Category: Green Bay Packers

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I realized that I have fallen in love with you, Green Bay Packers.

I grew up a sports fan, but I was more concerned with baseball and soccer. I distinctly remember listening at a young age to Robin Yount batting while Uecker called the game on the radio on a Easter Sunday as I sat eating pastel-colored candy corn. I remember the Brewers no-hitter in ’87 and my dad taking me for walks in ’84 while the beloved Chicago Cubs tried to make it to the World Series (he believed he was a jinx if he watched the games). But I don’t remember anything about the Packers. Growing up in Madison you can feel isolated from the rest of the state… Needless to say my first vivid memory of the Packers was when I was studying for an Algebra test in high school with my friend Adam, a giant Packer fan. I’m not sure of the circumstances (regular or post-season) but the Packers lost and Adam proceeced to jump up and run outside and moan defeatedly while rolling around in a snowbank. At that point I realized that this team must be worth caring about. Two years later came a Super Bowl victory and more rolling around in the snow by boys- but this time it was the thrill of victory that led them to the drifts. I watched the next year as the Packers lost the Super Bowl, and I’m pretty sure I was bummed. The next few years are hazy… Fast forward to 2003. The Packers were making a run for the playoffs but it was a longshot and depended on a number or factors. In the last game of the season the Packers had to win and the Vikings had to lose. It wasn’t looking good. I remember sitting on the couch unable to breath. The Packers won their game, but the Vikings were rolling against the Cardinals. My dad was on the computer with a slow internet connection trying to get the latest on the Vikings game- suddenly the t.v. came back from commercials and in some miraculous turn of events, the Cardinals had come back to win. The Packers were going to the playoffs. The phone rang. I knew it was going to be Dan (we were still just friends at the time) and all I could do was scream into the phone. No hello. No hi. No doubt. Just screaming. I knew it was over- there was no turning back- I had become as crazy as the rest of them. I was also moving to Wyoming in a few days.

The next few years I celebrated the victories and felt sorrow at the losses. I bragged about the loyalty of Packer fans to all of my new Patriot fans that I met while living in Wyoming. I sat in my loft on New Year’s Eve 2006 crying when Favre cried at the end of what I thought would be his last game. Back living in Wisconsin I cried my eyes out again when Favre retired the first time. You know what happened next. And now here we are. The Packers are in the Super Bowl in less than two hours. Rational or not, I will sit captivated on my couch watching the game. I will scream. I will pull my shirt over eyes, unable to watch. I will trip myself running around the house like a maniac. I might cry. My neighbor might think again that Dan and I are domestically abusing each other until he realizes that we are actually yelling about a Tramon Williams interception. It’s all fair game. And no matter what happens, you know it’s the Packers. And Packer fans, you know it’s us.