Green Bay Packers

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Trials, Triumphs, and Tradition

William Povletich

Foreword by Bob Harlan

A lavishly illustrated history of football’s most iconic team, exploring the on-field legends, behind-the-scenes leaders, and loud-and-loyal fans who built a powerhouse team in small-town Green Bay.

416 pages, 8 x 9, 336 color and b&w photos
Paperback: $26.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-497-5
Ebook: 15.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-603-0
Publication Date: 7/25/2012

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Description

On the field, legends like Don Hutson, Ray Nitschke, and Brett Favre made the Green Bay Packers into a professional football powerhouse. But the history of the NFL’s only small-town franchise is as much a story of business creativity as gridiron supremacy. Behind every Packer who became a legend on the field, there was an Andrew Turnbull, Dominic Olejniczak, or Bob Harlan, leaders whose dedication and creativity in preserving the franchise were unwavering. Green Bay Packers: Trials, Triumphs, and Tradition tells the improbable story of professional football’s most iconic team, and along the way gives a unique window into the rise of modern professional sports.

As the NFL has evolved into a financial juggernaut, the Green Bay Packers, with more than 112,000 stockholders, stand alone as the only professional sports franchise owned by fans, thus providing the only public record of how a sports team is run. Featuring more than 300 photographs, some never before seen, Green Bay Packers illustrates how the most creative team in sports is also one of the most successful, with names like Lambeau, Canadeo, Lombardi, Hornung, Holmgren, White, and Favre leading the way to a league-best thirteen NFL titles and twenty-one Hall of Fame inductees.

Author Bio

William Povletich

Wisconsin-native William Povletich has a wide array of experience in the film and television industry and as an author and writer. His documentary film Henry Aaron’s Summer Up North was an official selection to the 2006 National Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival and the 2005 Wisconsin Film Festival. Povletich was also an executive producer on the one-hour television special Milwaukee Braves: The Golden Legacy for Fox Sports Net, the exclusive fiftieth-anniversary tribute to the 1957 World Series champions. His History Channel documentary Rwanda: Do Scars Ever Fade?, earned a 2005 Peabody Award and an Emmy nomination. He is the author of Milwaukee Braves: Heroes and Heartbreak and magazine articles about Road America, The Wizard of Oz, and other topics. Povletich lives in Los Angeles.

An outstanding read. . . . Wonderful insights into the NFL’s most successful franchise.

Wayne Larrivee

Green Bay Packers Radio Network

“As a Green Bay kid and lifelong Packers fan I consider myself pretty well-schooled in the history of the NFL’s most famous franchise. Then I read Bill Povletich’s book, and with every new nugget I kept thinking of the famous John Wooden saying, ‘It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that counts.’ What a terrific book.”

—John Anderson, ESPN Sportscenter

“Insightful, informative, and a must read for true Packer fans.”

—Burke Griffin, WFRV sports anchor and cohost of Inside Lambeau

“Povletich is a superior researcher who traces the emergence of a town team into one of the most successful franchises of all sports, from its birth in the Roaring Twenties to its present-day success. He provides the analysis and historical content that this team clearly deserves. This is a book that everyone who loves the Packers will want to read and keep.”

—Bud Lea, former sports editor for the Milwaukee Sentinel

“The story of the Green Bay Packers, from rag-tag town team to the darling of American sports franchises, is unparalleled. Povletich takes a fresh, detailed look at the rich history of this iconic organization, from the opening kick in 1921 to the last Super Bowl trophy. You’ll fall in love with the Packers—or fall in love with them all over again.”

—Jerry Poling, author of After They Were Packers