With 50 days left until the Wisconsin Badgers and Notre Dame Fighting Irish knock helmets at Lambeau Field on Labor Day weekend, the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame museum launched an exhibit that ties those schools together with the Packers in multiple ways.
The temporary exhibit, “6 Degrees of Curly Lambeau,” looks at Lambeau’s connections to both Notre Dame and Wisconsin. The exhibit explores his 1918 season playing at Notre Dame as well as his relationship with Wisconsin and the multiple Badgers he recruited to play for the Packers.
The exhibit includes stories, rare photos, original letters and documents and more. It opens on July 18 and will remain until the summer of 2027, and an even more temporary exhibit will be at the hall of fame from Sept. 2-7, around the Notre Dame-Wisconsin game. That exhibit will include some of the best artifacts from the Wisconsin and Notre Dame collections.
Lambeau’s connection with Wisconsin was that he personally had no connection, although it was often said over the years that he was briefly on the Badgers’ freshman football team. Apparently. Lambeau went to Madison one weekend before the football season, but neither attended the school nor joined the football team.
He did play one semester for Knute Rockne’s Notre Dame team, from which he learned much that would contribute to his success with the Packers.
Lambeau credited Rockne for teaching him football
“He gave [Notre Dame coach] Knute Rockne a lot of credit for what he learned there, and understandably so. And he ran the Notre Dame box [offense] through 1946 and had great success with it, which was Rockne’s offense,” said Packers historian Cliff Christl.
“There’s the Lambeau connection [at Notre Dame], which nobody’s ever gotten right. He was only there for three months, a little more, and dropped out of school,” Christl said. “But most of the other stories about that connection, and his connection with UW, are completely false.”
The hall of fame exhibit addresses those misconceptions.
The Packers rosters over the years included many players who attended the two universities, including halfback Charles “Buckets” Goldenberg from Wisconsin, who Christl said is among the best Packers players to never be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and, years later, Paul Hornung of Notre Dame, who legendary Packers Coach Vince Lombardi said was the best player he ever coached.
The exhibit includes letters from Lambeau to his girlfriend Marguerite Van Kessel, who would become his first wife. Packers Hall of Fame Curator Brent Hensel credited Marguerite’s family with making letters and photos available for research and the exhibit. Lambeau, who developed a reputation in later years for treating facts as unwanted intrusions, seemed sincere in his letters to Marguerite.
Lambeau letters to girlfriend were sincere
“I really love the letters, specifically the letters where Curly’s talking about a game he played when he was at Notre Dame, where they are playing Michigan Agricultural College, which we now know as Michigan State,” Hensel said.
Lambeau, who got to play as a freshman because so many older players were scooped up for World War I, talked about playing in a driving rain and how his face was shoved into the mud.
“I will say that he seems more sincere, definitely,” Hensel said. “If you look at the letters, maybe he hasn’t got to the point where he’s exaggerating or telling a tale like he was in later years.”
Among the other connections in the exhibit is Jim Crowley, a football star at Green Bay East High School from 1918 to 1921. His coach was Curly Lambeau, who was doing double duty as coach of the Packers as well. Crowley went on to be a member of the “Four Horsemen” backfield at Notre Dame, after which he played two games with the Green Bay Packers and one with the Providence Steamrollers. Then, he went on to coach at Fordham University, which had the “Seven Blocks of Granite” offensive line that included guard and tackle Vince Lombardi.
Thomas “Red” Hearden was on the same East High School team as Crowley, where he, too, was a star. One year younger than Crowley, he was also recommended to Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne by Lambeau. He was a three-year lettermen at Notre Dame before returning to Green Bay to play for the Packers. Like Crowley, Hearden’s NFL career was brief, only six games, after which he coached high school football at Racine St. Catherine’s and Green Bay East, which he led to a 51-3-2 record. After service in the U.S. Navy in World War II, he coached St. Norbert College to a 40-14 record over seven years, including three undefeated seasons. He joined the Packers coaching staff in 1957, but suffered a stroke.
Red Hearden might have had Lombardi’s job
“If he wouldn’t of had the stroke, [former Packers historian] Lee Remmel believed he might have been offered to become the head coach of the Packers” in 1959, instead of Lombardi, Hensel said.
The Notre Dame-Wisconsin game is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, at Lambeau Field. The game originally was scheduled for Oct. 3, 2020, but was postponed because of COVID. Notre Dame will be the home team for the neutral-site game. NBC will broadcast the game, which is before the start of the NFL season.
It will be the second major college game at Lambeau, after the Wisconsin-LSU game in 2016, and fifth college game all time. St. Norbert College won three games at the stadium, the last one in 1983.
Contact Richard Ryman at rryman@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X at @RichRymanPG and on Instagram at @rrymanPG.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Packers Hall of Fame exhibit links Lambeau, Wisconsin, Notre Dame
Reporting by Richard Ryman, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Richard Ryman, Green Bay Press-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
