Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Packer Plus
It’s time for a fond farewell to Packer Plus
When Packer Plus debuted on Oct. 17, 1991, many people weren’t sure what to make of the odd timing.
The Green Bay Packers were in the midst of yet another losing season under head coach Lindy Infante and were 1-5 entering a Thursday game against the Chicago Bears. With Packer Plus debuting on that same day, the Packers were shut out by the Bears, 10-0, in a lackluster offensive performance by Infante’s team at Lambeau Field.
As the Packers limped their way to a 4-12 record that season, fans had few reasons to be excited about the future of the franchise, and seemingly, even fewer reasons to be excited over a new magazine dedicated to covering a miserable club.
But Packers fans are resilient, loyal and eager for news about their favorite team, even in the lean years. And things were about to change, rather quickly, in Green Bay. Just a few weeks later in November 1991, fans learned about the hiring of Ron Wolf as general manager. With Wolf in the captain’s chair, the Packers were about to begin a remarkable transformation that, in large part, still continues today.
In those 32 years since 1991, Packer Plus was there to cover the news that helped shape the Packers franchise — the good, the bad, and everything in between. And, on July 28, it is time to bid a fond farewell.
With this issue, Packer Plus will be ending its print publication.
Packers fans, of course, can still find the latest news, analysis, game stories and more in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and additional coverage at jsonline.com and packersnews.com. Online, fans will also find photo galleries, videos with analysis from our beat reporters, live game blogs, stories compiled from social media, and much more.
The magazine, however, is turning the page after an extraordinary run. When it launched, Packer Plus was a source of coverage for Packers fans not only in the
Milwaukee area, but those outside of the delivery zone could have issues mailed directly to their homes, allowing fans both in Wisconsin and outside state lines to get the latest news sent right to their mailbox.
Before the arrival of the internet, mail delivery provided a key role in helping fans follow the team.
“This was just like the perfect product to have for someone who was out of state and was craving Packers news,” said Mike Vandermause, Packer Plus’ first editor.
“And even for in-state Packers fans we offered unique content that was different from what the daily newspapers were providing. So, we kind of prided ourselves on that. Offering people something they couldn’t get somewhere else.”
Vandermause was part of the original brainstorming team at the Milwaukee Sentinel that helped shape the vision for Packer Plus in the early planning stages. He remembers how the idea came together at a time when the Packers were, quite frankly, a bad football team.
“The thing I remember distinctly is that in 1991 the Packers were in the midst of their, what I like to call their Gory Years, you know, 25 years of losing,” he said. “You had that succession of coaches. It went from – after (Vince) Lombardi left – it went from (Phil) Bengtson, to (Dan) Devine, to (Bart) Starr, to (Forrest) Gregg, to Lindy Infante and each coach got worse. I mean the team got worse, record-wise, with each new coach.
“It was kind of interesting that we started it right when they were, you know, Lindy Infante was in the middle of one of his bad seasons. I remember some people going, ‘Why are we starting this publication about this bad football team?’ It was a little laughable.”
Since winning Super Bowl II in the 1967 season, the Packers had just five winning seasons from 1968-’91, and one playoff victory. When team president Bob Harlan and the Packers announced the hiring of Wolf and gave him complete control of football decision-making in 1991, it was the beginning of a new era.
Just like that, Packer Plus, only a few weeks past its first issue, was in the right spot at the right time to chronicle the evolution of the team.
“Wolf brings in (Mike) Holmgren, he trades for (Brett) Favre, and it was just like the Packers franchise was turning around and Packer Plus sort of caught it on the cusp of that,” Vandermause said. “It turned out to be very fortunate for us because, I mean, the interest in the Packers just skyrocketed and our subscriptions for about the next five years went from like 0 to 25,000 and it was just really rapid growth.
“Obviously you like to say part of it was the quality of the publication. We had Tom Mulhern as the lead writer. Bud Lea would write a column every week exclusive – even still write for the Sentinel but he would write a column for Packer Plus – which I always said gave the magazine some status because Bud obviously was ‘Mr. Packer’ and had a lot of authority, so he brought a lot of credibility to the publication.
“As much as I want to say, ‘Yeah, it was good quality product,’ another probably main factor in us growing circulationwise was the team just took off. Holmgren, Favre, Reggie White, it all kind of came together and we were there to kind of cover it all.”
In 1995, I started at the Journal Sentinel when Packer Plus already had a solid readership base. Almost immediately after I walked in the door for the first time, I was working on stat pages for the magazine. It wasn’t easy to tell a good guy like Vandermause that the Packer Plus stats weren’t done because you wanted to go home at midnight.
Over the next several years, I continued to work on Packer Plus in some capacity, whether as a freelancer writing stories at games or posting stories for the magazine at JSOnline.com.
Then, eight years ago in 2014, I was asked to be Packer Plus Editor, and I graciously accepted. It has been a pleasure working on the magazine, and I will always be thankful that I had the opportunity.
While Packer Plus is ending its print run, there will still be news for dedicated Packers fans to follow their favorite team at the Journal Sentinel and at JSOnline.com. Thank you for a memorable run with Packer Plus.