PACKER FRANCHISE 40 YEARS OLD

JUN 30 (Green Bay Press-Gazette) - Forty years ago this week, Curly Lambeau and Don Murphy returned from a trip to Ohio. Carefully stored today in the safety deposit vault of the Kellogg-Citizens National Bank is the tangible evidence of that junket of the proceeds of Murphy's automobile - the Green Bay franchise in the NFL. Aside from its historical significance, the cracked and yellowing piece of paper, resembling an ornate stock certificate, must be listed as one of the greatest bargains in sports history. Lambeau shelled out 50 clams for it; estimate value today is somewhere between $1 and $2 million. Any such transaction is bound to create legends, and in the intervening four decades Curly's deal has acquired its share. Like most such tales, they are only partly true. When the leaders of the struggling American Professional Football Assn. met in late June, 1922, Green Bay found itself on the outside looking in. The Packers had joined the league in 1921, but after an artistically successful, financially lean season, they had suddenly been booted out...PACKERS GOT CAUGHT: Neither their brand of play, which was of high caliber, nor their financial situation, which was as good as most of the other league members, had anything to do with the ouster. The Packers had succumbed to the temptation to play college stars in a non-league game against Racine in Milwaukee and got caught. Violation of the league prohibition against using college players brought prompt expulsion. Lambeau wasn't willing to give up, however. Knowing a league reshuffle was in the making, Curly got in touch with Joe Carr, president of the league, and secretary Carl Stock about reinstatement. Shortly before the league's summer meeting, he received an application blank for a franchise in the mail. The franchise would cost only $50 but from Curly's point of view there was a catch in it. Favorable consideration depended on his presence at the session, scheduled for June 23-24, and he didn't have enough money to both buy the franchise and get to the meeting...CONFUSION OVER SITE: There's some confusion today over exactly where that meeting was held. The stories about it in the Press-Gazette are all datelined Cleveland, Ohio, but Curly insists it took place in Canton. Well, Curly was there - he ought to know. Getting to either place posed a major problem for the young Packer leader. He had scraped together the price of the franchise but not enough to make the trip. That's where the familiar Murphy story comes in. A week or so before the scheduled meeting, Lambeau ran into Murphy in the Elks Club and shed a few judicious tears on Don's sympathetic shoulder. Murphy told him to quit worrying...SOLD HIS CAR: Don was short of cash himself but he had a car - one of the sportiest jobs in town. It was a low-sling, cream-colored Marmon with wire wheels and gleaming super-charger exhaust pipes on the outside of the hood. The story has always been that Murphy pawned the car, then took off in it with Curly for Ohio. Actually, according to Lambeau, Don sold the car to a local bootlegger for $1,800 and they made the trip in high style. Once at the meeting, Lambeau had little difficulty getting the Packers reinstated. In fact, the league magnates - bulky young fellows like himself for the most part, still in their playing prime - were only too anxious to have as many clubs as possible in the league, and Green Bay was a proven quality. Having sacrificed his car to the Cause, Murphy passed up a chance to represent Green Bay at the meeting. Since each club was entitled to two representatives, Lambeau invited him to sit in as a fully accredited delegate but Don got buck fever and retreated in some confusion to the hotel barbershop. He did, however, get one thing he wanted out of his gesture. When Lambeau first put the problem to him, Don had agreed to help with the half-joking proviso that Curly let him play in one game. That fall, Lambeau kept his promise and Murphy saw action as a full fledged pro - for exactly one play...VITAL GROUND WORK: The two-day session accomplished a great deal more for the future of professional football than merely letting Green Bay back into the league. The entire organization was revamped, a new constitution was adopted, and several other clubs were admitted and the name changed to the National Football League. Of greatest significance, in Lambeau's opinion, was the re-election of Carr as league president. Joe, whom Curly insists was the greatest figure in the early days of professional football and should be the first enshrined in the game's new Hall of Fame at Canton, Ohio, headed the league for 18 years, until his death in 1939. By that time, pro football had been established on a firm and enduring foundation, from which others built it to its present status. Three other clubs were also awarded franchises at the meeting - Milwaukee, Racine and a gang long a thorn in Packer sides, the Chicago Bears. The latter was merely the 1921 champion Decatur Staleys transplanted to Chicago by owner-player-coach George Halas and renamed. Today, the Packers and the Bears are the only 1922 members still doing business at the old stands. The Bears, in fact, have one edge in that department on the Packers. They are still playing their games in Wrigley Field while the present City Stadium is the Packers' fourth home in Green Bay...FIGURE OF SPEECH: When Curly returned after the meeting, George Calhoun's welcome home story in the Press-Gazette said he had the franchise "in his pocket." That was merely a figure of speech. Curly didn't bring even a receipt for his $50 back with him. Actually, although Lambeau bought the franchise on June 24, the paper is dated Aug. 6. Reasons for the time difference, however, were purely mechanical. Since the league had changed its name it had to design, print and fill out new franchises for everybody. That took some time, and the precious Packer document arrived by mail several weeks later. On one other count, the transaction points up what a bargain Lambeau really picked up. When Joe LeClair obtained the original franchise the year before it cost him $100. By 1922, however, the NFL was hurting so badly for members it slashed the price in half.

LAMBEAU MUST AS FIRST PACKER IN HALL OF FAME

JUL 1 (Green Bay Press-Gazette) - There can be no doubt about this: Earl (Curly) Lambeau will be the first nominee from Green Bay for a berth in the NFL's Hall of Fame! He's the guy who started the Packers, and first thing first. Lambeau engineered his baby into six world titles. Vince Lombardi, getting ready for his fourth season at the Packer helm and the constructor of World Title No. 7, tabbed Lambeau as must for Green Bay's first selection in the new Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The NFL, at its meeting in Florida last winter, had just completed H of F plans when Lombardi told the group that Curly would be his choice as the first Packer in the "Hall." Lambeau was recently elected to the Wisconsin Hall of Fame, which is located in the Milwaukee Arena. He will be installed next fall. The NFL Hall of Fame is now under the process of construction. A director has been chosen - Dick McCann, former Washington Redskin general manager, and representatives are being chosen on the board of selection, This board is composed of one representative and an alternate from each league city. Six members already have been selected, the newest being Sam Greene of the Detroit News, Jimmy Conzelman of St. Louis and Art Daley. You're right about Conzelman, who happens to be the ex-coach, player and sportswriter who is now an advertising agency executive in St. Louis. Jimmy was selected when sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the Cardinal decided it would be more fitting if they deferred to someone who had been closer to the game than they. The Cards moved to St. Louis before the 1960 season and the majority of the newsmen in the area had been covering pro football for only about two years. Under the hall's constitution, nominees will be judged in separate groups, "to evaluate properly and fairly the recorded performances of professional football players throughout the years during which conditions and playing ruled underwent radical changes." Four different eras have been established. With append explanation by McCann, they include: 1962-43: "This period goes back to the inception of the free substitution rule, which definitely has enabled players to reach previously unavailable statistical heights." 1943-33: "This period starts with the year of the most sweeping changes and most historic league reorganization. Separate divisions were created, standard schedules decreed, and a championship game established - but most of all the playing of the game was opened offensively by adoption of rules allowing forward passes anywhere behind the line of scrimmage and placing the ball in play at the hash marks instead of the sideline." 1933-20: "This period begins with the birth of organized professional football when the NFL was founded in Canton.". 1920-1894: "This period saw many great player and some great teams. But generally, it was on a pick-up, semi-pro basis. Records are largely sketchy and sometimes unreliable." There also will be a fifth classification for nominations and selections from among those men who have made great contributions to the game in non-playing capacities - club organizers, executives, game officials, newspapermen, etc. There will be no playing years requirement for selection, the constitution provided, because "greatness cannot be confined to a calendar. The test of time adds to greatness, but mere lack of time should never detract per se from greatness." No active player can be nominated and each nominee must have been in actual retirement three years or more to be considered. Nominations, the rules also state, may be made by "any fan anywhere." They may be submitted to the hall's director or in writing to any sportscaster or sports radio-television announcer who is willing to accept them for consideration. Although no set number of annual enshrinements had been established, "the Board of selection shall be instructed to proceed for the first three years along these numerical lines": 1963: A maximum of 20 selections (with particular emphasis on the 1920-33 era). 1964: A maximum of five selections, with possibility of two or three from the 1920-33 era; and 1965: A maximum of five, along the same lines.

JUDGE RULES FORD CAN SUE PACKERS IN DETROIT

JUL 3 (Detroit) - Circuit Court Judge James Montante ruled Monday that since the Green Bay Packers' football team plays in Detroit once a year it can be sued here. His ruling was in answer to the NFL team's contention a $10,000 damage suit brought against it by Lennie Ford, former University of Michigan star, should have been filed in Wisconsin. Ford's suit accuses the Packers of violating his contract by releasing him in 1958 without paying him for the final game of the season. (Ford was suspended by Scooter McLean, then head coach of the Packers, the day before the Green Bay game in Los Angeles for breaking club rules.)