APRIL 9 Lambeau_1919_poster

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:April 9, 1898 Curly Lambeau was born , in Green Bay, Wisconsin,to Marcelin Lambeau and Mary LaTour, both of Belgian descent. Lambeau attended Green Bay East High School, where he was identified as a standout athlete. He played for the football team all four years of high school and was named captain in 1917 as a senior. Green Bay Press-Gazette sportswriter George Whitney Calhoun noted in September 1917 that Lambeau was trying out for the University of Wisconsin freshmen football team as "one of the best gridiron prospects that has ever been turned out of a high school". However, Lambeau never ended up enrolling at Wisconsin. After graduating from high school, he worked for his father in the construction business and participated in different local football teams. In 1918, Lambeau attended the University of Notre Dame and played for college coach Knute Rockne, making the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team's varsity squad. However a severe case of tonsillitis forced him to miss the 1919 spring semester. He never returned to Notre Dame. After a long recovery from tonsillitis, Lambeau went to work as a shipping clerk at the Indian Packing Company for $250 a month. Founding the Green Bay Packers Lambeau with the Green Bay Packers in 1923 Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun founded the Green Bay Packers on August 11, 1919, after the packing company put up $500 for uniforms. That fall, the founders secured Willard "Big Bill" Ryan, former coach of Green Bay West High School, to coach the team. The team's name reportedly was offered to Curly by his girlfriend Agnes Aylward after a pickup game; Curly had wanted to call the team "The Green Bay Indians" to respect Indian Packing's purchase of uniforms for the team; so Agnes simply blurted, "Well, for heaven's sake, Curly, why don't you just call them the Green Bay Packers!" The team's naming rights were sold to the Acme Packing Company, and the team remained Packers. The Packers initially played teams from Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. However, the success of the team in 1919 and 1920 quickly led to its joining of the American Professional Football Association (now called the National Football League) in 1921.[9] During that season the team was owned by the Acme Packing Company and John and Emmet Clair of Chicago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curly_Lam...