[Music] Green Bay was not an easy place to coach at the time and in the 1950s and there was a lot of interference they probably blamed the coaches and blamed the executive committee and probably blame God Almighty you know during those lean years it was tough when you're winning it's easier to put up with some stuff but when you start to lose it probably just came to a point where it was the time for change curly was certainly way ahead of his time it just didn't work out for a lot of reasons nothing lasts forever gentlemen is the most important play we have [Applause] [Music] [Music] it was a total loss went up in flames 50 feet high smoke billowing a hundred feet high January 24th 1950 just four years after the Packers purchased the Rockwood Lodge as a training site a fire destroys it the wiring of faulty wiring that caused the fire not much was so actually safe it was an accidental fire an insurance settlement at roughly seventy five thousand dollars helps for the moment stabilize the franchise financially but new struggles are beginning just two months after the contentious Board of Directors vote to retain Curly Lambeau as the Packers head coach Lambeau drops a bombshell February 1st 1950 after 31 years of continuous service 29 is head coach Curly Lambeau resigns from the Green Bay Packers from his resignation letter differences of opinion have brought about a dangerous disunity of purpose within the corporation one which in my opinion threatens the existence of the club fairly importantly was offered a new two-year contract but the kicker there was he was never physically preferred that contract so he went to big meetings in Philadelphia that year without a contract and came back as a head coach vice president general manager of the Chicago Cardinals in those years we were not having the greatest seasons and I think pressures build up and Curly had an offer from the Chicago Karl and I figured forget about the pressures and he took the Cardinal job he's the first NFL coach to win 200 regular season games when he left Green Bay he had six NFL championships more than anybody else in the game just think of the vision that he ended up having that nobody else maybe saw how did he get Clark Hinkle from Bucknell Hudson from Alabama to come here he was very very good at starting tell it personally and he did a lot of that in his earlier it is and before the packet is ER became very successful he's a great recruiter charming guy and new football that's the proof of how long the team was successful I 31 years that only had three losing seasons you've got to give great credit to the leadership of Curly Lambeau I mean he came into this league and and he just took charge of this franchise lambo coached the Packers to six NFL championships three before the playoff system three after one 226 games lost 132 tied 22 only Don Shula George Halas Bill Belichick and Tom Landry have one more from 1919 to this point it's it's been Curly Lambeau and the Green Bay Packers well Curley accomplished as a coach is just is amazing there were a number of people out there that didn't know if the team could continue without him he was so important to the club he was very instrumental and the Packers surviving you know Lambeau had been the Packers he was the right mix of showman promoter football person I'm not sure that the Packers survived without that total package Curley Lambos resignation sends shockwaves across the NFL but is less of a shock to those in Green Bay for Packers fans it's time the game was passing him by his Notre Dame box was outdated he never really made the complete conversion to achieve if he did it was just his last couple years and those were disastrous seasons towards the end he was also very instrumental and maybe the Packers demise he could have driven the team into the ground if he was around long enough that the feeling it was to his team you know of course the people that de Voort felt it's our team Green Bay's team it became clear to him that he was not gonna win the battle to turn this into a private corporation it leads to contentious feelings or mixed feelings among the community the Board of Directors and you you wonder where the franchise is gonna be headed where do they get the next head coach are they gonna be able to feel the winner there's all these questions you know any great organization is that ever totally dependent on any one individual and even if the individual is brilliant and dominating and charismatic successfully replacing Lambeau proves to be nearly impossible the Packers organization faces a host of challenges on and off the field after curly left though in the 50s this franchise was was just not getting anything accomplished they were still losing players to the Canadian Football League Packers defense in the 50s was the worst part of that may have been because they didn't have the money to go out design the players that they had before they gave up more yards they give up more points they had more games where they allowed 30 or more points than any team in the league their defense for the most part was in shambles he had fallen on hard times I would go to the games at County Stadium in place would be half empty it just wasn't great interest tenant one exception to the fan disinterest beating Curly Lambeau in 1950 when Curley had gone to the Cardinals he comes back and placed an exhibition game with the Packers here in 1950 and 51 the worst team in the league was the Cardinals they won 31 games the Packers won 32 so both teams were right at the bottom clearly then go to Chicago and make this great turnaround he had losing records and that the game and passed it by the organization turns its attention to addressing its mounting debt they launched their third public stock drive the goal raised $200,000 half from Green Bay the other half from Milwaukee around the state and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan all to keep the Packers in Green Bay it was tough for us to remain competitive because just the money factor my dad at that time told my brother we've got to protect this franchise for Green Bay through whatever methods we have the Milwaukee businessmen what they were hoping to do was keep the Packers alive so once County Stadium was built they could move the team to Milwaukee some of the people in the league probably looked at Green Bay's board as a bunch of bumpkins in Green Bay they were selling stock to keep their team and to make sure it survived they were all shrewd businessman without a ton of resources they kept the franchise in Green Bay this time they went out to the masses and we sold stock at the paper mills at the Debose and knocked on doors downtown got the blue-collar workers to pitch in there $25 the lady who brought in I think was all quarters in a container buy her share of stock and there's a young man that donated like a hundred dollars to the organization just a young man that didn't have a lot of money my dad went out and hustled the stock sales literally sold stock to his friends and it was worthless stock of course it pays no dividends it will never have a capital gate you'll never make a nickel basically a gift of the team but there's people that came forward but stock that didn't have a lot of money but they wanted to see the Packers survive but Packers receive stock pledges of more than one hundred and four thousand dollars most of it from Green Bay they have big plans for the Milwaukee area but sell just over three thousand dollars aside from the two hundred shares Miller Brewing Company purchases it is pretty remarkable that they created this unique entity a stock nonprofit corporation and kept the franchise alive package really became community owned in terms of the Joel fan had now invested in the team 1950 the Packers announced ladies day the first in the history of professional football Packers needed every fan that could get so they cultivated female sports fans like no other team first women's quarterback club in the country close to 700 women attend the first meeting our dailies wife Lorraine was one of the organizers just tons of women joined it it was all women of course other words he called us a women's quarterback they did everything they could to get women to support the team buy tickets just because they needed them for survival I was send a photographer out to get pictures of women with their hats when they wore hats and and people with their corsages it wasn't watching a football game and was also watching a parade of well-dressed ladies and they'd make at least two laps around a field so everybody could see their newest outfit and this was a formal occasion women were all dressed up and just like like they came right from church men all had suits on and it was just like a fancy affair we walked one day she's from a girls from the Packer game and I here's with our sister and let me tell you we never did it again the women would wear their first stoles mink stoles Fox scarves if you sat in back of somebody wearing a fox scarf there'd be these two beady little eyes looking at you and it was just it was another point in time but first to step into Lambos hard-to-fill coaching shoes is Jean Ron's auntie he was hired fairly quickly after Lambo left you played football Marquette University a state team and he went play for the Bears coached with the Bears and he comes to Green Bay that was hard for fans to overlook that he had strong ties to Chicago in Chicago my dad had a delicatessen that was right across the street from urban Plaza which is where all the bear players stayed over the winter and and the cub players were there during the summer mama Venise he put on this fantastic Thanksgiving dinner and one of the gentlemen that was there one of the players that was Eric gene runs a knee very close to the family he was Jack's freshman coach at NORAD Amy right away in 1950 he started bringing in a lot of players who had played for the Bears but were over the hill people were upset about that as well Ron's Annies odd coaching behavior also fails to win any fans yet his shortcomings as a coach and how he dealt with his players he takes the team to Grand Rapids Minnesota for training camp the middle of nowhere goats and sheep graze on the fields at night and players said the mosquitoes were as big as birds but that was okay with Gene because he could go fishing one morning they were out on the practice field getting ready to work out and Ron's a knee pulled up in his car and his fishing boat told him he was going fishing and have a good day practicing before a packer Bear game he would have us have the Packers practice inside Joannie stadium he'd have his injured players stand in front of the people so somebody from the Bears couldn't be peeping through the knotholes and watching practice the first matchup he had with the Bears when they came back he won that game so that really was a plus for him players told me he never gave them a playbook because he thought that this PlayBook could end up in George Halas hands despite Ron's années quirky behavior he manages to bring some innovative changes to the game he was kind of ahead of his time from the standpoint that he was running a shotgun formation in the early 1950s 51 gene runs a knee comes up with a unique offensive strategy he's gonna put Tobin row at the quarterback but he's only gonna put a fullback with him Tobin Road is gonna be a running quarterback the power struggle that began with Curly Lambeau plagues gene runs in well the old saying you got too many cooks in the kitchen they were still turmoil in the front office still any answer to the executive committee that was the criticism of the executive community of those years that they were meddling old I quote they also had to appear a local quarterback club that had been organized in 1949 those club meetings that sometimes draw a thousand people and you'd open the floor to questions from the audience that the coach had to explain their strategies and they're thinking about personnel 12 wins and three seasons 1953 is off to another bad start by late November the Packers only post two wins they realized that they're not going to get a winner under Ron's a knee so on Friday morning they called him to tell him that he was being fired and that but they wanted him to resign and they named two of his assistants who Tavor and scooter mclean as coke interim coaches for the final final two games of the season but Ron zani refused to go away so he ended up holding himself up in the Packers and then when the packers left for the west coast he joined them followed note to San Francisco in Los Angeles and sat in the press box for at least one of those games and was talking to the sports reporters kind of telling him all the Packers are gonna run this play and they're gonna play this defense and just entertaining the the scribes in the press box it was very unusual to foreign McLain finish out the season but cannot coach the team to a win the Packers end the 53 season in last place in their conference the third head coach of the Green Bay Packers is announced January 1954 Lyle Blackburn he coached at Marquette beverage probably didn't have a lot of money to hire a big-name coach from the very beginning there were executive committee members who weren't on board with a choice he was a strict disciplinarian early he had all kinds of rules that everybody had to follow he was a stern old former high school and college coach kind of unbending not real personable he didn't drink he didn't smoke kind of a dictator mentality which will work if you're winning but he wasn't winning the executive committee is meeting with the coach he's trying to ask questions why I entered in this Blackburn's downfall was that the players didn't like him his first name was Lyle everybody called him Liz but his players called him lizard despite Blackburn's low confidence rating 1955 has an unexpected start the Packers take down Detroit they had actually prior to that game beat us 11 straight times there were three-time defending Western Conference champions we couldn't get tickets because the game was sold out so we walked to the back of the stadium where there was hundreds and hundreds of kids and people it was a joy to try and find a way to get in and they had outside guys patrolling with long sticks and you would try to climb over the fence and if they would catch you they'd wrap you gently on the rear end or the hand to get down it's like a signal was given and everybody charged the ball they couldn't stop everybody and my cousin boosted me up I got to the top of the wall looked down who's below me but a cop he said son get down don't get hurt find a place to set [Music] the Packers got the ball back with about two minutes to go up on the west end and drove the length of the field just seconds remaining inch open road hits terra gnoffo scored a touchdown with 20 seconds to go to beat Detroit 2017 fans come out of the out of the stands they swarm the field they put Gary on their shoulders and then carrying him around when there was still time on the clock fans carried Dirac and I fall off the field to the Packer bench a little kids stop 50 cents in his hand and kannathil tried to find out what the kid was because that's his money took him a while to clear the field then Fred Cohen came out kicked the extra point and when the game ended the fans mob to field again that was a wonderful start to the season one of the happiest days of my life actually during the 1950s key talent acquisitions helped establish a formidable foundation for future team success this thanks in part to former head coach Ron zani whose greatest contribution to the Packers proved to be at the time and insignificant hire to the front office he hired Jack Finney seed fresh out of Notre Dame a young kid and he was initially hired to keep stats and do a little scouting it's hired in September of 1950 and this is how just unimportant at the time it seemed his hiring was there's a story in the press cassette on September 13th talking about how the defense is catching up to the offense in paragraph after paragraph and then you the last three paragraphs and they mentioned the hiring of Jack Jack from DC was an outstanding high school football player they won the national championship the Catholic Championship in the country and Jack as a junior was first came on all Chicago and that explains why he played football as a freshman at Notre Dame so when people talk about Jack funny see is a skull Jack had the insight of being an ex-player Jack knew football Jack Lassalle he's very very in football in mind I mean from eighth grade on this guy was he loved football and he studied football he was a great evaluator of talent he sort of used analytics before analytics were even known to exist he was so dedicated to football he just put all his energy and finding out what he could find out who he could find how he could help must have been very good at record-keeping keeping notes and compiling statistics he used his network of friends that he had from Nora Dame and the popularity that he had really around the country to gather a lot of exceptional talent when he came to Green Bay he just drove into it I think talent scouts were the most frustrating job in America at least I think you know you spend months and days and hours working trying to gather material and content to spend many hours on one particular boy wanting to see the more elected choice before yourself and all the window throughout the decade he goes on to be this incredible talent scout and just digs digs through the files and uncovers some of the best players to ever play for the team 51 they tended to do after players that they didn't have to worry about them going off its military 52 we're gonna draft players with the best talent Bobby Dylan is to this day the leading interceptor in the history of the Green Bay Packers Dylan was a perennial all-pro in the 1950s played safety he had one eye the other eye was glass they were playing a game and Moe walk in the glass eye pops out and the referee comes up and says hey Bobby what would you do if they lost your other eye he look something's that I'd become an official so that's Bobby don't had a very strong draft in 52 in 1953 Jim Ringo and Bill Forrester 1854 s-max McGee well I was a little surprised to be drafted by Green Man wasn't real familiar with Green Bay at all I had been contacted the night before the draft of the Chicago Bears who said they were gonna dress me very high while saying just Rams contacted me and I'd never heard from Green Bay so all at once I looked pick up the paper the next morning I said I'm going to curtain Bay max McGee might be one of the more underappreciated receivers he played a number of years in the 50s and made some great catches 56 force Craig the first-round pick was a boss but they got porous Greg in the second round he was an incredible tactician he but place his feet where they needed to be and he could shield the onrushing linemen they got Bob Skowronski in the 5th round and then they get a real steal in the seventeenth round Bart Starr they struck gold with with drafting him 17th Brown back then with 12 teams was about the 200th pick Bart Starr actually came to us because of a connection between the basketball coach at Alabama this basketball coach advised an easy of this quarterback at that time their program was down star dealt with some injuries in college he was kind of a misfit for their offense Bart's biggest asset was his his intelligence was just such a smart quarterback the total commitment to practice and teamwork all of these things are qualities that are so essential to success today that without them you cannot be successful and with them you cannot fail [Music] [Applause] it took almost five years for them to realize that he was a steel [Music] the Packers own two of the top four picks in the 1957 NFL Draft they select Notre Dame quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Paul Hornung with the first Ron Cramer of Michigan with the fourth Paul Hornung and Ron Kramer bonanza I don't even know where in the hell Green Bay was in those days you know I wanted to go to play with the Bears that was that was my hope to be drafted by the Bears of course you know the Packers had the first choice and they picked me he was the bonus pink they had a special pick even before the first round started and the Packers in 57 got that that got close to 30,000 that was the highest-paid rookie ever at that time all around talent he could run pass kick it's just very versatile Jack would kill me he said Paul Hornung could be the greatest ever and whoring love Jack and I wanted to play well for him I wanted to make the people with the Green Bay Packers the coaches say you know that Jack Venezia he was right he told us Hornig was going to be a health football player and he was one of the advantages the Packers had throughout the 1950s was they usually drafted hi is it a losing record they just had tremendous success drafting the theory of the Packers will will draft the best available football player at the time and even though we may end up with three half backs or three tackles there's maybe two guards we don't know how to up at the time but we don't have the best available football player because you cannot use 58 it's maybe the greatest draft in history Dan Curry who was an outstanding linebacker Jim Taylor Ray Nitschke Jerry Kramer the top part of that draft may have been the best the Packers have ever had Jim Taylor certainly the toughest fullback of that era he ran over people gained a thousand yards five straight years then you have Ray Nitschke middle linebacker considered one of the best middle linebackers of all time I felt very comfortable on a football guy and you like to compete against anybody that was always confident in my ability I knew I could play it was just a matter of playing what position I was a fullback in college and played linebacker and and my first year I did they didn't know where to play me but then I settled on and played middle linebacker he was a tough character and was anchor of our defense for many years that offense just doesn't go without Jerry Kramer on the line blocking and running it turned out to be one of the greatest cards ever I remember signing my contract and I didn't we didn't have an agent we didn't have any information we had virtually no knowledge so I asked my coach was a very bright man what kind of money should I ask for but don't want me to sign a contract he said Jerry if you can get seven thousand you're doing really well and so I sat down with burne Llewellyn and Byrne says Jerry we'd like to sign a contract what are you thinking about eight thousand okay sign here it left a lot on the table I guess but I said I want a bonus and I get to Green Bay in the first season and they hold it out of my check and they explained to me that it wasn't a bonus it was a advance so I got 77 fifty and a $250 advance Blackburn was the one that made the picks although he admitted he leaned heavily on venetie's recommendation quality picks strong players but Blackburn cannot coach them to a win income scooter McLean scooter in 58 but that was a total disaster scooter had been the backfield coach for the Packers since 1951 he was a real nice guy nice guys don't win and scooter was the perfect example but he becomes the head coach he put the players on an honor system essentially if they're gonna manage their behavior off the field he's too much of a a friend with the players he wasn't a disciplinarian he played cards as the players and there were no rules at all it was something else the game was almost like an interruption to their week while we have to go play football for three hours now certainly the low point of the season was when he got annihilated in Baltimore kind of an overcast rainy day it's a light misty rain and it starts in the morning about 10 o'clock and rains all day long and we're down 56 to nothing the Baltimore Colts had a mascot a girl the horse a white stallion that ran around the stadium every time they scored there were scoring sortie touchdowns the horse started wheezing and they thought the risk I was going to die we almost killed him that day he was who the lathered out by the time the game was over 110 and won worst season ever Fred Smith said the Packers in 1958 overwhelmed one opponent underwhelmed 10 and whelmed 1 you had number of players that weren't sure that they wanted to return after 1950 young guys that were had played three or four years had decided to leave the game if they could make more money ranching in Texas or doing other things and they could play in the game throughout the 1950s the Packers keep losing and losing and losing it doesn't matter with hope passion and determination the executive committee city of Green Bay and the fans lay a foundation that sets the stage for greater things to come Old City Stadium was built for East High School and the Packers were allowed to play there we had a real small dressing room and our lockers were very very small and they were rats in the restroom he had to hang everything up to keep the rats me city stadium behind Green Bay East High School was not up to NFL standards teams hated playing there walking the locker room over there for the first time I couldn't see all the way across the room and realized there other people in there when I walked in was so dark they had a space heater it would be cold and in the wintertime and I think we had about two showers and all we had doctors sewed my eye up in the locker one day and this scar still shows he couldn't see both ends instead of the cotton it was old rickety you'd go up there and you were rocked and rolled a little bit well it wasn't much building there actually at all it's just a wooden bleachers is what it really was Don Steadman the great wordsmith who was a sports columnist Baltimore said it reminded him of a chicken coop for a pro football team you shouldn't be playing in a record deal a stadium like that teams had reached the point where they simply didn't want to play here in a stadium with a capacity of 25,000 the packers weren't getting the revenue that they needed from it owners are not getting the kind of gate that they want when they come to Green Bay there was a lot of pressure on the Packers and to do something at what a studio or I'll smooth the franchise to Milwaukee the league was telling us that if you don't build a new stadium get a better facility you might lose your franchise it wasn't a case of should we or shouldn't we build a new stadium was we have to build a new stadium who were gonna lose our team steel stadiums were coming into play that seated 40 50 thousand people and Green Bay didn't have that and Green Bay needed that and the Packers needed that in 1954 they started discussing different options one suggestion was to build a new stadium on the site of the existing City Stadium and just enlarge it to 32,000 but there was some opposition to it fierce debate begins over location before building a new stadium is even confirmed the decades-old east side of town west side of town rivalry rears its ugly head Green Bay was still very much a city divided if you're not familiar with Green Bay the Fox River goes right down the middle and quite often never the twain shall meet one like a lot of cities where the big discussion is about how much money we're gonna spend that was a consideration but the much bigger debate he ciders one of the steam stay at the site West siders wanted it will over to the website with CBS television money entering the game financing a new stadium looks more and more promising the first time a game was televised in Green Bay was 1956 the Green Bay Packers never had such good publicity and there was a big debate at that time whether they should televise games and home territories and the NFL didn't for a long time Packers were bringing a little money from radio and television we were a small market teams made their own deals with radio and television it wasn't a universal league thing when Commissioner Rozelle came in and they negotiated the first national television contracts all the revenue was to be equally shared people Zell and some of the more influential owners tomorrow's to Alice's determined that television revenue should be split evenly it wasn't until the TV contracts hit at the end of the 50s and early 60s that the thieves started to break even and show a little bit of a profit that equal sharing of the TV revenue and sharing of the gate receipts in a generous way for the visiting team has become the underpinning for the labor agreement with the players without the television package revenue sharing we would not be here that really played a big part in the Packer surviving it was obvious that they needed a new stadium or they were going to get left behind we had a ver referendum vote which it was very important this referendum which is going to authorize essentially a million dollars to build a new stadium one wouldn't believe that you'd have to but it did take a referendum because the people thought would raise their taxes as a civic leader the Press Gazette is driving the development of City Stadium they are driving indirectly the girl for the Packers the Press Gazette stake historically was if it's good for the Packers it's good for Green Bay more than 1,000 fans turnout from March 31st pep rally in support of the referendum Packers co-founder Curly Lambeau attends as did an old Packer friend and foe George S Halas Ellis is the bitter enemy he's the head coach of the Bears the owner but he has helped the Packers throughout their history he wanted Green Bay to survive he he wanted the leaks or survived and he realized that Green Bay had to do something to keep their franchise George Halas was a great friend of the Packers did many favors for the team over the years but more often than not he was motivated by what was best for the Chicago Bears the visiting teams are gonna get a bigger share of money to come up and play in this larger Stadium that meant keeping the Packer bear rivalry intact as much as George might not like the team he can't imagine a league without the Green Bay Packers Halla spoke and basically told the people of Green Bay passed the referendum or you're gonna lose your team the 960 thousand dollar bond passes one question remains east side of town or west they were worried that if they picked one on the east side West siders would vote against the stadium and vice versa having the factors on the east side all those years east side didn't want to give that up but there was no parking at all at the stadium so they all Park didn't residential Lots in that area local politicians and the councilmen tried to settle on a site and their discussions following the referendum the all urban on East Side and they'll have been on the west side you got into submissions me and the Packers decided that they needed to get an outside consulting firm involved 15 potential sites are surveyed including the current city stadium location Osborn engineering recommends the new stadium be built at the corner of Highland Avenue which is now Lombardia and Ridge Road Green Bay's west side of town costs traffic analysis and parking are all considerations but it's the elevation of the site that is most appealing what they came up with was buying a piece of farmland this property here was our farm for many years starting in the late thirties one of the big selling points to the engineer was the fact that there was a hill that the site was sloping quite a severe pitch to how do you put a football stadium on a hillside and that was an ideal spot for the bowl I could walk out the back door and see the stadium what he came up with was a design which buried about a third of the stadium into the ground and used material that's excavated as fill material to try and level out the site as much as possible we've made our plea to City Council one councilman said well how many seats are you thinking about mr. Atkinson well I said it ought to be designed for 50,000 it oh my goodness don't mention that don't think we're out of our mind he said well how would you start I said well 30 35,000 but if we design it for 50,000 then we will save our money later on the new stadium is completed by September 1957 it seats thirty two thousand one hundred and fifty four and is officially named Green Bay's City Stadium dedication ceremonies are held in the last weekend of September with the largest parade in the city's history attended by 70,000 faithful fans I never thought I'd be done in Green Bay but they did it just a beautiful Stadium and first stadium ever built for pro football Belle called it the greatest thing that had happened to believe one of his teams now have their own stadium never saw anything like this for 60 or 70,000 people to do this so the Green Bay Packers in the city gained their certainty should set an example for some of the largest cities of what the thews e azzam and desire and love of sports will do and in my opinion there wouldn't be any professional football without the package and their tradition of Green Bay Green Bay still is the smallest market in the National Football League and when you think of little green be doing what it did at that time it gripped the entire community well it's the biggest thing that Green Bay's experienced it was perfect from start to finish the band's the floats the parade luminara's all the politicians that you can possibly imagine and it was such a special event that day of course they brought up all these celebrities well it was fun to watch the dignitaries Vice President Nixon James Arness Miss America that was quite something for Green Bay a big no Stadium who could improve on that and the Packers beat the Bears at the opener what was it 21 to 17 edy Branagh the Bears scored the very first touchdown urine in Lambeau Field then Billy Halton scored the first touchdown at a packer bus garden I was 14 all at the half and then in the second half the Bears got a field over up 1714 keep playing the game the Bears went for it on fourth down right around midfield and we stopped them it's a pass from babe for LA to Erie Canal right underneath the goal post that was great too it was a green really was the birds had won the Western Division championship the year before in 56 so we were not equal to the Bears but that day we were because of that inspiration of the new stadium it's all here talented players ardent fans beautiful new stadium to bring the championship home to but no head coach 1958 following a single disastrous season 110 and 1 and the worst in franchise history MacLean quits the team under on sandy Blackburn and MacLean could not win on the road we were a crier in talent but we still were not putting it all together they didn't have a coach to knew what to do with them they only went 12 road games in nine years between 50 and 58 Jack Finney C had set the table he'd say family said I'm black and white we've got the best team in the lake he said I can't understand why the coaches can't utilize these gentlemen a lot of talented players but they were wondering they would you know going out on the town late at night and having fun they didn't know how to win they needed the right coach come in and use the talent impatient and untrusting fans Wow way to get Curly Lambeau back to leave this team to victory there is talk about this big division between Curley and the Packers but the Packers meant a lot to Curley there was a restaurant in Los Angeles called the ram's horn Horning and McGee and Ron and fuzzy and I and five or six of us went down there to have a beer and Curley was there so he comes over to the table and sits down with us the rest I push to actually get him to try to come back and be the coach Curley said yeah I'd love to come back I love the coach again I'd be great his accomplishments basically run matched he went six NFL championships in the small city in the lead we know Curly's history and we know his championships and we know where he's been and it seems like it's a wonderful idea and a wonderful change there was a groundswell of support for him number fans schedule a rally at the roof side ballroom hoping that the Packers would rehire him Lambeau returns to Green Bay and tells the executive committee he is interested in the team's general manager position they are not interested in him the decision at that time was we got to make a significant upgrade Lambeau was was not the man to run the team anymore they felt that they really had to spend some time interviewing the people bringing him in and making sure that this was gonna be a good fit president who of course was a political in Egypt at that time hee hee and is the executive really determined that they would hire a combination general manager head coach and he would give him total authority over the football operation my dad relied a lot on advice that he received from Bert Bell who was the Commissioner at that time as well as George Halas he needed somebody who could take charge took him six weeks to hire a coach forest eva chef ski from Iowa was actually the Packers first choice in 1959 I don't know whether he was first second third or whatever there were more than just four Seversky an officious kid been a Green Bay interviewing the board was all forever Chesky and all of a sudden the Louisville dollar ever Chesky withdrew his application and then they named a guy that had held his only head coaching job was a high school how could they make that kind of mistake when Curley wanted to come back and you go with a high school coach it really really didn't make these sense John Terenas was on the executive committee and what his name came up he said who the hell's Lombardi [Music] there goes back to throw fires a pass complete to the game [Applause] there Vince Lombardi Trophy is coming [Music] my dad used to take me to practices at the field my boyfriend was Paul Hornung that's why I wanted to go to practice so I decided when they were at the game that I was going to walk up there and find Paul Hornung five years old five years old I walked up to the stadium [Music] you were in the seats had two minute warning and she heard over the PA system well mooses are daily please come to the press box [Music] we were down on the tenth row like I like they're done they do it no she's not here try the Roloffs Infante I was in the house where she was in the hospital [Music] one sports writer got wind of the story so he wrote a little story about it somewhat embellished of course [Music]
