Forerunner: Lambeau gets jump start on Draft process

GREEN BAY – “In the early 1930s there was no Draft system. It was pretty much a free-for-all, as far as free agency goes,” said Packers Hall of Fame Curator Brent Hensel.
Hensel gave Packers Head Coach Curly Lambeau much of the credit for the foundation of the Draft.
“He was really ahead of the game in the Draft. He realized quickly, actually, probably by accident. He started scouting some of the college players in the All Star games as early as 1930, and what I mean by accident ... Curly liked to head out to California, out to the West Coast, and he started going to the East-West Shrine game. Just by accident, he realized, ‘Hey, I can learn a lot about some great college players.’ He ends up drafting them and it becomes a huge advantage for him, while others really didn’t have any kind of scouting system, or (an idea of) how to look at prospects other than when they went to the Draft,” Hensel said.
“So usually on New Year’s Day, he would go back and watch several major college all-star games. In fact, in 1936, Lambeau and his second wife drove out from Green Bay to San Francisco, arriving on Dec. 26, and he would watch this East-West Shrine game and it influenced his first couple of picks.”
In the Jan. 19, 1951, edition of the San Francisco Examiner, Sports Editor Curley Grieve calls Lambeau the “smartest builder of pro football clubs.”

“As far as the pros are concerned, I discovered the East-West game. There was a time when I had it all to myself. I came out here annually and built my team. I have missed only one game since it started,” Lambeau told Grieve.
“It was back in 1925 that I signed the first of my greats—Lavvie Dilweg of Marquette. Then came a long series—players like Clarke Hinkle of Bucknell, Hank Bruder and Tiny Ingebretsen of Northwestern, Cecil Isbell or Purdue. Whatever success I had at Green Bay was due almost entirely to the East-West game. I never heard of some of the players who later starred for me until I saw them in action at Kezar. The Shrine game was—and still is—an All-America showcase. I owe my reputation to it.”
Hensel said that in Lambeau’s first Draft—in 1936—two of his top three choices played on the West squad.
Packers Lineman Russ Letlow—No. 1 choice and seventh overall selection in the first NFL Draft—holds the distinction of being the Packers’ first-ever draft pick.
Packers End Bernie Scherer was the second.
Leading up to the April 24-26 NFL Draft, the Merrill Foto News will feature a Draft history series, based on the findings of Packer Historian Cliff Christl and Packers Hall of Fame Curator Brent Hensel.