Green Bay Packers Research Paper

History of The Green Bay Packers

What I Already Knew/ What I Wanted to Know

When I started this project I already knew a little bit of history about the Green Bay Packers. I already knew that they had won the first and second ever Super Bowls. Since then they have been to three more Super Bowls and won two of them which puts them in third place tied with the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. They had won nine championships before the AFL NFL merger of 1970. With their 4 Super Bowls and 9 championships they have the most championship titles in world history.

Through my research I am hoping to learn a little more about the history of the Green Bay Packers. I will start by getting a better understanding of the creation of the Green

Bay Packers such as when it was founded, where it was founded, who founded it, and who sponsored the creation of the team. After I have finished the basis of my research I will move through the years learning the key changes and moments through out the history of the Green Bay Packers. From there I will branch out to legendary coaches and players.
The Story of My Search
My research took about one week.

I began my research by developing some background on my topic on packers.com. That site gave me information such as when the Packers were founded and who founded them. It also talked about who sponsored their creation, where their name came from, and how the team developed over time. Then, I compared the information from that site with some other sources such as, bio.com, and time.com. I confirmed that all of the information was credible.

Next, I began my search on historic coaches of the Packers. Through packers.com, I found a lot of information on the coaches that deserve to be remembered and make the team the legendary one it is today. Then, I started to search for statistics of the coaches. I looked for things such as the teams record for the seasons they coached and if they had won any championship titles.

Finally, I shifted my attention to the legendary players throughout the history of the team. I found a lot of statistics of the players such as when they played, what position they played, and how many titles were won while they were on the team using websites such as jsonline.com, and bleacherreport.com. Finally I will focus on the players to try and determine who the best players

were.
The Search Results
The Green Bay Packers have won more championship titles than any other team in the NFL.

They also have one of the most loyal fan bases, which can be represented by the fact that season tickets have been sold out since 1960. They are considered one of the greatest dynasties in NFL history. The history of the Green Bay packers is legendary, and have been and always will be one of the greatest franchises in the history of the league. Some might even say the greatest.

The Green Bay Packers were founded on August 11, 1919 in a small office of the old Green Bay Gazette building in downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin. The team was founded by Curly Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun. The creation of the team was funded by the Indian Packing Company, thus the name "Packers." They were forced to start a field at Hagemeister Park until they got the money to build a proper field. And they stayed there until September 29, 1957 when their new stadium was dedicated and named City Stadium. It was later renamed in 1965 to Lambeau Field.

After two seasons their financial outlook was greatly improving. With their money they put up a fence surrounding the fields so they could now charge admission for the game. With the income from admissions they had erected two large portions of the bleachers by the middle of October, so fans wouldn't have to watch the action while standing on the sidelines

anymore.
On August 27, 1921 the American Professional Football Association granted The Green Bay Packers a professional franchise. They have almost always been the smallest team in the league except for one time in 1921, The Tonawanda Kardex, of Tonawanda New York, were the smallest team in the league. However the Kardex only made it one game.
Until they were nearing their 50th anniversary they were constantly at risk of termination. For example in their first season they had a winning record of 3-2-1, but then everything went wrong. In a non-league game against Racine Billed on December 4, 1921, the Packers used three Notre Dame players with college eligibility left. They used the fake names to prevent being caught but their plan failed and two months later the team was ejected from the league. But because of the impression the Packers had put on the other franchises and Curly Lambeau's persistence they were readmitted to the NFL.
Later that year The Acme Packing Co. Renounced their control of the team. A small group lead by Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun took over. Afflicted with limited resources and terrible weather the new owners barely got through their first season. On Thanksgiving a terrible rain shower ruined booster day. The game was almost canceled but Andrew Turnbull one of the owners of The Green Bay Gazette persuaded them not to.
Into the following years the franchise went through multiple coaches. In 1950 Curly Lambeau resigned from his 31 years in association with the Green Bay Packers to become head coach of the Chicago Cardinals. Within a week of Curly Lambeau resigning the franchise hired Gene Rozani. Rozani couldn't keep up a winning record so with two games left in the 1953 season he was forced to resign. In the reshuffling of the franchise in 1954 Lisle Blackbourn from Marquette university was hired as head coach. Despite his failures as a coach he had a gift for finding talent and was rehired as a scout during the Lombardi era.
After Blackbourn was fired after a messily 3-9 record in 1957 Ray McLean, who was a backfield coach of the Packers since 1951, was hired as head coach. McLean only lasted one season before he resigned on December 17, 1958 after the worst record in franchise history of 1-10-1. On January 28, 1959 the franchise announced Lombardi as the new head coach. At the conference in which they first introduced him to the public he said “I want it understood that I’m in complete command" (packers.com 7). In his first season as head coach he lead the team to a 7-5 season, so he was named coach of the year.
Their loss in the 1960 championship would be their last championship loss during Lombardi's reign as head coach. The won the 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967, and Super Bowls I and II. They finished with a miraculous 98-30-4 record. Under the control of Lombardi the Packers were named the team of the 60's. Lombardi is considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game and consequently they honored him by naming the Super Bowl trophy after him.
After three consecutive titles Vince Lombardi handed his head coaching job over to Phil Bengston in 1967. Only a year later Lombardi left Green Bay to go coach for the Washington Redskins. "Bengtson coached the Packers from 1968-70, compiling a 20-21-1 record. He resigned in December 1970" (packers.com 8).
Now let's move on to some of the legendary players. I am going to mainly emphasize the players who were admitted to the hall of fame and those who's numbers were retired. I will give the names and the stats of each player.
Since 1970 there have been 153 players inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame. and 21 were inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. and there are six numbers retired from the the team meaning the number can no longer been worn.
The retired numbers include number three worn by Tony Canadeo, number 14 worn by Don Hutson, number 66 worn by Ray Nitschke, number four for Brett Favre, number one for Curly Lambeau, and number 92 worn by Reggie White. Tony Canadeo was a halfback for the 1941-44 and 1946-52 season. He was the first player to rush for over 1,00 yards. Don Hutson was a wide receiver for the 1935-45 seasons. He had the ninth most touchdown receptions in league history.
Ray Nitschke was a linebacker for the 1958-72 seasons. He was named MVP of he 1962 title game and was named to the 75th anniversary team. Reggie white was a defensive end for the 1993-98 seasons. He set an NFL record of 198 career sacks and was named player of the year in 1998. He was also named all pro thirteen times. Brett Favre was the most recent player to have his number retired. He wore the number four from 1992-2008 and set an NFL record of 297 games as a starter. The number one has also been retired in honor of Curly Lambeau the founder of the packers.

Growth as a Researcher
Throughout this project I learned a lot. Not only did I learn a lot of new facts about the Packers, I also learned a lot about research and writing a research report. I learned how to make a bibliography, how to organize my paper, and how to quote a source. I also found out that researching is really time consuming and that an outline of your sources and facts you plan on using is very helpful and can really help speed up the process.