From 1919 to 1949, Lambeau was the head coach and general manager of the Packers. He led his team to over 200 wins and six NFL championships, including three straight from 1929 to 1931. He shares the distinction with rival George Halas of the Chicago Bears and later, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots of coaching his team to the most NFL championships. Lambeau also coached eight players who went on to be elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. With players such as quarterback Arnie Herber and split end Don Hutson, his teams revolutionized the use of the passing game in football. After a falling out with the Packers Board of Directors, Lambeau left the Packers to coach the Chicago Cardinals and Washington Redskins, each for two seasons, before retiring in 1953.
For his accomplishments, Lambeau has been widely recognized and honored. He was named to the NFL 1920s All-Decade Team as one of the top halfbacks in the league's first decade of existence. He was an inaugural inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963 and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1970 in recognition for his role as founder, player, and coach of the Packers. Shortly after his death in 1965, the Packers home stadium, which is still in use today, was renamed to Lambeau Field in his honor.
Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun founded the Green Bay Packers on August 11, 1919, after the packing company put up $500 for uniforms. That fall, the founders secured Willard "Big Bill" Ryan, former coach of Green Bay West High School, to coach the team. The team's name reportedly was offered to Curly by his girlfriend Agnes Aylward after a pickup game; Curly had wanted to call the team "The Green Bay Indians" to respect Indian Packing's purchase of uniforms for the team; so Agnes simply blurted, "Well, for heaven's sake, Curly, why don't you just call them the Green Bay Packers!" The team's naming rights were sold to the Acme Packing Company, and the team remained Packers. The Packers initially played teams from Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. However, the success of the team in 1919 and 1920 quickly led to its joining of the American Professional Football Association (now called the National Football League) in 1921. During that season the team was owned by the Acme Packing Company and John and Emmet Clair of Chicago.
Ryan left the Packers after only one season, and Lambeau became player-coach. However, during the team's first season, Lambeau, as team captain, handled many of the duties associated with a head coach in modern times. In the early days of pro football, the head coach was not allowed to talk to the players during the game. Thus, Lambeau was the team's on-field leader during games, including play calling. He was also responsible for signing players and running practices. For these reasons, the Packers recognize Lambeau as the team's first head coach.
In 1921, he led the team into the one-year-old American Professional Football Association, which became the NFL in 1922. After retiring as a player in 1929, he remained as head coach and general manager until 1949. For the better part of that time, he had near-complete control over the team's day-to-day operations and represented the Packers at owners' meetings.
Before joining the NFL, the Packers achieved an overall 19–2–1 record in 1919 and 1920. Under Lambeau in the NFL, the Packers won six championships (1929, 1930, 1931, 1936, 1939, 1944). He compiled an NFL regular-season record of 209–104–21 (.657) with a playoff record of 3–2, 212–106–21 (.656) overall. Lambeau is still far and away the winningest coach in Packers history. His 104 losses are also the most by a Packers head coach.
The Packers' most successful period came in the 1930s, thanks to the additions of quarterback Arnie Herber and receiver Don Hutson. Herber and Hutson pioneered the passing game, which allowed the Packers to dominate their competitors throughout the 1930s.
In 1946, Lambeau purchased Rockwood Lodge, a former Norbertine retreat, creating the first self-contained training facility in professional football. The purchase was controversial among the Packers' board of directors, many of whom balked at the $32,000 purchase price and $8,000 Lambeau spent on renovations, and some members of the financial committee almost resigned in protest.
Lambeau's players grew to hate the facility as well, partly because they were severely battered by the brick-hard limestone under the fields. On some days, Lambeau had to move practices to fields near City Stadium due to the severe beating his players took at the Lodge.
At the same time, the Packers had begun noticeably slipping on the field after Hutson's retirement in 1945. Still, the Packers remained competitive until 1948, when they suffered their first losing season since 1933, and only the second losing season in franchise history. The bottom fell out in 1949, when the Packers won only two games, at the time, their worst season ever. This was at least in part due to Lambeau's refusal to abandon the Notre Dame Box that he had learned during his brief time in South Bend; the Packers continued to run this variation of the single wing long after most teams began running the T formation.
The Packers were also suffering financially, mainly due to the Rockwood Lodge purchase. Early in the 1949 season, Lambeau largely turned over control of the team to his assistants to devote his attention to the team's financial situation, but even reducing the payroll and his own salary were not enough to stanch the bleeding: by the end of the season, the Packers were on what seemed to be an irreversible slide toward bankruptcy. Desperate for cash, Lambeau found investors willing to invest funds into the team on the condition that it abolished its then-unique public ownership structure.
This proposal was considered rank heresy in Green Bay, and led to rumors that the NFL was using the pending merger with the All-America Football Conference as leverage to force Lambeau to relocate the Packers to the West Coast or shut down the team. In response to these events, team officials offered him a revised contract that stripped him of nearly all control over non-football matters.
Lambeau rejected this offer almost out of hand, and for all intents and purposes, this was the end of his 31-year tenure at the helm of the team he founded; however, he did not formally resign until February 1, 1950, seven days after his beloved Rockwood Lodge burned down in a fire that remains unsolved to this day. The insurance money relieved the Packers' financial woes at one stroke, and ensured they would stay in Green Bay.
After resigning from the Packers, Lambeau filled the open head coach position of the Chicago Cardinals. In addition to the position of head coach, Lambeau also was named vice president and was given complete control of personnel choices. The 1950 season was Lambeau's first in Chicago. The team ended the season 5–7, failing to improve upon its record in the previous season and missing out on the postseason. The 1951 season went even worse for Lambeau and the Cardinals; the team ended the season 3–9 and again failed to reach the postseason.
Lambeau coached the Washington Redskins in 1952 and 1953 going 10-13-1 over those two seasons. In August 1954, Lambeau got into a heated argument with Redskins owner George Preston Marshall in the lobby of Sacramento's Senator Hotel, after which Marshall fired Lambeau on the spot.
He was part of the inaugural class of Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963, and the inaugural class of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1970.
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