Curly Lambeau Ready to Conquer the World: From Pillars of the NFL by Patrick McCaskey of the Chicago Bears

This post was published in the Lambeau Chapter of Pillars of the NFL by Patrick McCaskey and it is Copyright Sporting Chance Press:

Ready to conquer the world 

It is 1929, the year of the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. Earl Louis Lambeau, the Green Bay player-coach, has other things on his mind right now. He stands out on a no frills practice field in Green Bay and barks out instructions to his team. The cold autumn wind whips through the dark wavy hair that has given him the moniker, Curly. He is 5-foot-10, handsome, and built like a prizefighter. He can still play football, but he will only cross the sideline in uniform in one game this season. Lambeau is restless, competitive, and perhaps more than anything, he is confident in everything he does. Football is a fitting game for him. It is a man’s game—something made for his temperament. It is a game that intrigues and challenges him—a channel for his endless energy. 

Lambeau’s temper flares as he looks at a player who is not following his instructions. He approaches the man and shouts out directions that he gave a few minutes ago—this time with exaggerated gestures. He is not the most patient “teacher.” He was not the most patient student either. In fact, he dropped out of two different colleges a decade ago and made no plans to go back. Laumbeau has intelligently built a team of excellent athletes over the past eight seasons in the National Football League.

He is a much more mature coach now at 31 years old than when he started. There is no college draft yet in the NFL, so Lambeau talks to whomever he wants coming from the college ranks. It has not been easy, but Lambeau is persuasive. He ably recruits players for Green Bay, a relatively small Midwestern city that is known for iron smelting, papermaking, lumber milling, manufacturing, and to some extent, meatpacking. It is a place that does the difficult. 

Some players prefer the college-like atmosphere of Green Bay and its small town feel. Green Bay has been a good place for jobs, but its population is less than 40,000. It is a tough place to live in December, January, and February when the average low temperature is under 20° and it often trails off below zero. Over 50 inches of snow routinely bury the town each year. The hard-scrabbled citizens that include many immigrants, and sons and daughters of immigrants, do not complain about the weather in Green Bay. They are hardworking people who support Lambeau and his team. In fact, the people in the community have come to own the team through stock purchases and they sustain it by attending games in great number. The newspapers praise Lambeau. The community is fond of him. The team itself is a different story. 

Coaches are not necessarily loved by their players. Lambeau motivates his men by almost any means. He threatens. He intimidates. He is quick to release any man who cannot help the team any longer. He insists on physical conditioning. He has no patience for players who are out of shape or who do not listen. But, he can manage difficult players as well as anyone in football when they are critical to the team’s success. Some players do not like him. Others do not respect him. But most are confident that he will get more out of these Packers than anyone else on the planet. 

Lambeau is a coach who takes his wins and losses personally. He can be miserable for days before a big game and even more miserable if they lose. He can be exuberant after a win, when he often tells his players in post game: “The lid’s off tonight boys, just don’t get arrested.” Coaching, like life, can be tenuous. If Lambeau’s coaching career came to an end on this cold day in 1929, the Packers might fade away as so many other early small-market teams have done. Green Bay may have remained a relatively quiet Wisconsin town—a good town where industry flourished and workers went about their business, but a town of no special note nationally. But Lambeau sticks it out and his Packers are on the threshold of winning three championships in a row. 

Under Lambeau, the Packers will win six championships overall. In a few months and continuing for years, the national media will report on a fascinating “David and Goliath” story—little Green Bay beating the big city teams. Green Bay will become famous all over the world and Curly Lambeau will become its first superstar. But today’s practice is not about notoriety or glory, fame or fortune; it’s about a local man coaching a group of men on a cold day and giving them a sense of potential and purpose with a dash of promise. 

Each chapter in Pillars of the NFL starts out with a "you are there" feature that brings to reader into the world of the coach. This $30 book is now (10/18-17) available on Amazon for just $18.  Not sure how long this will last, so order  now!