Earl Louis "Curly" Lambeau (April 9, 1898 – June 1, 1965) was a professional American football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). Lambeau was a founder, player, and first coach of the Green Bay Packers professional football team. He shares the distinction with rival George Halas of the Chicago Bears of coaching his team to the most NFL championships, with six. He was an inaugural inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.
Lambeau was a standout multi-sport athlete at Green Bay East High School, and captain of its football team as a senior in 1917. Lambeau enrolled at the University of Wisconsin but then subsequently quit after freshmen football was cancelled that year. He then attended University of Notre Dame in 1918 and played for legendary coach Knute Rockne, making the Irish's varsity squad as a freshman, but a severe case of tonsillitis forced him to return home before his sophomore year.
After returning to Green Bay, Lambeau went to work as a shipping clerk at the Indian Packing Company. Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun founded the Green Bay Packers on August 11, 1919, after the packing company put up $500 for uniforms. The team's name reportedly was offered to Curly by his girlfriend Agnes Aylward after a pickup game; Curly had wanted to call the team "The Green Bay Indians" to respect Indian Packing's purchase of uniforms for the team; so Agnes simply blurted, "Well, for heaven's sake, Curly, why don't you just call them the Green Bay Packers!" The team's naming rights were sold to the Acme Packing Company, and the team remained Packers.
The Packers initially played teams from Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. However, the success of the team in 1919-20 quickly led to its joining of the American Professional Football Association (now called the National Football League) in 1921. During that season the team was owned by the Acme Packing Company and John and Emmet Clair of Chicago.
