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nouncers, the voice-over: “The Man. Vincent T. Lombardi.” Or, even more power-
fully, “Titletown...” It incites goosebumps.
THE RELIGION
If there are any awards for professional sports fandom, the Pack and its beloved le-
gions sweep—hands down. One grizzled sportswriter wrote, “The Dallas Cowboys
were only another football team; the Packers were a practicing religion.” If he only
knew the ambivalence, the bittersweet curse of being born a Packerbacker. (This au-
thor was unlucky enough to be born on the demise of the last Packer empire, after
Super Bowl II, back in 1968, and don't think his family hasn't reminded him of the
lethal coincidence.)
The Green Bay Packers are the only passively proselytizing franchise in all of
professional sports. Hard-core travelers and football aficionados will find Packer
bars and Packer fan clubs in every state in the union—as far away as jolly old Eng-
land. I've even found scads of Packer faithful bellowing for Sunday satellite-dish
equity as far away as Taiwan and Thailand.
EARLY YEARS
The Packers were foundedin1919asoneofthe handful ofteams that wouldeventu-
ally make up the National Football League. The team was born in the back room of
the Green Bay Press-Gazette, where the cigar-chomping sports editor, George Cal-
houn, and legendary ex-Notre Damer Curly Lambeau agreed to found a local team.
They convinced a local industry bigwig to supply a practice field and uniforms, thus
obligating the team to call itself the Indian Packing Company Footballers. This was
later shortened to you-know-what. Going 10-1 its first season, the dynasty had be-
gun.
Afterliterallypassingthehatinthecrowdforthefirstseason,thePackers,inneed
of financial stability, hit upon one of the most unusual money angles in sports. The
community issued $5 nondividend public shares in the team; almost beyond logic,
the citizens scooped up the stocks.
The only nonprofit,community-ownedteaminprofessionalsports,theGreenBay
Packershavebecomeatrueanomaly:asmall-marketteamwithfewfiscalconstraints
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