GREEN BAY – As Mark Murphy heads into both retirement and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, his reign closes yet another memorable chapter of Packers history. Over the 102 years that the franchise has been run by a public corporation, there have been only 10 presidents who also have operated as chief executives.
Only Dominic Olejniczak and Bob Harlan served longer than Murphy, while Lee Joannes held the position for roughly the same amount of time.
Most admirably, Murphy leaves a legacy highlighted by the Packers' sustained success on the field and comparable achievements in the board room.
I recall, as I hunt-and-peck away here, the exchange between Vince Lombardi, after he took the coaching job in Washington in 1969, and Al Davis, who had hired that same year a third coach in five seasons who would continue to uphold the Oakland Raiders' "Just Win Baby" slogan.
Lombardi, who in his first coaching job had changed the fortunes of the downtrodden Packers in one year and was now facing another reclamation project in Washington with a team that had enjoyed only two winning seasons in the previous 20 years, said the toughest thing to do in football was rebuild.
Davis, who inherited a 1-13 Oakland team in 1962 and led it to a 10-4 record as coach the next year; and then as managing general partner oversaw the team's continued success under John Rauch for three seasons and John Madden starting in 1969, countered by saying "the toughest thing was to maintain."
It's an age-old debate in pro football that probably depends on the circumstances, but it's a glowing testament to Murphy that the Packers have continued winning during his 17 seasons as president and now own the best record in the NFL for the past 33 years.
Equally important are the developments that have taken place during his presidency that should increase the lifespan of Lambeau Field and keep the Packers financially competitive with the other NFL franchises for the foreseeable future.
While it might not give fans the same rush as beating the Bears or Vikings, things like stadium expansions and other restoration projects in and around Lambeau Field should never be taken for granted. And then there's Titletown. Its development during Murphy's presidency is almost beyond belief for those of us who once watched the Packers play in a stadium that was essentially constructed of wooden boards and chicken wire.
Nor should fans, politicians and anyone else with a public interest in the Packers forget the following.
The Cleveland Browns are in the process of seeking public money to replace a stadium that is 26 years old. The Detroit Lions abandoned the Silverdome after 27 seasons. The Minnesota Vikings played 31 years in the once state-of-the-art Metrodome and vacated it only one day before the wrecking balls arrived.
Twenty-five years ago, when a $295-million stadium renovation project was approved by Brown County voters, the Packers were told the new Lambeau Field would have a shelf life of at least 25 to 30 years.
In the billion-dollar business of pro sports, economic obscurity never stops lurking.
That's why those born-yesterday bloggers who criticized incoming president Ed Policy for declaring one of his top priorities – if not No. 1 – would be "to keep the Packers" in Green Bay were as clueless as ever about the franchise's rich history. That has been the mantra passed down by every club president since 1923, when the Packers became a community property, and it should never change.
Let these words uttered by then Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, a graduate of Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wis., ring in your ears for a while.
During a meeting of the NFL's finance committee shortly after the Packers won Super Bowl XXXI, Bowlen objected to their request for a fourth stock sale, flatly declaring, "Let's get those farmers and their frozen tundra out of this league."
All things considered the Packers couldn't be in a better place right now as Murphy moves on to the next stage of his life. And from a personal standpoint, I believe his commitment to Packers history shouldn't be overlooked as part of his legacy, either.
One, he truly made history when he brought the NFL Draft to Green Bay.
At a more root level, he invested the necessary money and resources to help produce an eight-part documentary, "Legacy: 100 Seasons of the Green Bay Packers;" the remaking of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame; the completion of the Packers Heritage Trail; and a four-volume book set titled, "The Greatest Story in Sports: Green Bay Packers 1919-2019."
There is no more storied franchise in pro football and arguably all professional sports than Green Bay's, yet so many of the Packers' enduring tales had become littered with more fiction than fact by the time Murphy took office in January 2008.
Here's a checklist, which I'll try to briefly record here so hopefully the errors won't be repeated in the future by authors and others.
Chapter 4 of "The Packers!" – the team's own 75th anniversary book published in 1993 and written by Steve Cameron, an author with no ties to Green Bay – was basically the only one of seven chapters over 240 pages devoted to the Curly Lambeau years.
This most compelling period of Packers history was limited to 12 partial pages of text and cluttered with errors.
The third page of the chapter included a picture of fans standing in front of a tall fence with a caption that read, "Spectators came all decked out for Packer games at Hagemeister Park in 1919." The caption was not only incorrect but also contradicted one of the best vignettes of the Packers' hardscrabble days: That they played their first season in 1919 on an open field with no fence or bleachers.
Two pages later, there was a photo of people assembled in Legion Park – where the downtown Sophie Beaumont Building now stands – accompanied by a caption that stated they were there to follow a Packers' road game on what was called a "Playograph" delivered over a telegraph wire.
Based on pictures, captions and numerous Green Bay Press-Gazette stories that was a 1924 gathering of fans in Legion Park, who were there to follow the results of a World Series game. The paper reported more than 7,000 fans had filled the park over the course of the seven-game series. The "Playograph" and "Gridgraph" accounts delivered to crowds of Packers fans from 1921-28 were all held indoors, according to Press-Gazette stories.
Page 147 of the book had a photo of people and cars overflowing the area around the Milwaukee Road depot on Washington Street to welcome the Packers home from a road game. The caption stated it was "after a victory in the 1944 title game." However, that station was shut down from 1938-45 and converted into a grocery store. What's more, the photo of the reception included cars made in 1947 and '48.
There is confirmation that the picture was actually taken in the late hours following a heartbreaking loss to the Bears on Nov. 14, 1948.
Here are some examples of the many factual mistakes in the text.
That George Calhoun was sports editor of the Press-Gazette in 1919. Not true, Val Schneider was. Calhoun had been made city editor during World War I. That Lambeau returned home after his first semester at Notre Dame. Not true. He returned home more than a month earlier and never received any grades. And it also was stated that he never went back. Not true. He wrote letters postmarked in South Bend, Ind., in February 1919 and mailed to his future wife back in Green Bay.
That the Packers were property of Acme Packing when they first played what are now the Chicago Bears on Nov. 27, 1921. Not true. The Packers had cut ties with Acme after their first league game in October.
That the Packers paid a franchise fee of $250 to get back into the league in 1922 after being booted out for using college players in a game. Not true. The Packers and other teams had to pay $1,000 into a guarantee fund to discourage future rule-breaking; and besides, the league had established a franchise fee of $100, not $250, but it's uncertain if any of those early 1920s franchises ever paid it.
That local attorney Gerald Clifford was one of the Hungry Five who helped keep the Packers afloat in 1923. Not true. Clifford didn't become active with the Packers until 1929, when he was first elected to the board of directors.
Pre-Murphy, there was the uniform history, designed by Maple Leaf Productions and promoted by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, that was inserted in the Packers media guide in 2002. In essence, either the colors, the years or the fine print was wrong for every Lambeau-era uniform.
In 1990, the Packers listed their retired numbers in their media guide for the first time. Thirteen years later, they unveiled them on the Lambeau Field façade. Although neither Tony Canadeo's nor Paul Hornung's numbers were retired in official ceremonies, Canadeo's No. 3 was included but not Hornung's No. 5, when they should have been treated alike.
Of all people associated with the Packers organization going back to 1919, it's hard to imagine why Vince Lombardi's wishes that No. 5 never be worn again weren't honored, especially when you consider that as far back as former equipment manager Dad Braisher, requests by players to wear No. 5 had been rejected.
Of the nine Packers head coaches since Lombardi – as well general managers Ron Wolf, Ted Thompson and Brian Gutekunst – the only two to bring No. 5 out of mothballs were the two with the worst overall records: Forrest Gregg and Lindy Infante.
Here, again, is more detail on the Packers' connection to Acme Packing and those throwback jerseys with the company name. Acme was Chicago-based, never slaughtered any cattle at its Green Bay plant, ripped off any number of people in Green Bay who had purchased its stock and was connected to the team for no more than two months.
In fact, someone recently sent me what was an order from a Green Bay businessman to buy more than $15,000 – nearly $300,000 in today's money – of Indian Packing stock in July 1919. Eight months after Acme had purchased Indian Packing in early 1921, that stock was worth roughly $359 for the 413 shares or so that he would have been able to purchase or about $6,520 in today's money.
What's more, as for the blue and gold Acme throwbacks the Packers unveiled shortly before Murphy became president, those jerseys almost certainly were blue and white when worn in 1921, according to a historical photo expert and an authority on old-time jerseys.
This list of examples could go on and on.
But thanks to Murphy, no time or expense was spared to make sure none of them were repeated when the Packers held their 100th season celebration in 2018.
Here's what will be one of my lasting memories of Murphy's leadership.
Around that time, I had collected enough proof to show that the 1929-30 blue throwbacks with the color gold encircling a small number in the front of the jersey – as it appeared on Maple Leaf's original uniform-history graphic and plaque – was actually a gold jersey with a blue circle.
I had found a 1930 color team photo that had been examined for authenticity by the same historical photo expert, detailed descriptions of the uniform in the 1929 Press-Gazette, and references in newspapers across the NFL map to the Packers wearing yellow or gold jerseys for both home and away games those years.
Murphy was made aware of my research and asked me to share it in a meeting with him, Policy and our six vice presidents at the time. It didn't take long for the group to reach a consensus that indeed those jerseys were gold, not blue.
But then the question was: Do we change it in our uniform history in the Hall of Fame and elsewhere or keep it the same because the recent throwbacks were blue and nobody outside that room would ever know the difference?
Murphy spoke up and said the Packers needed to do the right thing: admit that we had made a mistake and correct it.
To me that's what leadership is all about: Letting your employees do their job and respecting their work, and then be decisive in the end and act with integrity.
Just recently, in his final days, Murphy showed serious interest in a Zoom meeting that I was asked to set up by an NFL insider who has recently researched in more detail the career of Verne Lewellen. That person, like the few other esteemed pro football historians who have taken the time to thoroughly research Lewellen's career, had come to the same obvious conclusion: That one of a handful of the greatest Packers of all time isn't in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
And it's an incomprehensible oversight.
Given all this, I'm of the belief that there has never been a Packers president who has been a better steward of Packers history than Murphy.
