The First America's Team: The 1962 Green Bay Packers

by Bob Berghaus

Overview

The 1962 Green Bay Packers are still considered one of the most successful teams in the history of the National Football League. This book examines how the team was built, exploring how four of the five assistants on Lombardi's coaching staff went on to become head coaches. The team was rich with personalities, from the glamour-conscious Hourning to the emotional Nitschke to the determined Starr. Of course, the strongest personality of all was Lombardi, who shaped these many unique individuals and talents into a team that changed the game forever. The Packers of this era won five championships in seven years, including the first two Super Bowls, creating a dynasty in the smallest market in professional sports. Despite playing in little Green Bay, the players on Lombardi's team became national heroes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578604425
Publisher:	Clerisy Press
Publication date:	10/18/2011
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	1,036,254
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Bob Berghaus was born in 1954 and raised in Milwaukee. He went on to work for the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where he reported on a variety of sports, including the Milwaukee Brewers from 1991–95 and the Green Bay Packers from 1996–98, covering the Packers in Super Bowls XXXI and XXXII. He then moved to Green Bay to become sports editor of the Green Bay Press-Gazette. He’s earned several writing awards and was named Wisconsin Sportswriter of the Year in 1991 by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Bob left Green Bay in the summer of 2003 for Asheville, North Carolina, where he is currently sports editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times. He and his wife, Lisa, have a daughter, Kelly.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Football as it Should be Played

“Football is two things. It’s blocking and tackling. You block and tackle better than the team you’re playing, you win.”

That was the mindset of Vince Lombardi, who in 1962 was the most famous football coach of what was probably the most revered professional football team in America. During that season, his Green Bay Packers blocked and tackled better than the other thirteen teams in the National Football League. They led the league in scoring with 415 points, and the 148 points given up by Green Bay’s hard-hitting defense was the fewest in the league.

Those totals, by the way, were also better than all eight teams in the rival American Football League, which was in its third year of existence. The Packers’ winning margin of 19.1 per game was more than 10 points better than all other team in the NFL.

Four years earlier, the Packers were at rock bottom following a 1–10–1 record. Ray “Scooter” McLean, a nice man who didn’t understand the meaning of discipline, quit before he would have been dismissed as coach. In the winter of 1959 the Packers hired Lombardi, who had been offensive coordinator for the New York Giants since 1954.

Lombardi was a tough-as-nails guard at Fordham, playing on the legendary “Seven Blocks of Granite” offensive line. After college he became a high school teacher and coach. He returned to Fordham to coach the freshman football team, and then moved on to West Point as an assistant to the legendary Red Blaik. With the Giants, Lombardi became known in NFL circles as a top-flight coordinator, but when head coaching jobs came up he was passed over until he finally got his chance with the Packers at age forty-five.

The Packers won their first three games under Lombardi before losing five in a row to end any hopes of a dramatic worst-to-first turnaround. Struggling at 3–5, the Packers seemed destined to have another losing season. Remarkably, they turned around during the last third of the season, winning their final four games for a 7–5 record and their first winning season in twelve years

During those four games the Packers outscored their opponents 119–51, scoring almost as many points as the 129 totaled during the first eight games. The defense, by giving up an average of just under 13 points in those final four games, also showed remarkable improvement after allowing an average of 31.8 points per game during the losing streak.

The Packers entered 1960 with thoughts of achieving more than a winning record. They had talent up and down the roster with most of the starters in their mid-twenties. Green Bay won all five of its exhibition games and appeared to have momentum going into the season opener against the Chicago Bears.

Instead, they lost at home to the team coached by legendary George Halas, but then reeled off four straight wins, putting themselves in position to unseat the Baltimore Colts, who had won the last two NFL titles, as champions of the Western Division.

That goal wasn’t going to come easily. The Packers won just once during their next four games, falling to 5–4 following a 23–10 loss to the Lions in the traditional Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit, when the Packers looked flat on offense, totaling just 181 yards.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Bart Starr

1. Football as It Should Be Played
2. Going for a Repeat
3. Bless His Heart
4. How the Team Was Built
5. “They’ll Get Beat”
6. Payback
7. The Power Sweep
8. The End of Perfection
9. Another Division Title
10. The Players
11. The Essence of Lombardi
12. The ’62 Packers or ’72 Dolphins?
13. The Statistics

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

About the Author