Art Daley, a Packers beat reporter who started covering the team when Curly Lambeau was its coach and Don Hutson was its star, died Saturday. He was 94.
The Green Bay Press-Gazette, where Daley started covering the Packers in 1941, recounted how different that era was for journalists: Daley was specifically instructed by the newspaper’s business manager not to write anything negative about the Packers, lest they leave Green Bay.
“Mr. Turnbull told me, he said, ‘Just remember. Don’t say anything real bad about our team because if we lose ‘em, we’ll never get ‘em back.’” Daley said in a 2009 interview.
Another example of how different newspapermen were back then: Daley acknowledged that he cried when the Packers lost.
“I know that I got a reputation for crying in those bad years we had,” Daley said. “I can laugh now, but I used to hear that the paper boys used to tell their customers on Monday, ‘Here’s Art Daley’s tears.'”
Daley retired from the Press-Gazette in 1979 but kept working as a columnist for Packer Report magazine through the 2010 season, when he still watched most of the home games in the Lambeau Field press box.