I remember knowing every single players' name of that 1972 team, as they won the Central Division (now known as the NFC North) and went on to lose 16-3 to the Washington Redskins in the first round of the playoffs. The Redskins lost in the Super Bowl to the Miami Dolphins - the only team in NFL history to go through an entire season without losing a game.
The Packers are a leading source of income for the state of Wisconsin, and Lambeau Field is a bona fide major tourist attraction. It is a great facility, and since it was remodeled early in the last decade, it is beautiful and open every day. The atrium at Lambeau Field has hosted weddings, conventions, chamber of commerce events, stockholder meetings... you name it. It has bars, restaurants, the Packer Pro Shop and the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame rivals the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH - and some say the Green Bay facility is superior. All I know is that it is very cool - as a history buff, it has lots of tidbits for those who don't care for sports, and for the fans, it is a treasure trove of facts, figures, trivia and more about the team once known as the Acme Packers, who were founded by a man named Earl (Curly) Lambeau in 1920.
The stadium itself is a wonder. It was built in 1954 and was basically bleachers and fences. Many of the seats there are numbers on aluminum benches. What might be a semi comfortable seat in August or September, becomes a thin slice of valuable space in November or December, as fans add layer upon layer of clothes in order to shelter themselves from northeastern Wisconsin's climate, which can vary from 90's in summer, to well below zero in the winter. During a winter game, you can stand up to cheer, and not be able to park your butt back from whence it came, as the width of each person is half again what it is during fair weather. The New Year's Eve game of 1967 is iconic in NFL circles, as Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr dove across the goal line with less than ten seconds left to defeat the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 for the right to play in the second Super Bowl, in temperatures betwixt ten and fifteen degrees below zero. To listen to people talk now, I have estimated that crowd to be in the neighborhood of 750,000 - though the stadium at the time held less than 50,000. Everyone wishes to be a part of history.
People have Packer rooms in their house, with theater seats comprised of seats taken from Lambeau Field in one of their renovations. People have Packer bars in their homes. My parents travel a lot, and spend their winters in various places, never the same one, every winter. They have never failed to find a Packer bar no matter where they travel, so they can watch the beloved Green and Gold with others of the faithful. I have cousins who live in the Los Angeles, CA area. We see them every 25-30 years, like clockwork. The last time that they were here, they went to Lambeau Field before they came to see any of us. And we understood.
I live on a fairly busy county highway, it connects to area high schools - one with about 1800 students, and a parochial high school with an enrollment of about 600. There are times when I sit in my driveway for ten minutes or more without being able to pull out. When the Packers are playing, I could take a half an hour long nap in the middle of that road, and not be disturbed. The Packers are the only thing that matters for many people. If you want to have a leisurely round of golf, tee it up at kickoff time on Packer Sunday, and you just might be able to play three or four balls at once - you won't be pushed.
I know, I know - I can hear it already. What else is there to do in Wisconsin? There is lots, but I am not on the board of tourism. Anyone familiar with Wisconsin knows that there are lakes, the highest concentration of golf courses in the country (not kidding, look it up)... Wisconsin is beautiful, with rolling hills - what a lovely job those glaciers did on carving out the tapestry that I call my home, lots of trees and grass - some great state, county and municipal parks, history - the home of Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, Liberace the pianist, the artist Georgia O'Keefe, actors Spencer Tracy, Orson Welles, and Frederic March... and of course, Harry Houdini...there are museums and theaters and any number of things that make my home state a treasure to be my home. 30 miles to the south is a major aviation museum which hosts one of the world's major fly-ins, and the airport becomes the busiest in the nation during that last week in July.
People choose the Packers because we own them. Yes, the only team of any professional league to be owned by their community. That's right, in the 1950's - the team struggled financially and they decided to sell stock to the community to raise money. The team has a board of directors, and they meet once or twice a year, with their stockholders, at Lambeau Field - somewhere around 25,000 or so will show up. When the Packers won the Super Bowl in 1997, they were greeted by close to 100,000 people who lined the streets of Green Bay, waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of a couple passing buses. When the Packers arrived at the Lambeau Field, they were greeted by a full stadium. In temperatures that were in the single digits.
We love the Green Bay Packers. Don't ask why. We just do. We own them, and we'll never stop living and dying with them. It's a community thing.
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