Packers have made significant contributions to the Canadian Football League

This past Sunday, I crossed off what had climbed to the top of my sports bucket list by attending the Grey Cup in Winnipeg, Canada.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Grey Cup, it’s the Canadian Football League’s Super Bowl. It’s also steeped in history, having been first played in 1909 and exclusively between CFL teams since the league adopted its current name in 1958. The game pits the winners of the East and West divisions.

This year’s Grey Cup was the 112th and played at Winnipeg’s Princess Auto Stadium. In a game that wasn’t decided until a failed Hail Mary on the final play, the Saskatchewan Roughriders prevailed over the Montreal Alouettes, 25-17.

So what does the Grey Cup have to do with Packers history and why am I writing this for packers.com?

My fascination with the CFL dates to the Vince Lombardi era. As a youngster, once training camp started, I’d faithfully read Art Daley’s detailed coverage of the Packers in the Green Bay Press-Gazette and then attend the Packers Intra-Squad Game.

At the time, camp would open mid- to late July and the Intra-Squad Game would be played two to three weeks later. Five or six preseason games would follow and the regular-season opener was scheduled for mid- to late September. In essence, camp consumed close to two months of the pro football calendar.

The Packers Intra-Squad Game dated to 1933 and until 1959 the roster was divided into two full teams, which usually played a 60-minute game. Under Lombardi, the format was changed and pitted Offense vs. Defense.

An adult ticket cost $1. The price of a kids ticket was 25 cents in Lombardi’s first season and 50 cents in his last.

Anyway, during that period from the opening of camp to the Intra-Squad Game, I’d pick out a low draft pick – a longshot to make the roster – as my new favorite Packer based on Daley’s reporting and my own inexpert observations and root for him to make the team.

In 1959, my choice was halfback George Dixon, a ninth-round draft choice from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. A year later, it was halfback Garney Henley, a 15th-round draft pick from Huron College in South Dakota.

Both players wound up getting cut by Lombardi, signing with CFL teams and climaxing their careers by being inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

Becoming an all-time great in the CFL wouldn’t necessarily have meant that Dixon and Henley would have achieved stardom in the NFL if they had made the Packers’ roster or landed elsewhere in the league. But they’re two more names to add to the Packers’ bountiful drafts of the 1950s and ’60s.

Dixon was selected on Jan. 21, 1959, in the second phase – rounds five through 30 – of that year’s draft, when administrative assistant and talent scout Jack Vainisi made the picks for the only time. The date of that draft fell in between Scooter McLean’s departure and Lombardi’s hiring as coach.

Henley was taken in the 1960 NFL Draft – held on Nov. 30, 1959 – which was the only one Lombardi and Vainisi in his new role as business manager and talent scout participated in together with input from defensive assistant Phil Bengtson.

The year Dixon was in camp, the competition for backfield positions was maybe as fierce as it ever was in Packers history, partly because of Vainisi’s four best picks out of his 28 selections. In addition to Dixon, he also chose three other small-school backs: Billy Butler of what was then the University of Chattanooga in the 19th round; Dave Smith of Ripon College in the 21st round; and Tim Brown of what was then Ball State Teachers College in the 27th round.

In the first phase of that draft held in early December with McLean calling the shots, the Packers had taken halfback Alex Hawkins of South Carolina in the second round.

The roster limit at the time was 36 and Lombardi wound up keeping five backs in what was his first season with the Packers: third-year left halfback Paul Hornung; second-year fullback Jim Taylor; fourth-year pro Don McIlhenny, who had been obtained from Detroit in the blockbuster trade for quarterback Tobin Rote two years earlier and could play either left or right halfback; six-year pro Lew Carpenter, who had been acquired from Cleveland by Lombardi as part of the April trade for end Billy Howton and could play any of the backfield positions; and Brown.

Also in the picture were seven-year veteran halfback and future Packers Hall of Famer Al Carmichael, a former No. 1 draft pick who had led the NFL in kickoff return yardage in 1956 and ’57; and seven-year veteran fullback and future Packers Hall of Famer Howie Ferguson, who had 2,558 career rushing yards.

Brown was cut after the opener and replaced by Butler, who was signed as an offensive halfback the second time around after being tried as a defensive halfback in camp. Butler was a native of Berlin, Wis.

Keep in mind that for the first six games of Lombardi’s first season he used three backs as his base offense with Hornung starting at left halfback; Carpenter at right halfback in the opener and then at fullback in games three through five when Taylor was sidelined by a non-football medical issue; and McIlhenny at right halfback in games two through six.

It wasn’t until the seventh game that Lombardi inserted rookie Boyd Dowler as a starter in a three-end offense.

As it turned out, Butler returned punts and kickoffs over the final 11 games and then was lost to Dallas – as was McIlhenny – in the NFL expansion draft after the 1959 season. Thus, none of the five backs drafted by the Packers that year lasted beyond a few months.

But they all had successful pro careers.

Brown was signed as a free agent by Philadelphia a year later, played eight seasons there and finished as the Eagles’ second all-time leading rusher with 3,703 yards next to Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Van Buren.

Hawkins, who was waived by the Packers, recalled by them at the request of Baltimore and then sold to the Colts in mid-September, played 10 years. He was a special teams standout but also started for the Colts at halfback in his second and third pro seasons. Butler played six seasons with Dallas, Pittsburgh and Minnesota, and started for three seasons as a defensive back.

Smith, a Milwaukee native, signed with the Houston Oilers of the newly formed American Football League in 1960 and was chosen by the Associated Press that first season as the all-league fullback. He finished fourth in the AFL in rushing and scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 17-yard pass reception as the Oilers won the AFL’s first championship game. Smith played five seasons in all and later served as a longtime scout for the Buffalo Bills.

As for Dixon, if he had not signed with Montreal within days after being cut by the Packers, he might have gotten the call from Lombardi after the first game instead of Butler. Dixon was bigger at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds and faster, having been a sprinter on Bridgeport’s track team. Plus, Lombardi was in the market for a kick returner.

Dixon was the highest pick of the backs other than Hawkins and came highly recommended by Benny Friedman, pro football’s first great quarterback with the New York Giants and coach at Brandeis University at the time. Friedman called Dixon “another Willie Galimore,” drawing a comparison with the Chicago Bears’ breakaway runner who had just made the Pro Bowl for the first time in his second NFL season.

“Dixon has tremendous speed and power, and most of all he is durable,” Walter Kondratovich, his coach at Bridgeport, added.

As a senior, Dixon finished fourth in the country in rushing among small-school players with 1,106 yards on 155 carries, a 7.1 average. He also was a second-team AP Little All-America choice and prior to being drafted had taken the opening kickoff in the All-America Bowl – a college all-star game between large- and small-school players held in Tucson, Ariz. – and raced 85 yards for a touchdown.

In the Packers Intra-Squad Game, held on Aug. 8, all of the rookies performed well as the Blues (Offense) beat the Whites (Defense), 28-7.

Brown rushed for 75 yards on four carries, an 18.8-yard average, and scored the fourth touchdown on a 29-yard run. Smith rushed for 35 yards on six carries, a 5.8 average, and also caught three passes for 35 yards. Dixon gained 23 yards on five attempts, a 4.6 average; Hawkins gained 15 on four carries, a 3.8 average, and caught a 31-yard pass. And Butler scored the Defense’s only touchdown on a 56-yard punt return.

Once the preseason started, Lombardi attempted to showcase each in different games.

In the opener against the Bears, Brown, who was working primarily at left halfback behind Hornung and Carpenter, led the Packers in rushing with 61 yards on only four attempts and caught a pass for 19 yards.

Dixon was given the start at right halfback in the second game at San Francisco, while Butler opened at safety for veteran Emlen Tunnell. The two rookies also shared return duties.

While Dixon carried only four times for five yards and caught three passes for 24 yards, he set up the Packers’ final touchdown with a 96-yard kickoff return in a 24-17 victory. After the game, Lombardi called Dixon “a big, fast boy who can really help. And we do need a fast breakaway runner.”

Butler, after returning two kickoffs for 56 yards and two punts for two yards against the 49ers, was the first of the rookie backs to be cut on Aug. 28, five days after the game. Dixon’s return also doomed Carmichael, who was cut two days earlier.

The third preseason game was played against Philadelphia in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, and Lombardi decided it was Hawkins’ turn to start at right halfback. He responded with two catches for 54 yards and two rushes for 23 yards.

The fourth game was played in Bangor, Maine, against the New York Giants, and the Press-Gazette reported that Lombardi was uncertain whether he’d start Dixon, Brown or Hawkins at right halfback. The paper also said Smith was due for a shot at fullback after carrying the ball only once in the first three games.

But Lombardi seemingly changed his mind and stuck with his veterans in an attempt to beat the team he had just left as an assistant coach. In a 14-0 loss to the Giants, only Dixon carried the ball or caught a pass among the rookies, and he was held to no gain on his one attempt.

On Sept. 6, the day after the loss, the Packers announced Dixon’s release in advance of the cutdown to 43.

Hawkins was given another look against Washington in the fifth game at Winston-Salem, N.C., played Sept. 12, but he lost seven yards on two carries in a 20-13 victory and was waived three days later on the cutdown to 38. That same week, Ferguson, who had been hampered by injuries, announced his retirement.

Among the rookies, that left Smith and Brown with one preseason game remaining.

They each played – Smith started at fullback and gained seven yards on two attempts, while Brown gained five on four rushes – in a 13-10 victory over Pittsburgh in Minneapolis. Two days later, on the final cutdown, Smith was waived.

Thus, Brown was the lone survivor, heading into the season opener on Sept. 27, but only briefly. According to Red Cochran, Lombardi’s backfield coach at the time, Brown fumbled twice in a handoff drill in practice the next week, following the Packers’ 9-6, season-opening victory over the Chicago Bears, and was replaced on the roster by Butler.

Meanwhile, less than a week after being waived by the Packers, Dixon joined the Alouettes, where he played seven seasons before his career was doomed by a knee injury.

He rushed for 5,615 yards during his career, averaging 6.3 per carry; set a league rushing record with 1,520 yards, including a 7-yard average, and won the Schenley Cup as the CFL’s outstanding player in 1962; and set a record in 1963 that was tied but can never be broken with a 109-yard run from scrimmage on a 110-yard CFL field.

In 1974, Dixon was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.