Cleveland Browns president Mike Holmgren became the third coach to be inducted into the Green Bay PackersHall of Fame on Saturday night in a festive ceremony at Lambeau Field.
"You folks, with this evening, have just put the frosting on the cake," the former coach said, according to the Packers team site.
Holmgren, who coached the Packers from 1992 to 1998, joined Curly Lambeau and Vince Lombardi with the honor. Green Bay went 75-37 during Holmgren's tenure, winning the Super Bowl during the 1996 season. Before Holmgren took over, the franchise had endured two-plus decades of mediocrity.
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"Our young coaching staff that we had, our scouts. We changed the medical department, the training department. We changed a lot of the culture in the building. And that's easy to say -- and hard to do. That probably, to me, over the course of time, will mean the most. We were able to turn it, get it going in the right direction, and then ultimately get the main prize, the Super Bowl," Holmgren said, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.
"I just think, how good are the Packers now. What's happened since 1992, as opposed to what had happened prior to 1992 for all those years. I just have to look at the stadium and walk through here. I mean it is unbelievable how things have changed.
"I had a little part of that, a little thing to do with that, and I'll feel good about that."
Former Packers general manager Ron Wolf, who hired Holmgren and was inducted with him Saturday, and current Packers coach Mike McCarthy were on hand. Brett Favre, the quarterback who was central to Green Bay's revival under Holmgren, was not at Saturday's ceremony -- he and the Packers organization have yet to fully work through the hard feelings surrounding Favre's 2008 departure -- but Holmgren said his former signal-caller texted his congratulations before the event.
"I wasn't here, but I know this, I know the principles involved, everybody involved, they're all good guys. They're all good men," he said on Saturday. "My feeling is, time will heal anything. Give it a little time and it should work out just fine."
