The NFL Draft will be celebrated with campus tours next week
By Suzanne Weiss | For On Mission
DE PERE — What does a Catholic liberal arts college nestled on the banks of the Fox River have in common with the Green Bay Packers?
A lot, it seems.
St. Norbert College (SNC), founded by Norbertine priests in 1898, and the beloved Wisconsin football team have a history that runs deep, students learned as they readied to lead Packers-focused campus tours.
The free 45-minute public tours, a culmination of their internship classwork, will take place at 10 and 11 a.m. and 4, 5 and 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, and Wednesday, April 23, in celebration of the NFL Draft in Green Bay April 24-26.
The project “was a way to get students engaged in the excitement of the draft and a way to highlight the campus,” said Dr. Meghan Walsh, instructor for the class and executive director of Academic Advising and Career Development.
Even Walsh, a self-professed Packers fan, said she had no idea of the connection until she interviewed for her job more than a year and a half ago.
She summarizes the relationship in three words: Eat. Sleep. Meet.
The college hosted the team’s summer training camps for more than 60 years, ending with the pandemic in 2020.
Players slept in Victor McCormick Hall and Frank J. Sensenbrenner Hall dorms. They ate in Michels Commons and the now-named Dennis M. Burke Hall. They held training meetings in various classrooms, Walsh said.
According to SNC’s online history, the Packers were headquartered in Stevens Point when, in the summer of 1958, their coach brought them to the SNC campus.
Famed Coach Vince Lombardi, a devout Catholic, cemented the tradition a year later and became good friends with Fr. Dennis Burke, then SNC president.
Lombardi, who was known to attend daily Mass, and Fr. Burke were often seen at Old St. Joseph Church on campus. Lombardi was also an occasional altar server.
Even the team’s iconic G logo was created on campus, Walsh said.
“It was designed by a St. Norbert College art student. His name was John Gordon,” she said. “It came about because Vince Lombardi asked the equipment director of the Packers to come up with something. He wanted a G in the shape of a football.”
Gordon, a 1964 graduate who later became an adjunct SNC professor, was working with the equipment director at the time, and tackled the task.
“Within a few weeks, the logo went on the helmets and it’s still there,” Walsh said.
The 10 students in the internship class have been combing through photos and news clippings in the college archives, leafing through books about the Packers, scouting the internet and recording firsthand stories from people who were on campus during the Packers years.
Their research resulted in marketing pieces and scripts for their tours, she said.
They also learned a lot during a tour of Lambeau Field. “Tim Bald was our tour guide,” Walsh said. “He was former athletic director at St. Norbert and gave us lots of fun facts.”
SNC junior Abigail Prudlow said she found some interesting tidbits while doing her research.
“My favorite anecdote is about Lombardi. He would view game films in the basement of Sensenbrenner,” she said. One day, when he heard a nearby noise, “he barges in on this priest and accuses him of being a spy for another team. He’s absolutely horrified when he finds out that it’s one of the Norbertines.”
Faith Fehrman, also a junior, said she is looking forward to NFL Draft week.
“I’m excited to finally give the tour and present the information we found because there are a lot of connections that people probably don’t know about,” she said.
Other Packers’ anecdotes from CSN files include:
- Priests from the Norbertine order have served as Packers’ chaplains.
- Outside the Mulva Family Fitness & Sports Center is a historic marker commemorating the college’s relationship with the team. It is part of the Packers Heritage Trail, a free walking, biking or driving tour.
- Lambeau Field can be spotted in the distance from the top of the Gehl-Mulva Science Center.
- Larry Krause, a player for the St. Norbert Green Knights, earned a spot with the Packers, playing with the team from 1970 to 1974.
- President Emeritus Thomas Kunkel, who served the college from 2008 to 2017, was a member of the Packers Board of Directors when the team won Super Bowl XLV in 2011. As a board member, he received a Super Bowl ring in honor of the occasion.
- St. Norbert and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay cheerleaders once joined forces to cheer for the Packers at home games.
To register for St. Norbert College’s Green Bay Packers tour, visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdM8fxsp-FYHpXOZHp1KRKhr3Y0wIwMNqqJv2Qyvs7cBZgd1A/viewform.
