Packers, UW-Green Bay offering online certificate detailing team’s ‘Return to Glory’

In collaboration with the Green Bay Packers, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is offering an online course detailing the team’s “return to glory” over the past 50 years. 

The class will be led by Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame Curator Brent Hensel and will feature eight sessions covering the team’s struggles in the 1970s and 1980s, the optimism surrounding the return of Packer greats like Bart Starr and Forest Gregg and the team’s rise to Super Bowl champions in 1997 and 2011. 

“We’ll definitely talk about the Matt LaFleur head coaching era, and Brian Gutegunkst, who’s really rebuilt the talent of the team through the draft,” Hensel said. “But Lafluer is, historically, one of the most successful NFL coaches. In fact, the first three years he had the best record, or maybe it was the second best record in NFL history as a head coach.”

This isn’t the first collaboration between the university and the team. Last fall and spring, Hensel and UW-Green Bay Executive Officer for the Division of Continuing Education Jess Lambrecht offered a course on the first five decades of Packers history.

Lambrecht said the course sold out, as did a subsequent section offered this spring.

“So, we’ve had close to 200 participants in those two offerings,” Lambrecht said. “And then what they were saying is they want more. So we wanted to respond to that.”

Hensel said course attendees have ranged from college-age students to retirees who share a deep passion for the Packers. They’ve come from Wisconsin but also as far away as England and Ireland.

“The last time I taught the course with the earlier history, we hired two Lambeau Field stadium tour guides out of my class,” Hensel said. 

Hensel is working to schedule guest speakers, but he said he cannot divulge who just yet. 

Those who complete the eight-week, $139 course will get a free pass to the Packers Hall of Fame.