| abstract
| - Which football team came to Lakefront Stadium in Kenosha to clobber the Kenosha Cardinals team 65-2 in 1941? Answer: It was the Green Bay Packers, playing in their 21st season in the National Football League with Earl "Curly" Lambeau as coach. Sound unbelievable? Truth is stranger than fiction: The Packers were the third NFL team to play against the Kenosha Cardinals at Lakefront Stadium that year. Lakefront Stadium was located on the present day site of Wolfenbuttel Park near the Southport Marina. The Cardinals team was underwritten by Cooper's, the forerunner of Jockey International through the Kenosha Sports Association. The team struggled through its first season in 1939, and at the beginning of the second season in 1940, the KSA began a drive to build a fan base. Playing the Packers They placed some calls to Green Bay and came up with a scheme to whip up the fans. On Sept. 7, 1940, the Packers and the Cooper Cardinals met in an exhibition game in Green Bay. A special train was scheduled through the Kenosha Chamber of Commerce so that local fans could ride the rails into Packerland and sit on the 50 yard line for $4.95. The Cards lost that one on a mud-slicked field, 17-0. So much enthusiasm had been generated by that game that the KSA lined up other NFL teams to play games in 1941, all with the blessing of NFL Commissioner Elmer Laydon. Bears come to town The first was a pre-season game here against iconic coach George Halas' Chicago Bears on Aug. 19, 1941, which set an attendance record of 6,200 at Lakefront Stadium. The Bears, who had beaten the Washington Redskins 73-0 for the world championship title the previous season, were held to 27 points, while the Cards managed to get a hard-earned six points on the scoreboard. Eagles, Giants, Rams A week later, the Cards got more of the same from the Philadelphia Eagles, losing 35-6. If it sounds like our Cards were a little out of their league, they were. They also played the New York Giants, the Cleveland Rams (forerunners of the St. Louis Rams), and the Chicago Cardinals (forerunners of the Arizona Cardinals), all of the NFL. Kenosha's best of them all was 21-21 tie against the latter Chicago team. Packers arrive But by the next season, not even our beloved Packers could draw the armchair quarterbacks out to the freezing tundra of Lakefront Stadium. A disappointing 3,000 people sat in the stands for the Cardinals’ third season finale. It was a bye week for the Packers, and in their Sunday, Nov. 9, 1941, 65-2 rout of the Kenosha Cardinals, the Packers hardly broke a sweat. Coach Lambeau refused to risk injuries for his star players, and Cecil Isabel, Don Hutson and Clarke Hinkle sat on the bench, huddled under green blankets in the frigid cold. The only time the Kenosha fans got to see the trio and other starters was in the pre-game warm-up activities. Cardinal team members that year included Art Blaha, Pete Hogan, Ernie Wheeler, Al Christiansen, Dave Rankin, Mike Dolan, Dick Hegman, John Biolo and Paul Berezney. True slaughter The game was a true slaughter. The Pack racked up nine touchdowns and eight extra-point conversions and a field goal. The Cards’ only scoring came early in the game on a safety when Berezney swarmed in over Packer George Paskvan, who fumbled in the end zone. For the fans who braved the frigid blasts off the lake, it was a chance to see their Packer idols. That season, Hutson lead the NFL in receptions with 74, and Isabell was the NFL leader in passing with 1,479 yards. The Pack went on to earn a tie with the Bears for first place in the Western Conference, but lost to their rivals 33-14 in a post-season playoff game. The home game against the Packers was the last game the Cooper Cardinals ever played, as the KSA went belly up the next month.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)