconsin superior was bigger Ashe Kosh was bigger in the three biggest cities were Milwaukee Racine and Kenosha and day at all point at some point during the 1920s at franchises they all fell by the wayside Green Bay's population is a mere 31,000 people it is the smallest of several small Midwestern cities among the AP FAS 21 members we're the third oldest team in the National Football League just by a couple of days with the Bears and of course the Cardinals are the oldest that's always been an issue with the size of the city can this city support a pro football team the Packers needed benefactors in the 1920s none of these teams not even Chicago were tremendous successes yes they were in bigger cities they had a larger potential audience to draw from but it was still a small operation the Packers credibility grows when they announced the signing of tackle Howard Cobb buck the University of Wisconsin all-american and a member of Jim Thorpe's Canton Bulldogs Curley signs him for a whopping $100 a game Jim Thorpe steam was considered one of the best in the country cub buck was alignment at big linemen just over 6 feet weight upwards of 250 pounds the size of the average person back in those days was nowhere near a 6 feet 250 and he was from the state he played for five years and was in the lineup almost every week he could kick field goals he could punt he could block occasionally he returned to kickoff over quite a sight seeing this big man lumbering down the field the packers host the Minneapolis Marines on October 23rd 1921 it is the Packers first game in the a PFA the American professional football association the word was that if the Packers didn't win that game they would have been booted out of the league Minneapolis was a very strong team and boy if they could fare well against a team like that then we might have a future Green Bay drew a fairly good crowd to that Minneapolis game we ended up pulling that game out seven to six just in the last few minutes good old George wrote cushions went flying in the air while soaring hats was thickest Green Bay flies in a July night that was the start of Packer football and a much more major level than we had played in 1919 and 1920 with each game the passion for the team grows Packers have always had an avid fan base and they had a core of fans that really got heavily involved there was just one big family gathering and everybody loved the Packers East and West surprising they came together even to support a football team fans kept coming not just from Green Bay but from all over the state you had to show you could be competitive by the end of the season they got an opportunity to go to Chicago and play the Cardinals and bears and back-to-back weeks there was a lot of support for the team on the road in those days as well when they faced off against the Chicago Cardinals for the first time the faithful gather at Turner hall in downtown Green Bay for play-by-play reports fans that stayed behind they could follow the game of what they called the grid graph it had a wooden football that you could move back and forth so a play would happen in Chicago it would get relayed to Green Bay and then they would move that football whatever number of yards were gained on the play so fans at Turner hall could know what was going on down in Chicago just seconds after it occurred down there here's this little city playing in this big league and they're holding their own that's what drew people to the Packers hold their own they do much to the chagrin of many teams one in particular any Patrick bear game was bigger than any other game Chicago with George Halas that was the step up for the Packers would be able to play them November 27th 1921 several hundred fans in a makeshift band with 20 horn players in a handful of drummers descend on Chicago for the first Packers Bears football game was out of George Halas fondness for the City v Bay or anything he needed to win and he probably needed another gate there were large contingents of Packer fans going down there and they met at midnight at the Elks Club in downtown Green Bay March ability Chicago northwestern Depot caught a train to Chicago they didn't get a wink of sleep stumbling off a midnight train the self-proclaimed lumberjack ban marched through the loop and out to Cubs park causing a ruckus along the way it's just a regular band a friend from her on Green Bay and you know they'd played football songs and stuff like that they drank all the way down to Chicago on the train got off the train and started marching through the loop playing their instruments they marched through several hotel lobbies including the Packers and they dressed like Lumberjacks and it was a great band the two first coaches George Halas Curly Lambeau they were players at the time and at game in 1921 George Halas scored the last touchdown for the Bears they beat us pretty good that first game 22 nasim but a rivalry was started the Packers become the biggest draw on the Bears schedule as rivalry says it is Halas and Lambeau really didn't care for one another both George Ellis mother the father of the Bears and Curly were surely less efficient and I think invented to point number two shake hands after it came they were two ultimate competitors and wanted to beat each other so bad that they would do whatever it took there's some misconceptions about George Halas and how he was this great friend of the Packers he was when it benefited his bottom line he wasn't necessarily when it didn't benefit his bottom line Georgia crazy Lambeau were entirely two different characters altogether first of all Lambeau was more a gentleman on the sidelines than most coaches now he got riled up once alone and over on the other side was old George Halas and he was an official Bator he was always cursed him out the biggest problem that the officials had with George Halas he wanted to follow the team down the field clear down to the end zone and had a hard time keeping him on the bench there are times he was a raving maniac at first Chicago really didn't want to come to Green Bay because the attendance wasn't going to be comparable to Chicago by the mid-twenties George Halas wanted them to come to Chicago and play there twice a season because they were drawing better than any other team that he was bringing in excitement quickly turns to disappointment at the end of the 1921 season played the game against the Racine Legion was a non league game billed as the state championship game the Packers used three players three college players it can't do that that's that's not allowed they were caught Notre Dame punished the players in early 1922 the Packers are out stood from the league not until the summer of 1922 is there a meeting at which they are allowed back into the league part of that was because of Curley Lambos persistence but I think another part of it was they also sense I mean bei was a good City for the league a league that at that 1922 meeting takes out a new name it becomes the National Football League a new league president is charged with doling out the punishment dzhokhar there's a new president felt compelled it that he had to do something to clean up his game the Packers post a forfeit fee of $1,000 and are back in so the Packers get caught using college players and where do the players that had used up their college eligibility end up they end up with the Chicago Bears the early 20s sees the growth of a powerful team big-name players big draws home and away boodles of fans on November 5th the Packers face off against the Columbus panhandlers at Haga Meister Park Packers had an insurance policy have you got so much rain they would pay a certain amount of money to compensate you for the loss of that revenue unfortunately that game the rain did not amount quite to the what the insurance policy stated $1500 lost rain falls three one hundredths of an inch short of the amount needed for the Packers to collect on their insurance so all the Packers couldn't profit from that survival looks bleak survival always looks bleak the deep in debt packers look to their rivals the Packers wanted the Bears to play on Thanksgiving Day George Halas said our team will come up there if you can raise $4,000 as a guarantee there was a lot of money Packers were not gonna be able to do that so instead they scheduled Duluth that day arrived and there's another rain storm the Duluth paper described it as a 12 hour rainfall Curley Lambeau George Whitney Calhoun should we played a game and return ball told them that if they didn't play the game who would be the end of pro football in Green Bay he said I'll back you up as far as the losses you'll intruder in the game but you got to play that game because of you don't your credit abilities not gonna be there he told them that if they played once the season was over he'd tried to galvanize the community to get behind the team as feared only a few hundred people are on him the game is another financial disaster they played the game Green Bay one that was not that important what was important was Turnbull made good on his promise the result shapes one of the most remarkable business stories in history Turnbull and a local attorney by the name of John kill call a meeting a local businessman and return ball and some other business people came up with the idea the issuing stock gun team the plan is right from the start to create some kind of a corporation that turns out to be a public corporation a nonprofit corporation to save the franchise to keep it in Green Bay and it became a community owned team that was huge and his shirt a thousand shares around $5 a piece and raised five thousand shares stock was five bucks but you also got season tickets that was enough money to keep the team going they just wanted donations basically from the businessman at Green Bay it didn't take very long for them to realize that the Packers were something that could bring Green Bay some notoriety over the course of the next nine months they created the Green Bay football corporation prior to the 1923 season there was the whole aspect of it being shareholder owned rather than by an individual that's always made this team special in terms of ownership if a single owner had gotten control of the Packers the team would not be here strong for now in 1923 the team moves on to Bellevue Park Bellevue was primarily a baseball field and they converted at their football for the 23 and 24 seasons but it wasn't ideal for football then they move into new city stadium new being 1925 started out as a 5,000 seat Stadium eventually grew into a 25,000 seat stadium one of the guys to help build was Curley lamb was dad he was a carpenter when I was a young kid my dad took me to games at City Stadium when he passed through the turnstile he only had money for one ticket so the turnstile guys said double up you don't want to go see the Packers when you're a kid we went under over or through the fence you just scooped a little dirt out from under that 2x4 and we could belly under there we'd crawl up between the risers and the bleachers and sit in the stands we always took a blanket because those seats at City Stadium they're all splitters even though it was the wooden seats it was the Packers our Packers you know they had no toilet facilities the men bill went down at halftime underneath the stands and did their job and the women bare the holders until they got home a lot of teams loved to play in Green Bay because it was a football field he always played in baseball stadiums here you played in a football natural grass I am an usher I'm right back of the Packer bench 40 yard line my idols are sitting right there I could almost spit on them and lime Tuesday or Wednesday a cheque arrived from the Packers for two dollars and 50 cents not only could I see my idols I got paid I got paid for it I saw every home game we saw some great games in the in the old city Stadium in the 20s that's what made professional football at least got it off the ground with the bear packer series that's where the rivalry which was so critical to the Packers survival came of age callous pacing up one side of the stadium Lambo smoking cigarettes and pacing on the other side and sending their warriors in it was never really appreciated it was always criticized for what it wasn't but that's where the Packers came of age the remainder of the decade while other small town teams struggle and perish the Packers begin to flourish the NFL cut from 22 to 12 teams almost it half it's amazing how we survived but but Dzhokhar saw Green Bay was that one small city that he did not want to eliminate Green Bay survived Milwaukee didn't you think about Dayton triangles Rochester Jefferson's Frankford Yellow Jackets Pottsville Maroons teams are all gone but the Packers did survive they survived because Curly Lambeau built a powerful football team the final seasons of the Packers first decade are dubbed the ironman era of pro football you can't take away anything from those gentlemen who played in the 1920s they played 60 minutes offense defense they epitomize what this game is all about toughness dedication desire love of camaraderie all those things all eleven that started the game finished the game you didn't have the scouting system that you have today so a lot of times Lambeau would Scout himself I can't imagine how he got some of these guys to come up here employ but he did and they were exceptional players eve is bringing players to Green Bay who we never even heard of Green Bay until they heard from early Lambeau there was no draft then you just brought players in and you signed them to your team 1929 how much more than a month's banned Packers signed Cal Hubbard Johnny blood and Mike Matassa to this day is probably the biggest offseason signing coup in the history of pro football veteran lineman Cal Hubbard iron mike mckowski and all-around back Johnny blood they become the nucleus of a team that wins three straight NFL championships all three of them are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame you have Hubbard who was a tackle he was one of the best tackles of football he was a mountain of a man for his time six for 250 270 pounds fast dominated line of scrimmage just a brute force his first four years in the league one year with New York and three years of Green Bay his team won the championship and I don't think those just coincidence but Chelsea was a guard one of the best around he played at Penn State tremendous anchoring the line premier guard in the league opposite of Hubbard he was smaller than quicker they made a good tandem Johnny blood who was running back but also a fantastic receiver in 1931 he caught ten touchdown passes he only was thrown the ball maybe 20 or 22 times that season so every other pass he catches he's in the end zone tremendous athlete a he could do a lot of things that other people create the name McNally never appeared in a pro football boxscore he adopted the pseudonym Johnny blood I had a motorcycle at the time and the friend of mine wanted to go out with me so we got on my motorcycle we passed a theater with the mother marquesas blood and Sand with Valentino so I said I've got us and more eligibility and colleagues and I got to protect it so I'm gonna take the name blood and you take the name sand I don't regret it I've been lucky under the name probably the biggest character in the history of the league so we get all three of those players in one season legends of the game and they add them all in one year that really was but put them over the top it's no wonder the Packers went 1201 one out score their point 198 222 that's just a huge infusion of talent in one offseason Curly Lambeau the driving force behind these greats of the gridiron changes the game he was mentally strong he was arrogant he was selfish highly competitive confident in himself always about everything he pioneered the forward pass in professional football he was going at times to control forty to forty-five passes in the game when most teams were three yards and a cloud of dust the scoring in the early years was not the way pro football is today much of the game's pressure rests on the toe of the punter sports writers when they were reporting the games would often talk about how one punter would shift the field position over the opposing punter if you've got one touchdown in the game that was big punt the ball deep hope your opponent makes a mistake down near its goal line you recover and then you have a very short field no punter is better than Vern Llewellyn he plays nine seasons with Green Bay and is arguably the Packers most valuable player during that period every time Llewellyn punted the Packers would gain five or ten yards in field position Packers won a big game and one of the biggest games ever when they beat the Giants in 1929 at the Polo Grounds Bern Llewellyn was the difference in the game a number of times during that game he punted on first out and just changed field position old-timers consider him the greatest punter ever Charlie batiste claimed running alone was the greatest player in Packers history but ice played quarterback for the Packers from 1922 to 26 and was the leading receiver during that period of time because quarterback weren't necessarily the featured passer all the great players that have come before and all the great players that will come after those are the people that really made the game and me and he you know they didn't they didn't play the game for money and then and play the game for fame they played the game because they loved the game imagine how Green Bay was after they'd won their first NFL championship was like little Green Bay is competing with the big boys 19 leak they win the first championship 1929 truly amazing now there isn't a championship game at this point this is all based on standings and records the big win was in New York but then they finished up with a victory over the Bears and that was the clincher following the win over 20,000 fans greet the champs at the train depot quite a turnout for a town of only 37,000 in 1929 we got nothing for winning the championship we did have a tremendous reception when we came back in into Green Bay from winning the championship on the road a mere six weeks following the start of the Great Depression fans still contribute more than $5,000 to a Packers Championship fund and they had a celebration nights Boras and at that time they gave us a nice watch a nice pocketbook but I believe two hundred and fifty dollars in it Mayor John döner tells the crowd Green Bay maybe the two hundred and forty first city in size but it's the first city in football this is a much bigger story than just than just the David versus Goliath angle get the unique ownership you've got the small city you get the passionate fans it is a celebration of the masses for the masses for the team and for the fans themselves a decade of continuous support beyond the pocketbook of the Catholic Women's Club early 1920s raise money to buy blankets for the players so they'd be warm on the sidelines around that same time the Packers were playing Racine in Milwaukee probably couldn't afford transportation we don't exist without this community coming to our rescue and standing beside us the people of Green Bay loved the team it was a very good team it was more successful than many of the other teams that won away they asked the fans who had cars to transport the players so they could have a ride to Milwaukee I don't think any team has a relationship with its community the way here's to the Catholic Church even joins in on the fan fury changed it this time of it's Sunday morning masses the 5:30 and the weekends when the Packers were playing the Bears in Chicago so fans could go and catch the train Green Bay survives because of the attitude in the determination of the people in the city without that Packers wouldn't be here all of the other little cities had started out with football back we Green Bay didn't that are late 1920s they all fade it away this one continued to exist and not only exist but thrived under further Lambeau this is a franchise every other franchise in the National Football League would like to be like the tradition here is remarkable the fandom incredible you could make movies about this people say that's never gonna happen in real life well it did [Music] there goes back to throw fires a pass complete to the game [Applause] I was seven years old and the Packers as you know we're in the midst of their first championship year 1929 it were undefeated and they went to New York you know the game was it was November 24th [Music] most people think 1929 is famous because that was a year as a Great Depression well that's in the history books but actually three weeks later something more important happened the Packers first radio broadcast occurred [Music] Russ Winnie WTMJ Milwaukee was in a room in Milwaukee watching ticker tape it wasn't life he was watching ticker tape and he would recreated of course we were all all excited everybody was excited a pack we can follow the game play-by-play [Music] a lot of times the ones that were no broadcast post and very often the Packers played in baseball stadiums well the baseball press boxes at back of home plate well that's real good for football [Music] baby in the caramel in your life why you always gotta think sights like it got along a little monster you can you're gonna MA yes I get nice
