For Independence Day, we are presenting the 1965 edition of the Green Bay Packers Yearbook. On the cover is a photo of two legends in Green Bay — Curly Lambeau and Vince Lombardi. The story behind the cover is very interesting and often-told. Art Daley, sportswriter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette and publisher of the Yearbook, decided to use this photo against the wishes of Lombardi. We don’t recall the circumstances of why the image was taken in the first place, but after Daley went ahead and used it on the cover, Lombardi was so incensed that he refused to speak to Daley for months.
It seems that the issue might have been that the straight-laced “God, Family, and the Green Bay Packers” head coach/general manager did not like to share the spotlight with the former coach known for his drinking and womanizing. Also at issue was the fact that Green Bay’s “City Stadium” had recently been renamed “Lambeau Field” prior to the 1965 season. Lombardi, whose ego was not small, was thought to have wanted the stadium named in his honor after he was done coaching the Packer teams to world championships. Whatever the case, after not speaking to Daley for months, he eventually came up to Daley one day and said, “I can’t keep being mad at you.”
After the Packers did not make the playoffs in 1964 (Cleveland defeated Baltimore 27-0), they regained their winning form in ’65, posting a 10-3-1 record in the Western Conference, which meant a tie with the Baltimore Colts. A “Western Conference Championship” had to be played in Green Bay, which was the famous game in which the Packers’ Don Chandler kicked a disputed field goal to tie the game. The Packers went on to win in overtime, 13-10. To this day, then-Baltimore head coach Don Shula maintains that Chandler’s game-tying kick was wide. This incident was instrumental in the goalpost uprights being lengthened.
The next week, on January 2, 1966, the Packers met the defending champion Cleveland Browns for the NFL title game, also in Green Bay. In what was to be Cleveland Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown’s final NFL game, Green Bay slipped and slid to victory on a muddy, sloppy “Lambeau” field, 23-12, in front of 50,777 fans. This re-established the Packers as NFL Champions, setting them off on their quest for “three-in-a-row.”
Some of the highlights in the 1965 Packer Yearbook are: “The New Effort” (1965 preview)... “Meet Allen Brown” (Packers’ fourth-round draft choice)... “The Amazing Jerry Kramer”... “A Coach and His Aides”... “Packer vs. Packer” (intrasquad scrimmage history)... “Fourth and 51” (a situation that the Packer defense forced the Detroit Lions into in 1964)... “City Stadium Grows”... “Kicking”... “The Football Life of Willie Davis”... “Post-Season — Five Straight”... (about the three NFL championship games, plus two ‘Playoff Bowls” — the third-place contest — that the Packers played in from 1960-1964)... “Your 1965 Packers”... “Third and Two” (Starr’s ability to gain first downs)... “The 1964 Season in Statistics”...
