There's A Lot To Love
About The Packers
Gary Gerard,
dumbhoosier.com
I was going to write about the Green Bay Packers last week but I was
afraid I would jinx them.
But now, since they are Super Bowl XLV champions, I can breathe easy.
I am a lifelong Packers fan. Sometimes it's tough living among all
these Bears and Colts fans, but I get by.
My parents, God rest their souls, grew up in the tiny town of Phillips,
Wis., in Price County on Wis. 13, right in the middle of the state.
It's about 80 miles south of Lake Superior.
In the 1940s, mom and dad moved to Chicago because of my dad's job.
Several years later dad was transferred to a plant in Plymouth, where
he worked as a supervisor.
I was born in 1958 in Plymouth. My dad was a diehard Packers fan. We
watched a lot of games together on television. Dad thought it was a big
deal that the team was publically owned. He liked to say the Packers
were the people's team.
The Green Bay Packers were founded in August 1919 by Curly Lambeau and
George Whitney Calhoun.
Seems Lambeau solicited funds for uniforms from the Indian Packing
Company, the meat packing plant where he worked. The company gave him
$250 for uniforms and equipment, but there was a condition - the team
had to be named for its benefactor.
The Packers joined the American Professional Football Association in
1921. But the team was in financial trouble and had to give up its
franchise at the end of its first season.
Lambeau found new financial backers and got the franchise back for $250
the very next year.
The Packers were still teetering on the brink of insolvency until a
group of local businessmen - known as the "Hungry Five" - bailed out
the team and formed the Green Bay Football Corporation.
The Packers are the only publically owned team in pro sports - owned by
Green Bay Packers Inc. That's probably why they remain in tiny Green
Bay, a no-market city of slightly more than 100,000 residents. The town
lives and dies for the Packers. The only way you can get a season
ticket is if it is willed to you.
I am pretty sure if the team was owned by an individual - somebody like
Jerry Jones or Al Davis - the Packers would have moved a long time ago.
Heck, Zygi Wilf, owner of the Minnesota Vikings, is threatening to move
his team to Los Angeles if the state doesn't pony up fat cash for a new
stadium.
"Green Bay Packers" is the oldest team name still in use in the NFL.
The final remaining vestige of small-town teams that were common during
the 1920s and 1930s in the NFL.
Their stadium is Lambeau Field. They own 13 world championships, more
than any other franchise. (The dirty Chicago Bears are second with
nine.)
You know that trophy they give the winner of the Super Bowl? It's
called the Lombardi trophy. It's named for Packers coach Vince Lombardi
He coached the team from 1959 to 1967.
Under Lombardi, the Packers were the team of the '60s. They won five
world championships in seven years. They won the first two Super Bowls.
Those were the days of Bart Star, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Carroll
Dale, Forrest Gregg, Jerry Kramer, Willie Davis, Willie Wood and Ray
Nitschke.
One game during Lombardi's tenure is widely and appropriately referred
to as the greatest football game of all time - the Ice Bowl.
In Lombardi's final season, the Packers played the Cowboys for the NFL
championship at Lambeau Field. It was brutally cold. The actual
temperature was -15. Wind chill was -36 by today's standards.
The refs couldn't use their metal whistles because they froze to their
lips. They used voice commands instead.
The underturf heating system at Lambeau Field failed and the field
froze solid. Lots of players suffered frostbite.
With 16 seconds left, Bart Starr scored a touchdown on a quarterback
sneak. The Packers won 21-17. It was their third straight NFL
Championship No other team has ever matched that feat.
My dad had to work that day. He called home near the end of the game to
ask me how it was going. These were the days of three channels in black
and white, of course. I watched that final play while on the phone with
my dad and relayed him the happy news.
(The Packers went on to win Super Bowl II with a 33-14 victory over the
AFL's Oakland Raiders.)
So yeah. I love the Packers. There's a lot there to love - the
tradition, the legacy, the history, the storied past.
I must admit, however, I owe the Packers' management an apology. When
they ran Brett Favre out of town in 2008 I was pretty critical of them.
Turns out, I was dead wrong.
Just two short seasons later the Lombardi trophy is back in Title Town.
And it looks like the Packers are poised to be good for more than a
little while.
Packers GM Ted Thompson was much maligned by people like me for
choosing Aaron Rodgers over Favre. He was right. I was wrong. Sorry,
Ted.
It just so happens that the 27-year-old Rodgers is now the top-rated
passer in NFL history in both the regular season (98.4) and the
postseason (112.6).
And as good as Rodgers has turned out to be, how about the rest of the
team Thompson has assembled?
He has systematically built depth into the team in every position
through the draft. Even with 15 players on injured reserve during the
season - and injuries to Charles Woodson and Donald Driver in the Super
Bowl - the Packers still got the win.
Look out next year, NFC North when everybody is healthy - Ryan Grant,
Jermichael Finley, Nick Barnett. It's tough for a team to repeat as
conference champ or Super Bowl champ, but I think Thompson has the
Packers poised to do just that.
That is, of course, if the owners don't lock out the players next
season over the inability to reach a collective bargaining agreement. I
really hope that doesn't happen.
So hat's off to the Green Bay Packers.
Congratulations to them for yet another world championship. Can't wait
to see them play again.
Go, Pack, go!
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