Verne Clark Lewellen (September 29, 1901 – April 16, 1980) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player and executive.

Early life

Verne Lewellen was born on September 29, 1901 in

Garland, Nebraska Garland, formerly known as Germantown, is a village in Seward County, Nebraska, United States. It is part of the Lincoln, Nebraska Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 216 at the 2010 census. History In 1874, the Midland Pacific ...

. A four-sport high school athlete at Lincoln High School in

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United Sta ...

. Lewellen attended

Nebraska University Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, where he captained and quarterbacked the Cornhuskers to a 14-7 defeat of a Notre Dame squad in 1923. Also a pitcher, the Pittsburgh Pirates were ready to sign him until an injury from a train wreck affected his pitching arm.

Professional career

Player

Jim Crowley James Harold "Sleepy Jim" Crowley (September 10, 1902 – January 15, 1986) was an American football player and coach. He gained fame as one-fourth of the University of Notre Dame's legendary "Four Horsemen" backfield where he played halfback fr ...

- who played against Lewellen in the 1923 Nebraska-Notre Dame matchup - recommended Lewellen to Green Bay Packers coach

Curly Lambeau Earl Louis "Curly" Lambeau (April 9, 1898 – June 1, 1965) was an American professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). Lambeau, along with his friend and fellow Green Bay, Wisconsin native George Whitney Cal ...

. Lewellen signed with the team and played most of his nine-year career with the Packers. Lewellen played in 102 games for the Packers from 1924 to 1932 (in 1927, the team "lent" him to the New York Yankees for three end-of-season games) and earned all-league first-team honors from 1926–29.

Executive

In 1950, he joined the Packers as a member of the executive committee, served as the Packers'

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

from 1954 through 1958 and business manager from 1961 to 1967.

Legal career

Completing a law degree from Nebraska University during his professional football career, he ran successfully for Brown County (WI) District Attorney in 1928 against Packer teammate

LaVern Dilweg LaVern Ralph "Lavvie" Dilweg (November 1, 1903 – January 2, 1968) was a professional football player, attorney, and U.S. Congressman from Wisconsin. Football Born and raised in Milwaukee, Dilweg attended its public schools and graduated from ...

and was re-elected in 1930. He lost the seat in the 1932 election and practiced law until his retirement.

Personal life

Lewellen died on April 16, 1980 at the age of 78.

Legacy

He was elected to the

Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michi ...

in 1967 and the

Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

in 1970. The Professional Football Researchers Association named Lewellen to the PFRA Hall of Very Good Class of 2009.

References

External links

1901 births 1980 deaths American football fullbacks American football halfbacks American football quarterbacks Green Bay Packers general managers Green Bay Packers players Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball players Nebraska Cornhuskers football players National Football League general managers Players of American football from Nebraska Sportspeople from Lincoln, Nebraska {{Runningback-1900s-stub