The Green Bay Packers are embarking on their 104th year of existence.
As part of What the Wisconsin? — where reporters take on questions about our state, our communities and the people in them — we're answering questionswe've seen online about Packers fandom and aspects of their history, such as their name, mascot and home venue.
Submit your question below or at bit.ly/whatthewisconsin.
Where did they come up with the name 'Packers'?
The Green Bay Packers are often connected to theAcme Meat Packing Company, which long ago closed its doors during World War II.
For those new to the terminology, "meat packing" refers to slaughtering, processing and packaging livestockfor consumption.It's a feel-good story.
Packers founder Curly Lambeau worked as a shipping clerk for what wasthen called the Indian Packing Company, and asked for a donation to get equipment and uniforms so he could furnish a football team in 1919.Lambeau also got permission to use the company football field.
The Green Bay Press-Gazette newspaper office served as the venue for the first team meetings andplayed an integral role in the team's name.From the Packers' history section discussing the team's origins:
Whatever the case, the (Green Bay) Press-Gazette in its Aug. 13 edition revealed that the Indian Packing Co. would sponsor the team and referred to it for the first time as the "Packers." The paper said home games would be played at Hagemeister Park; listed 38 prospective candidates for the team, mostly former standouts at Green Bay East and West high schools; and noted full uniforms would be provided to up to 20 players.
"It will be the strongest aggregation of pigskin chasers that has ever been gathered together in this city," the Press-Gazette proclaimed.
In their first two seasons, the Packers were sponsored by the Indian Packing Co., then by Acme Packing Co., which bought the Indian Packing Co. in 1921. It was the same year the team was admitted into the American Professional Football Association, thus leading to "Acme Packers" on some of the uniforms.
It was a brief arrangement; Lambeau and his team cut ties with Acmeduring the1921 season after the company ran into financial trouble, but the name stuck.
CORRECTION:The first version of this article incorrectly indicated that Lambeau named the team the Packers; read more on the team's naming history.
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Why don’t the Packershave a mascot?
Perhaps it's the nature of the nickname itself (how do you translate a meat packing reference into ... a giant foam mascot?) or the simple inertia of tradition, but the Packers are one of five NFL teams who came into the 2022 NFL season with no mascot.(One of those, the Washington Commanders, is in the process of choosing one as part of its rebrand.)
The San Diego Chargers have an unofficial mascot, but they join the Giants, Jets and Packers in lacking an official mascot.
It wasn'talwaysthis way in Green Bay, though.
In 1984, the Packers made a number of changes coinciding with the arrival of first-year coach Forrest Gregg, who inheritedthe reins from fellow Packers legend Bart Starr. One of those tweaks (albeit one that emerged as an idea from NFL Properties and its "Huddles" program) wasPacky Packer, a sausage-carrying bearded foam giant.
The experiment seemed kind of doomed from the start, however, and Packy Packer was discontinued in 1986.
During the 1984 exhibition season, the man who portrayed Packy Packer, Bruce Manderscheid, had to leave in the second quarter because of heat exhaustion caused by the heavy costume.
In October, Manderscheidsaid "most of the people who are Packer fans are short, fat butchers with big feet" on Gregg's weekly television show, which uh, did not play well.
He also took the place of an unofficial mascot known as Gang Green, Oshkosh native Robert Wagner, who had previously been allowed on the field but was kept off once Packy Packer became a thing. Wagner, who had roamed the stands in green clothes, a green wig and face paint since 1978, was arrested during the fourth quarter of a game against the Jets for walking up and down aisles in sections that weren't where his ticketed seat was located.
"They're getting pressure from the top, from the front office," Gang Green said. "I think I do a good service, and I don't believe in their hearts the fans want me to stop."
In 1986, the Packersalso disbanded its cheerleaders, with college cheerleaders eventually taking their place in the 1990s.
Where did 'Cheesehead' come from?
Maybe they don't have a giant foam man, but they do have giant foam heads. The Cheesehead is about as Wisconsin as it gets, and you'll find a ton of them in the crowd at Lambeau Field.
But they actually started with a different sports team, the Milwaukee Brewers, debuting in 1987.
The story goes that a fan named Ralph Bruno was supposed to help his mother reupholster a couch at her south sideMilwaukee home. When he took apart the couch, he took out thefoam inside and thought it looked like cheese.
He took that foam, cut it into a triangle and burned holes into it. He spray-painted it yellow, and the first Cheesehead was born.
At the time, Chicago sports fans used "cheesehead" as a derogatory term in the direction of Badger State fans, so Bruno was employing some self-deprecating humor here.
Bruno's hat was a hit, and the next time he went to County Stadium in Milwaukee, he brought more.Before long, Brunoopened Foamation Inc., currently based in Walker's Point. He hascreated50 different kinds of Cheeseheads and gives tours of the factory that makes the Cheeseheads.
The concept naturally spread to all Wisconsin sports and became a symbol of Wisconsin pride. That was quite the couch.
Did the Packers ever consider moving to Milwaukee?
The Packers have perhaps flirted with moving permanently to Milwaukee, and the team has had major roots in Milwaukee, including 62years of playing some home games there. But thanks to the team's unusual public-stock structure, Green Bay won't be bailing for a bigger city anytime soon.
In 1933, the Packers played their first home game in Milwaukee at Borchert Field, the now-defunct wooden structure that served as the centerpiece of Milwaukee baseball for decades.
Thereafter, Green Bay played typically two games per year in Milwaukee, with locations at State Fair Park, Marquette Stadium (35th and Clybourn) and most notably at Milwaukee's County Stadium from1953 until 1994.
NFL owners, unhappy with the team's home field of City Stadium (now the location of Green Bay East's high-school football field), suggested the team should move to Milwaukee permanently and take advantage of County Stadium's bigger capacity and better amenities. That led to the construction of Green Bay's new City Stadium in 1957, which eventually bore the name Lambeau Field.
Later, whenCounty Stadium was starting to deteriorate and Lambeau was undergoing top-shelf renovations, the franchise elected to move all home games to Green Bay after the 1994 season.
Many fans remember the final Packers game at County Stadium, captured in their mind's eye by Brett Favre's diving touchdown in the final 10 seconds to lift the Packers past Atlanta. The Packers also beat the Rams in the 1967 playoffs at County Stadium en route to Super Bowl I.
To this day, the Packers have two sets of season-ticket holders; two games per year are set aside for legacy Milwaukee season-ticket holders as part of the "Gold Package."
Will the Packers ever leave Green Bay?
But how does a teeny market like Green Bay hold onto a major pro-sports franchise? It has a lot to do with the team's unique structure (outlawed for the rest of NFL with the Packers grandfathered in), where it sells stock to fans and allows them to purchase a share of the team— even though fans are told up front that they won't receive any dividends from owning stock.
Packers fans are routinely ridiculed for their participation in what appears like a scam to the outside world, but the structure also prevents anyone from purchasing a controlling stock in the team and moving it elsewhere. It can also be argued as a cleaner option than, say, teams pressuring municipalities to help fund massive stadium improvements when the Packers can simply open up more stock for fans to purchase and help fund team pursuits.
More:The Packers have a bunch of new owners. Here's what the new shareholders bought and how ownership works.
Thus, the romance of small-town America and a pro-sports franchise can be preserved— and, yes, fans can run around with their expensive pieces of paper calling themselves "owners."
Which 'G' came first, Packers or Georgia?
The 2022 NCAA champion Georgia Bulldogs football team shares what appears to be an identical "Power G" logo on their helmets to that of the Packers, just with a different color scheme of red, black and white. So did the Bulldogs steal the idea from the Packers, or vice versa?
The Packers did use the G logo in the shape of a football first, back in 1961 and designed by St. Norbert College student John Gordon, though subsequent updates of the logo (with more rounded edges) have made it appear closer to the Georgia logo, which debuted in 1964.
Georgia's design was created separately but had enough similarities to the Packers logo that the university reached out for permission to use it, and the Packers granted the request.There are actually subtle differences between the shapes, but they're hard to spot.
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JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.
