The Green Bay Packers Turn 100 Today!

Typically in this space I'd write about the week's hot topic and there are plenty of buzz-worthy nuggets already but today, it's about a major milestone in the Green Bay Packers history: Their 100th birthday!

In the offices of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Curly Lambeau formed this team on this day, 100 years ago.  It would take countless pieces to appropriately cover this team's history and all of the significant events that have happened since.

To this day, the Packers remain the only team without a true owner and that is partially funded by the sale of team stock.  That they're still thriving in the NFL's smallest media market a century later is a marvel.  

From the team's inception to their first championship in 1929 all the way to the Lombardi era, the Ice Bowl and Super Bowls I & II, the Packers forged an early reputation as an upstanding franchise with championship pedigree.  But even that was almost not enough to save the team from dissolving or relocating, according to past team president Bob Harlan.

The post-Lombardi era Packers fell into a 20 year doldrum and without the additions of Harlan, Ron Wolf and Mike Holmgren in the early 1990's, the Packers' celebration today may look a lot different.  The arrival of Reggie White, Super Bowl XXXI, the major renovation to Lambeau Field in 2002, many playoff seasons in between and most recently, Super Bowl XLV are all worthy of mention as recent franchise-altering happenings.

The New England Patriots may be the most recent dynasty but still, no other NFL team has more championships than the Packers.  A big "Happy 100th Birthday!" to the league's most successful franchise and here's to 100 more!

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Jason is a freelance writer on staff since 2012 and also co-hosts Cheesehead TV Live, Pulse of the Pack and Pack A Day podcasts.  You can follow him on Twitter here

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Comments (14)

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hodge555's picture

August 11, 2019 at 02:04 pm

Happy Birthday Packers

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4thand1's picture

August 11, 2019 at 02:13 pm

No one does it better.

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Qoojo's picture

August 11, 2019 at 02:27 pm

Makes me feel sad for the rest

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jeremyjjbrown's picture

August 11, 2019 at 02:21 pm

Here's to the next 100!

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GBPDAN1's picture

August 11, 2019 at 03:33 pm

I shall pour a cold beer and toast our historic franchise. Go Pack

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Lare's picture

August 11, 2019 at 03:47 pm

All sports teams have their ups and downs and the Packers have certainly had their fair of both.

But after a couple of years of "downs", hopefully they've made the necessary changes and we can experience another period of "ups" bringing title town back to Green Bay.

Happy birthday Pack!

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Swisch's picture

August 11, 2019 at 05:20 pm

I wonder if there is a book out there that analyzes the impact of class and ethnicity and religion on those early days of pro football.
In the 1920s, it was only college football that was all the rage amongst the monied elite, while pro football was considered beneath the dignity of most college stars and their fans.
Thus it was that the early pro game was a rather small affair populated by the poor and marginalized of society, the gritty and grimy blue-collar industrial workers of places like Green Bay and Duluth and Pottsville and Canton.
I'm interested in all of this in part because of proudly coming from a working-class Wisconsin background. One of my grandfathers was an immigrant as a child; one of the last members of the horse cavalry in the Old West of the 1920s; and a bus driver for the City of Milwaukee. On the other side of the family, my mom went to a one-room schoolhouse past the covered bridge on the edge of Cedarburg into the 1950s.
Like the so-called deplorables of today, the working class of the 1920s was often despised by elitists in business and politics as being crude and clumsy and contemptible.
They were bent and even broken under the burden of long hours and paltry pay in factories that were dirty and dangerous and demeaning.
Even in later years, during somewhat better days, it would be interesting to note the number of Packers in the Lombardi Era who were seeking pro football as an escape from steel mills and coal mines in the North and sharecropping fields in the South.
Even though the NFL has gone corporate and commercial -- with a commissioner making an astounding, if not obscene, salary of some $35 million per year -- it is a national shame that its longtime fans in the working class of America are once again treated like dirt, insulted and ignored and increasingly impoverished.
For many of the underclass, pro football is still an only way out of drudgery and desperation. Though more lucrative for all the players, the great riches go mostly to a few superstars, while the position of the average athlete is highly precarious -- with unrelenting competition, devastating injuries, and contracts that can be cancelled at the whim of the owners.
It's always interesting to look at sports in the context of society. While football in general is a great escape of recreation and entertainment, it is also closely connected to society and truly relevant to our daily existences.
America is indeed great, and has always been great, in large part because our overworked and underpaid working class has somehow maintained its humor and hospitality and humanity in the midst of such monstrously difficult conditions.
But to stay great as America we need a much greater appreciation of the common man who has built our country with his toil and defended it with his courage.
Learning about the rugged pioneer players in the pro football of the 1920s seems a great way to learn about what really matters in American history.
P.S. I am glad to say I'm from the same hometown in Illinois as the legendary Red Grange -- "The Wheaton Iceman" (which, to illustrate my comment above, was a summer job he began in 1919 that required 14 hours per day, 6 days a week). It was exciting for me in 1978 when, to national fanfare, he visited his old high school (albeit a different building) during my days there.

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Vet1976's picture

August 11, 2019 at 06:54 pm

Amen. your prospective is spot-on.

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murf7777's picture

August 11, 2019 at 06:09 pm

13 world champs in 100 years...job well done...congrats.

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Lare's picture

August 11, 2019 at 06:28 pm

But if you're a Vikings fan, you're thrilled because they just traded for a kicker.

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jgando12's picture

August 11, 2019 at 06:47 pm

Always and forever!!!! Go Mighty Pack!!!

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Pierre's picture

August 11, 2019 at 07:16 pm

100 years of history for the Green Bay Packers! There have been a lot of great players who have played for the smallest town to represent a team in the NFL. It would be fitting and special if the Packers could play in the Super Bowl this anniversary season.

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michaelturi's picture

August 11, 2019 at 09:50 pm

53 years for me following the pack. Growing up in NJ it was difficult to stay connected. Here to the internet!

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PAPackerbacker's picture

August 11, 2019 at 11:32 pm

A century of excellence.

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