This is a great piece on Packer history I found in the Journal Sentinel archives from back in 1998, thanks to Cliff Christl, who covered the Green Bay Packers for many years. I was born in 1952 and grew up during the Lombardi championship years. I had not known much about Curley until reading this very interesting article.
By Cliff Christl, of the Journal staff. Link provided below:
Oct. 17, 1998
He was a philanderer, a compulsive liar and a manipulator. He also smoked at one point in his life, but didn't inhale.
To borrow an old cliche, he could charm the birds out of a tree, but he allowed few people to get close.
No, we're not talking about the pride of Hope, Ark.
We're talking about Curly Lambeau.
Lambeau Field may be the most famous and sacred football stadium in the country. It has played host to perhaps the most famous game of all time, "The Ice Bowl," as well as two other National Football League championships.
The eyes of the nation focus on it every time the Green Bay Packers play at home. They were drawn to it just two weeks ago when the Packers entertained the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night television and they will be directed at it again over the next two weekends when the Packers play the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers.
But as well known as it is and as often as it is in the spotlight, Lambeau Field is associated more with Vince Lombardi and others who actually have stalked its sidelines or gallantly performed on its hallowed turf than with its worthy namesake.
There are still people among us who personally knew Lambeau or closely followed his career, but to most contemporary fans he represents little more than a familiar name.
There are legions who probably know that he helped found the Packers and was a highly successful coach. But we rarely, if ever, see film clips or snapshots of him in action.
He has been dislodged from our collective conscience by death and time. . . .
And that's too bad.
Why?
Because Curly Lambeau was a fascinating and enigmatic individual.
In the prime of his life, he was a national celebrity, someone who hobnobbed in high society and found himself in the spotlight nearly everywhere he went. Like many notable leaders, he had an insatiable appetite for power, women and riches.
His imperfections and indiscretions alienated many of the men who played for him, cost him three wives and galvanized a small force of enemies who usurped his authority and drove him out of Green Bay.
But his legacy is written all over one of the two most storied franchises in the NFL and his name is emblazoned across what may be the country's most famous football shrine.
"He certainly was very human," said Lee Remmel, who was a young sportswriter covering the team when Lambeau was still coaching and now is director of public relations for the Packers. "But he's the guy who founded the Packers in company with George Calhoun and then kept them together for a long, long time.
"A lot of people around the country have the perception that the Packers originated with Vince Lombardi. That's obviously totally erroneous, but I feel Curly gets cheated nationally because of it.
"I've said many times that if it hadn't been for Curly Lambeau there would have been no Vince Lombardi. There would have been no Green Bay Packers."
With that glowing testament as a backdrop, we look at two sides, but really many sides, of Earl Louis "Curly" Lambeau.
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The Coach
Lambeau coached in the NFL for 33 years, including 29 with the Packers. Only George Halas coached longer.
He won 226 games, lost 132 and tied 22 (only Don Shula, Halas and Tom Landry won more). He won six NFL championships (only Halas won as many).
But his players never once carried him off the field in celebration. For every player who believed in him, there was another who despised him for being insincere and untrustworthy.
"I don't think guys played out of respect for Curly as much as out of fear of Curly," said Bob Snyder, who served as an assistant coach with the Packers in 1949. "A lot of guys didn't like Paul Brown. A lot of guys didn't like Lombardi. But they respected them. I think they were just scared of Curly."
Lambeau wasn't necessarily a tyrant on the field, but he had strict rules and he let everybody know who was boss.
He would slap players with steep, unreasonable fines in an age when they made meager wages. He would threaten their jobs. He would place the blame for mistakes and defeats squarely on their shoulders.
"I remember I called him up once after we lost a ball game," said Art Daley, a retired sportswriter who covered the Packers in the 1940s for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "Andy Uram fumbled at the end. I think it was (against) the Bears. Curly said, 'We didn't lose the ball game, Andy Uram did.' "
Of course, players who were more secure were more willing to stand up to him.
"I remember a deal once where (Mike) Michalske and (Cal) Hubbard backed him against the wall one time over some money or something," Howie Levitas, a director emeritus on the Packers' board who began his association with the team as a water boy in 1928, said in reference to two of the team's Hall of Fame linemen.
"They literally backed him against the wall in the dressing room."
More often than not, when players had a beef with Lambeau, it was over money. They'd grouse to each other that he had deceived them in negotiations and even reneged on the terms of their contracts. But the times where Lambeau lost control were rare.
He had a reputation for being a disciplinarian -- much more so than for being a brilliant tactician.
Early in his career, he was considered one of the pioneers of the forward pass. He also has been credited with being the first coach to hold daily practices and watch film. But many of his players openly questioned his knowledge of the game.
Some even suggested that it had passed him by at the end. A proponent of the Notre Dame box, Lambeau was one of the last coaches in the NFL to switch to the T-formation. He made the move in 1947 but had little success thereafter.
"When I got on his staff, I was surprised," said Snyder. "We had very few meetings. It didn't seem like he had any system. The plays to the left side weren't the same as the plays to the right side. And I don't remember looking at movies."
What made Lambeau such a success was that he was a master salesman and motivator.
Before the college draft was introduced in 1936, he sold a long list of great players on the idea of coming to Green Bay. And once they arrived, he inspired them to great heights with his competitive fire, his unbridled enthusiasm and his artful powers of persuasion.
"He could really get you worked up," said Snyder.
Lambeau would stir players with his oratory. He'd grab their attention by storming the sidelines: ranting and raving, stomping his feet and kicking at air. Before sending them into a game, he'd grab them by the jersey, incessantly pound them on the back for encouragement and exhort them to play the game of their lives.
"I was charmed by him," said Dick Wildung, a former Pro Bowl tackle who played with the Packers from 1946-'51 and again in '53. "I thought he was a good guy to play for."
Wildung may have been in the minority.
"A lot of people didn't," said Johnston, "but I thought he was great."
The Socialite
If there was anything Lambeau liked better than football, it was women. He was an unabashed ladies man.
"He really was," said Mary Jane Sorgel, who lives in Mequon and was once known as the Packers' Golden Girl, when she was serving as drum majorette for the team's Lumberjack Band.
"And as far as I'm concerned, when I was with him, he didn't have any other ladies. But he was charming to everybody. My mother thought he was charming."
Sorgel was Lambeau's girlfriend when he died in 1965 at age 67. She was roughly half his age.
By then, Lambeau had been married and divorced three times. His first wife was a high school sweetheart. His second wife was a former Miss California. His third wife was divorced from a Hollywood film director.
Women found Lambeau ruggedly handsome. He stood 6-foot-1, weighed 200-some pounds and walked with an erect, graceful stride. He also liked to coat himself with body fragrances and dress in sharp, flashy clothes.
"He was a wonderful fella, but oddball, really," said Jim Schymanski, who served as equipment manager for the Packers in 1942. "He wouldn't go anywhere until his hair was combed perfectly. Always dressed nice. Liked women. He always made sure he was out with somebody."
Women weren't the only ones attracted to Lambeau's charm. So were sportswriters.
In the Packers' early years when they were struggling for survival and in desperate need of publicity, Lambeau always knew what to say to attract headlines and attention.
"In the '30s when he continued to win championships, he was introduced in night clubs in New York like Bill Tilden and Jack Dempsey," said Remmel in reference to two other legendary sports figures. "That was the so-called 'Golden Age of Sports' and Curly became a national figure.
"He really did."
Lambeau also felt at home in California, where he often spent his off-seasons. He purchased a residence in the exclusive Malibu beach area and befriended a number of well-known Hollywood entertainers. He lived the life of luxury, driving big, fancy cars and always carrying a large wad of bills in his pocket.
Even though he was immensely proud of his physique and unusually health conscious, Lambeau also smoked cigarettes back then.
Perhaps just to be cool.
"He never inhaled," said Daley, a heavy smoker at the time. "He'd draw on it and puff it right out."
Lambeau's California lifestyle didn't go over well in his native Green Bay, especially when the team started losing in the late 1940s.
"They said he had gone Hollywood," said Remmel. "He spent a considerable amount of time there in the off-season and some people said that was why the team had become much less successful, that he wasn't paying attention to business."
In 1948, the Packers finished 3-9, their first losing season in 15 years. The following year, they lost their opener to the Chicago Bears, 17-0. Five days later, Lambeau announced that he was turning over the team to his three assistants and kicking himself upstairs to become advisory coach.
The Packers spent the season rudderless and in turmoil.
On Nov. 30, with the team in the midst of a six-game losing streak, the board of directors met at the Brown County Courthouse to determine Lambeau's future.
He had ruled the franchise like an autocrat for more than 25 years. But with the Packers losing money and heading toward a second straight disastrous season, he had become vulnerable.
Lambeau's authority had gradually been undermined.
He also had made a number of enemies. Three years earlier, he had dismissed Calhoun, who had helped him found the team, from his post as publicity director.
A bitter Calhoun plotted with his friends on the board to oust Lambeau, but couldn't garner enough support. After five hours of acrimonious debate, Lambeau emerged from the meeting and announced that he had been offered a new two-year contract as coach and general manager.
However, he still hadn't signed it two months later.
On Feb. 1, 1950, the man who had been the heart and soul of the Packers since their founding in 1919 resigned to become head coach of the Chicago Cardinals. He coached four more years -- two with the Cardinals and two with the Washington Redskins -- before leaving football, returning only to coach the College All-Stars.
On June 1, 1965, Lambeau died in Sturgeon Bay of a massive heart attack. He was cutting the grass at the home of Francis Van Duyse, a good friend. Sorgel was there. She was Van Duyse's daughter.
"He was mowing our lawn just for fun," said Sorgel. "He was showing me how he had learned to do the twist in California. All of a sudden, he fell right into my dad's arms."
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