When Pride Still Mattered Chapter 11 - The Foreigner
In chapter 11, David Marainss describes the Packers’ origins under Curly Lambeau as “glorious but tenuous,” and I think that’s perfectly accurate. I’ve been doing a lot of research on the early days of the Packers lately, and my big takeaway was that it’s essentially a miracle that this team survived. So many other towns, big and small, founded teams like the Packers, but few of them made it out of infancy, much less lasted decades.
And I think although the Packers themselves present things as though the team made it through some tough early years but found stability and essentially were unchanged throughout the years, they were, in reality, in much more dire straits. To wit: Maraniss argues in this chapter that league commissioner Bert Bell was getting pressure from owners throughout the league to either fix the Packers or fold them, and I’d wager that things were far closer to fold than fix by the late 1950s. Had Lombardi not arrived when he did and fixed things as he did, the Packers probably wouldn’t have seen the end of the 1960s.
As described in this chapter, Lombardi’s arrival in Green Bay was that of a savior, but not just from the depredations of a profit-hungry league. Lombardi probably saved the Packers from themselves.
Maraniss describes the Packers’ board of directors as a “contentious group of 45 know-it-alls,” and given their druthers, they probably wouldn’t have made the inspired choice that the Packers’ true leadership did. When populism reigns, you end up making choices that appeal to as many people as possible, and I think it’s likely that Curly Lambeau probably would have weaseled his way back into the Packers’ top job if the board had anything to say about it.
What a disaster that would have been, but given how the Packers operated in the 1970s, it’s not to hard to envision. Given the choice, the Packers’ always seem to want to turn back rather than look forward. Fortunately, this time they chose not to.
Interesting Notes
“The Packers underwhelmed ten opponents, overwhelmed one, and whelmed one” is an all-time great line in sportswriting.
I can’t even begin to imagine the outcry today if a team president was hung in effigy outside a team’s office, but such was the case for Dom Olejniczak.
Scooter McLean should have been fired as head coach simply for failing to recognize the most basic truth in playing cards for money: if you can’t spot the mark at the table, he’s you.
Religion once again played a role in Lombardi’s life, as he connected with Oleniczak and Tony Canadeo over their shared Catholic backgrounds.
Lombardi’s original salary of $36,000 per year in 1959 works out to just under $375,000 in 2023 money. Lombardi was a steal, even then.
With Lombardi finally in Green Bay, we can leave our “Packers connections” segment behind for right now. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t note this nugget from Maraniss: “The coming of Vince Lombardi to Green Bay completed a cycle of football mythology. Green Bay, where Curly Lambeau, founder of the Packers, taught football to Sleepy Jim Crowley, who became on of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, made famous by Grantland Rice,a nd went to New york to coach at Fordham, where he mentored the Seven Blcoks of Granite, among Vince Lombardi, who ventured out to Green Bay to reclaim the glory that began with Curly Lambeau.”