1919-1929 | Humble Beginnings

they were here before the national football league these green bay packers under curly lambo the packers have been great for the nfl you would not have the nfl without the green bay packers it's small town america it's blue collar america it's owned by the fans the interesting thing 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 this is the most important play we have the way we must make them where it started [Music] [Music] when you talk about football in green bay you always talk about the packers and you always talk about 1919 but football in green bay goes back to the late 1800s the town 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 loved the game right from the start they would follow the football game passionately until the snow flies some years they played a game or 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 packards when the packers were founded in 1919 they just started out as another one of those talon teams 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 and 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 the league the 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 lambo builds a football team carly and his family they were what we would call walloon belgians sure the french-speaking belgians they were very itinerant family wherever there was work you went to work you learned 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 curley was baptized at st peter and paul it's a hard life maybe that's why they're drawn to this physical brutal sport it was kind of a rough game and i think for some reason people like to see violence for curley's grandfather violence is inherent in 1891 seven years before curley 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 marie his wife lived for almost another 30 years born april 9 1898 earl curley 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 the city of fort howard which was the west side and the city of green bay which was the east side i married a west side girl and that was yeah 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 eastsider or westsider 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 body 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 lived on the east side i would say the upper class was on the east side and we worked really hard on the west side i'm not sure what they did on the east side 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 high and it was a very heated rivalry there was quite a competition there because there were very good football players on both sides of the river east and west was 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 a 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 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 four years which was unusual in his senior year he led east to a 7-6 victory over west before 5000 people he scored the only touchdown east only touchdown kicked the extra point and it was hailed as this great high school phenom to quote the 1916 east high school annual captain curly lambo his trusty toe and wonderful ground gaining ability gave east high the first football victory over crosstown rival west high in eight contests 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 no 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 newt rodney he played his freshman year down there and he had a really good freshman season but he had contacted tonsillitis in january 1919 curly 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 sick bed in soren hall at the university of notre dame february 5th 1919 traveling 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 then 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 curly 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 16 1919. curly lambo was passionate about football and he wanted to put together a team and he wanted to keep playing he ran into george whitney calhoun tell him asked him what he was going to do about football he said well you know i'd like to play there's all kinds of myths or legends about how george calhoun and curly lambo met nobody really knows whether it was on a street corner or in a bar or whatever originally said why don't you start your own team a bond is struck between green bay's 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 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 calhoun 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 hi cal how are you doing 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 11 1919 the green bay packers organize the inaugural meeting is held at the press gazette building in a dingy room on the second floor curly lambo was there george calhoun the press gazette was there hard to say who else was there was at the press gazette 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 adds to the allure we're never going to really know what was said in that meeting with curly lambo 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 and from that point forward the press gazette covered the team probably as thoroughly as any paper in any prose football city cal wrote us sorry in the paper and calling for a meeting of of players that were interested he actually listed a number of the players said and animated that they better report about 25 young huskies showed up and they started practicing three nights a week gus rosenow a one-armed player who was a teacher at west high school the dwyer brothers dutch and riggy from a west side railroad family and wally landro who worked at indian packing with curley lambeau was named captain calhoun was named manager they were just starting an amateur town team indian packing company was going to sponsor them and they were going to 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 provided some footballs indian packing sponsored the packers 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 in the press gazette's first 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 do 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 lambo 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 gazette and became the press gazette andrew turnbull who was the publisher of the press gazette was a big promoter of the packers from the get-go turbo 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 other other than curly lambeau all their other work was done by volunteers 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 wood and 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 gazette 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 chill packers are coming to town you know it's going to 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 cal could tell story after story after story about the packers he always got good coverage every city he went to cal 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 lambo and george calhoun one's a pr guy that spins the story and the other is a habitual liar curly 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 oh 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 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 lambo in other words he is forming the packers with former high school friends 1919 these guys are going to play football the 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 are announced week to week playing fields are town parks or sand lots packer home games are played in a roped off section of hagemeister park it was a big area that covered um an area that we know today as joanne'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 there 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 hagenmeister park against the menominee north and athletic club packers 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 lyanna's colts which was just a neighborhood team that had been put together in a couple days curly lambo as the best player and captain called the plays on the field you couldn't play call of 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 pass you had to throw five yards behind the line of scrimmage if you threw incomplete in the end zone it the ball went over to the other team the packers closed their first season 10-1 outscoring their opponents 565 to 12. you wonder how do they outscore them so easily they're putting these games together almost on the fly the only loss their final game to the beloit fairies and the packers actually lost their one game six to nothing in a very controversial way the packers had three touchdowns called back by a local official by the name of george zip zabel the green bay press gazette has a headline that screams the champions were robbed by officials abel 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 hagemeister park calhoun and others have passed a hat hoping people drop some spare change in it to pick up a little cash to live on the first year in 1919 they didn't make any money they said if you like the first half put something in the cap and for the second half the ball players used to get their 50 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 hagemeister 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 a fence around the field bring your hammers to hagemeister park murphy gets the fans out to build this fence so he can charge him to walk through on sundays to watch the games uh 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 six thousand dollars 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 riggy dwyer had played football at 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 three in the morning cried for help was rushed to local hospital had 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 inner squad game bellevue ice creams and the northern paper mills one more east ties uniform the other wore st norbert's uniforms raised enough money that murphy was able to take a check for more than four thousand dollars and present it to dwyer in the hospital bed tough story but also heart warming and what they did for him to raise that money and help with his medical expenses at the end of the second season december 1920 acme packing company 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 save for two months i don't believe the packer's ever paid a franchise fee there's no record of it george hallis said it was never charged in order to join this group you had to put up a hundred dollars 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 lambo over the years said that he paid from five dollars to twenty five dollars to fifty dollars to two hundred and fifty dollars his story changed every time he told it 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 oshkosh was bigger the three biggest cities were milwaukee racine and kenosha and they at all point at some point during the 1920s had 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 apfa's 21 members we're the third oldest team in the national football league just by a couple 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 announce the signing of tackle howard cub buck a 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's team was considered one of the best in the country cub buck was a lineman a big lineman just over six feet weighed upwards of 250 pounds the size of the average person back in those days was nowhere near six 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 that would be 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 apfa 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 were as thick as green bay flies in a july night that was the start of packer football on a much more major level than we had played in 1919 and 1920. with each game the passion for the team grows packers had always had an avid fan base and they had a core fans that really got heavily involved it 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 in back-to-back weeks there was a lot of support for the team on the road in those days as well when they face 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 at 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 packer bear game was bigger than any other game chicago with george alice that was a step up for the packers to be able to play them november 27 1921 several hundred fans in a makeshift band with 20 horn players and a handful of drummers descend on chicago for the first packers bears football game it was out of george hallas was fondness for the city green 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 marched to the 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 band marched through the loop and out to cubs park causing a ruckus along the way it's just a regular band from around green bay and you know they'd play 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 they dressed like lumberjacks and it was a great band the two first coaches george hallas curly lambo they were players at the time in that game in 1921 george halas scored the last touchdown for the bears they beat us pretty good that first game 20 to nothing but a rivalry was started [Music] the packers become the biggest draw on the bear's schedule as rivalrous as it is alice and lambo really didn't care for one another both george alice the founder of the bears and curly works were showman let's face it and they made it a point never to 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 hallas 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 george and curly lambo were entirely two different characters altogether first of all lambeau was more a gentleman on the sidelines than most coaches he got riled up once a while and over on the other side was old george hallas and he was an official baiter he was always cursing him out the biggest problem that the officials had with george hollis he wanted to follow the team down the field cleared 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-20s george house 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 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 ousted 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 curly lambo's persistence but i think another part of it was they also sensed green bay was a good city for the league a league that at that 1922 meeting takes on a new name it becomes the national football league a new league president is charged with doling out the punishment joe carr as a new president felt compelled that he had to do something to clean up his game the packers posed 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 oodles of fans on november 5th the packers face off against the columbus panhandlers at hagemeister park packers had an insurance policy if 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 one thousand five hundred dollars lost rain falls three one hundredths of an inch short of the amount needed for the packers to collect on their insurance so the packers couldn't profit from that survival looks bleak survival always looks bleak the deep and debt packers look to their rivals the packers wanted the bears to play on thanksgiving day george hella said our team will come up there if you can raise four thousand dollars as a guarantee that was a lot of money packers were not going to be able to do that so instead they scheduled duluth that day arrived and there's another rainstorm the duluth paper described it as a 12-hour rainfall curly lambo george whitney calhoun should we play the game andrew turnbull told him that if they didn't play the game it would be the end of pro football in green bay they said i'll back you up as far as the losses you'll intrude in the game but you got to play that game because if you don't your credibility's not going to be there he told him that if they played once the season was over he'd try to galvanize the community to get behind the team as feared only a few hundred people are on hand the game is another financial disaster they played the game green bay won 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 andrew turnbull and some other business people came up with the idea of issuing stock in the team the plan is right from the start to create some kind of a corporation that turns out to be a public corporation a non-profit corporation to save the franchise to keep it in green bay and it became a community owned team that was huge and issued a thousand shares around five dollars a piece and raised five thousand the share 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 businessmen 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 moved 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 who helped mill was curly lambo's dad he was a carpenter when i was a young kid my dad took me to games at city stadium when we passed through the church style he only had money for one ticket so the turnstile guy said double up you don't want to pay to go see the packers when you're a kid we went under over or through the fence you just scoop a little dirt dirt from under the two by four and we could belly under there we'd crawl up uh 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 splinters even though it was the wooden seats it was the packers our packers you know they had no toilet facilities the men they all went down at halftime underneath the stands and did their job and the women they had to hold it until they got home a lot of teams loved to play in green bay because it was a football field we always played in baseball stadiums here you played in a football natural grass i'm an usher i'm right back at the packer bench 40-yard line my idols are sitting right there i could almost spit on them and on tuesday or wednesday a check arrived from the packers for 2.50 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 hal is 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 in half it's amazing how we survived but joe carr 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 frankfort yellow jackets pottsville maroons teams are all gone but the packers did survive they survived because curly lambo 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 toughness they epitomized what this game is all about toughness dedication desire love of camaraderie all those things all 11 that started the game finished the game you didn't have the scouting system that you have today so a lot of times lambo would scout himself i can't imagine how he got some of these guys to come up here and play but he did and they were exceptional players he was bringing players to green bay who probably never even heard of green bay until they heard from curly lambo there was no draft then you just brought players in and you signed them to your team 1929 not much more than a month span packers signed cal hubbard johnny blood and mike michalski to this day is probably the biggest off-season signing coup in the history of pro football veteran lineman cal hubbard iron mike machelsky 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 6'4 250 to 270 pounds fast dominated the line of scrimmage just a brute force his first four years in the league one year with new york and three years with green bay his team won the championship and i don't think that was just a coincidence buchelski was a guard one of the best around he played at penn state tremendous anchor in the line premier guard in the league opposite of hubbard he was smaller and quicker they made a good tandem johnny blood who was a running back but also a fantastic receiver in 1931 he caught 10 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 he could do a lot of things that other people couldn't the name mcnally never appeared in a pro football box score he adopted a pseudonym johnny blood i had a motorcycle at the time and a friend of mine wanted to go out with me so we got on my motorcycle we passed a theater with them on the marquee it says blood and sand with valentino so i said i've got some more eligibility in college and i got to protect it so i'm going to take the name blood and you take the name sand i don't regret it it's uh 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 had them all in one year that really was what put them over the top it's no wonder the packers went 1201 outscored their opponents 198-22 that's just a huge infusion of talent in one off season curly lambo the driving force behind these greats of the gridiron changes the game he was mentally strong he was arrogant he was selfish highly competitive very confident in himself always about everything he pioneered the forward pass in professional football he was known at times to throw 40 to 45 passes in the game but most teams were three yards in 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 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 lewellen he plays nine seasons with green bay and is arguably the packer's 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 in one of their biggest games ever when they beat the giants in 1929 at the pole grounds vernal ellen was the difference in the game a number of times during that game he punted on first down and just changed field position old-timers consider him the greatest punter ever charlie mateis claimed fred lawallen was the greatest player in packers history mateis played quarterback for the packers from 1922 to 26 and was the leading receiver during that period of time because quarterbacks 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 they you know they didn't they didn't play the game for money and they didn't play the game for fame they played the game because they loved the game imagine how green bay was after they won their first nfl championship it was like little green bay is competing with the big boys 19 are in the league they win their 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 thousand 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 five thousand dollars to a packers championship fund then they had a celebration night for us and at that time they gave us a nice watch and a nice pocket book with i believe 250 dollars in it mayor john deener tells the crowd green bay may be the 241st 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 you've got the unique ownership you've got the small city you've got 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 the catholic women's club early 1920s raised 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 went 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 the packers do the catholic church even joins in on the fan fury changed its time of its sunday morning masses to 5 30 on 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 and the determination of the people in the city without that packers wouldn't be here all the other little cities that started out with football back when green bay did in the early 1920s they all faded away this one continued to exist and not only exist but thrived under curly lambo 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 going to happen in real life well it did i was seven years old and the packers as you know are in the midst of their first championship year 1929 they were undefeated they went to new york the game was it was november 24th [Music] most people think 1929 is famous because that was the year of the 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 winney wtmj milwaukee was in a room in milwaukee watching ticker tape it wasn't live he was watching ticker tape and he would recreate it because we were all all excited everybody was excited pat we can follow the game play by play [Music] a lot of times there were no broadcast booths and very often the packers played in baseball stadiums well the baseball [Music] press box is at the back of home plate well that's no good for football

Channel: Green Bay Packers

Views: 48,031

Keywords: nfl, national football league, american football, packers game, packer, gb packer, green bay packers, packers

Id: YZxQ9HBjrX8

Length: 51min 40sec (3100 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 18 2022