Chuck Carlson - Tales from the Green Bay Packers Sideline: A Collection of the Greatest Packers Stories Ever Told

Copyright 2006, 2011, 2015 by Chuck Carlson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61321-816-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61321-856-3

Contents

Acknowledgments

T o do a book like this, and hopefully do it correctly, you need a lot of help. And I had plenty.

Id like to acknowledge the folks at Skyhorse Publishing, especially Niels Aaboe, who has helped steer this project which has seen several incarnations over the years and never seems to get old.

Many thanks also to the always helpful Green Bay Packers organization, especially retired team president Bob Harlan and a special recognition to the wonderful long-time public relations director Lee Remmel, who died in 2015 but whose spirit will live on.

Id also like to thank everyone who offered anecdotes and stories and tales that were great to hear but that, well, couldnt be used for one reason or another. High on that list are former general manager Ron Wolf, Packers linebacker Brian Noble, and Larry McCarren, among others, as well as Mark Daniels of WGEE-AM in Green Bay, Jim Caston at WHBY-AM in Appleton, and Tom Mulhern of the Madison State Journal . There are many, many others and I think you know who you are.

Id also like to thank my former bosses at the Oshkosh Northwestern publisher Kevin Doyle, executive editor Stew Rieckman and sports editor Dan Kohnfor giving me the opportunity and time to write this book.

And finally thank you to Packers players and coaches, past and present, who provided me with more information that I sometimes knew what to do with.

Introduction

T he story of the Green Bay Packers, and it has been chronicled more times than many people can count, is as much fiction as fact.

Indeed, who can believe a dry of 90,000 souls tucked up in the wintry climes of Northeastern Wisconsin could be the home of an NFL franchise? Who could believe that same franchise could survive and, ultimately, thrive over a history that spans nearly ninety years? And who could believe that same franchise could win 12 world titles, including three Super Bowls, while franchises in much larger and in supposedly more progressive cities have yer to win one?

And who could believe that same franchise could produce players like this: Don Hutson, Tony Canadeo, Johnny Blood McNally Dave Robinson, Paul Hornung, Ray Nitschke, Bart Starr, Jerry Kramer, James Lofton, Sterling Sharpe, Brett Favre, and so many others while being coached by the likes of Curly Lambeau, Vince Lombardi, and Mike Holmgren?

It is not a story to be believed, but it happened and it continues to happen.

The Packers are as much a part of the NFL, and of Americana, as anything you could name. The classic white block G on the side of the yellow helmets is as recognizable a symbol as the golden arches or the New York Yankees pinstripes.

Today, the Packers remain one of the most popular sports franchises in the nation. There are fan clubs spread not only throughout the country, but around the world. A fan club in Poland, in face, boasts more than 500 members. There are self-titled Packers bars located in California, Florida, Colorado, and Texas. A little bar in the beach community of Dewey Beach, Delaware is called The Frozen Tundra.

So the Packers reach everywhere, and the effect is huge. And when the Packers win, more than just fans in Wisconsin celebrate the occasion.

Many is the day, in fact, even in the bleakest days of winter, when the season is over and a savage wind blows through the Lambeau Field parking lot, that people will still drive up, pose in front of the stadium, snap a photo and drive away.

I love it when they do that, team president Bob Harlan said. That tells me a lot.

Harlan often watches from his office high atop the refurbished stadium as limousines pull up and a wedding partycomplete with a bride all in white and groom in a tuxscramble out, have a picture taken and clambered back in.

On a recent snowy day, three people decked out in Oakland Raiders regalia stopped and had a picture taken.

Its Lambeau Field, one person said. We had to do it.

This is what the Green Bay Packers, and everything surrounding them, means to a lot of people, even if no one can really explain it.

Its the David vs. Goliath mentality, longtime Packers public relations director Lee Remmel said.

Its ironic that nearly ten years ago, a young whipper-snapper of a quarterback named Brett Favre made a prophetic statement as the Packers were beginning their rise back to prominence. It was back in the days when the Dallas Cowboys were the kings of the NFL and playing to the hilt their role as Americas Team.

When the Cowboys won the Super Bowl, Dallas went crazy, he said at the time. When the Packers win the Super Bowl again, all America will go crazy.

He was right, because four years later, the Packers did indeed win another Super Bowl, and the celebration stretched from one end of the country to the other.

Thats because the Packers represent everything that was simple and good about the NFL. Its a blue-collar team cheered on by fans who work in foundries and factories and paper mills. And a game at Lambeau Field, even though its $295 million facelift has changed much of how the place looks, is still an experience like no other. To cheer for the Packers is to cheer for the perpetual underdog.

And the stories oh, the stories. They have come down the line from everyone and everywhere. You cant find anyone in Wisconsin who doesnt know Packers stories, real or imagined. Thats because for years the Packers not only played in Green Bay, many lived here and opened businesses within a thirty-mile radius of Green Bay called the Fox Valley.

Many were the nights when fans would report interesting goings-on at an Appleton restaurant/bar called The Left Guard, an establishment run by former Packer Fuzzy Thurston.

The Packers were a part of the community. Vince Lombardi could be seen walking to the dry cleaners and Mike Holmgren would be stopped in a grocery store and told to beat the Bears. It is the states team, and the fans protect that with a jealous pride.

So there are always stories, plenty of stories. From the days of Curly Lambeau and the infancy of the NFL all the way until today under new coach Mike McCarthy as the Packers have regained their spot among the NFLs elite.

Brett Favre has taken his place among the best and most popular players the Green Bay Packers organization has ever known. And he almost didnt make it there after failing his first physical with the team. Photo Vernon J. Biever

All the stories are good; some are probably even true. But perhaps the best story of all is about the Green Bay Packers franchise itself. In todays world, it should not exist. It is too small, too provincial, too Midwest, too everything and too not enough. But here it sits and here it stays, a study in contradictions.