Charles “Charlie” Mathys

Class of 1922: Green Bay Packers

Green Bay Packers Hall-of-Famer Charles Pater “Charlie” Mathys played 52 games with the team as a quarterback and kicker in 1922-26; and for one season as a running back for the Hammond Pros in 1920-21.

He was born June 20, 1897, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He played college football at Ripon in 1917 and at Indiana University in 1919-20 before joining the pros. Over his four seasons with the Packers, he started in all but two games and became the Packers’ first established starter at quarterback. He was renowned for being the quarterback on the first Packers team to beat the Chicago Bears Sept. 27, 1925. He threw a last-second touchdown pass to win the game 14–10.

A profile on the Green Bay Packers website states: “Based on unofficial statistics in The Pro Football Chronicle, written by Dan Daly and Bob O’Donnell, Mathys caught 90 passes for 1,506 yards, more than any other NFL player in the 1920s. Yet in 1925, Mathys threw seven touchdown passes, including a game-winner to Verne Lewellen early in the fourth quarter of the Packers’ first victory over the Chicago Bears.

“The play covered four yards and allowed the Packers to squeak past the Bears, 14-10, in the fourth game of what is now pro football’s most storied rivalry. Years later, (Packers Coach Curly) Lambeau called the victory one of the three biggest in early Packers history and Mathys’ pass, off a fake to the fullback, the biggest play of the game.

“Two years earlier, Mathys also threw a fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Lambeau to beat another early rival of the Packers, the Milwaukee Badgers, 10-7.

Mathys as a Packer

“‘Never did we have a more loyal player on the team,’ Lambeau said upon Mathys’ retirement in 1926. ‘And we won’t ever forget that it was Charlie’s brilliant play that helped put the Packers where they are today in the pro football world.’”

Mathys retired from football in 1926 after an arm injury. He became a successful Green Bay businessman and a longtime member of the Green Backers Board of Directors and executive committee. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1977.

He died Jan. 18, 1983, at age 85.