Profile: Green Bay Packers Founder Curly Lambeau

Curly Lambeau is the co-founder of the National Football League franchise the Green Bay Packers. Curly Lambeau played at Notre Dame on the varsity team as a freshman but tonsillitis forced him to come home to Green Bay to recuperate. As he was recuperating he took a job at the Indian Packing Company in Green Bay; it was while he was there he began talking to his boss about starting a professional team in Green Bay. There were a lot of professional teams in the upper Midwest back then and his boss decided to give him the money to buy uniforms so they could form a team.

His team, the Green Bay Packers, for which he was a player-coach played in the American Professional Football Association for two years before entering the fledgling National Football League. As a team in the American Professional Football League his team had a very impressive 19-2-1 record while playing teams from Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As a player he had ideas to do different things on offense. As a halfback he would often take the snap from center in what we would today describe as a shotgun formation although today you'll never see a running back take a long snap from center. He would frequently pass from this formation which made him an exception in as much as most teams primarily ran the ball.

Curly Lambeau played as a player for nine seasons; for those nine years he also was coach of the Green Bay Packers. Thereafter, he stayed on as coach of the Packers until 1949. As coach for the Packers for those 29 years Curly Lambeau won six championships including three in a row from 1929-31. His other championship teams were in 1936, 1939, and 1944.

His overall coaching record when the Packers were an NFL team was 209-104-21. Curly Lambeau also coached in the NFL after leaving the Packers coaching the Chicago Cardinals for two years and coaching the Washington Redskins for two years. His record as a coach in the National Football League was an impressive 229-134-22.

Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin is the stadium which bears his name and is where the Green Bay Packers play 6 of their home games each year; they play two of their home games in Milwaukee. After his death in 1965 the Green Bay Packers named their home field after their co-founder and the man who put the Green Bay Packers on the football map.

The man who went to high school in Green Bay later became a member of the Professional Football Hall of Fame after his death. Earl Louis "Curly" Lambeau was the home town kid who made a name for his little town of Green Bay.

Resources:
www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nfl/packers/gb.html