Jessie Garcia - My Life with the Green & Gold: Tales from 20 Years of Sportscasting

Jessie changing a diaper in the Packers tunnel.

ITS 5 A.M. AND IM DRIVING through a dark Wisconsin winter morning, on my way to the airport, en route to the Super Bowl.

And Im crying.

Why am I crying? Its Super Bowl XLV, for heavens sake. Everybody tells me how cool that is. Cry me a river, right? An all-expenses-paid trip to Dallas for eight days. Who wouldnt love that? Some parents might clamor for a week away from their kids. Oh, Ive had days like that, and Im not downplaying the excitement of the assignmentthe pinnacle for sportscasters. But I am more than a sportscaster: Im a mom, and right now all I can think about is how I peeked into my seven-year-old sons bedroom before I snuck out the door, his body flailed to the side, taking up an entire double bed, wavy hair on a Spiderman pillow. My eleven-year-old was tucked into the top bunk in his room, sports pennants taped and tacked to his walls as his straighter hair rested on a plain blue, more adult, pillowcase. I had slept on the living room couch so as not to disturb anyone. At 4:30 a.m. I was tiptoeing around the house, leaving a note on the kitchen table that said I LOVE YOU! and easing my way out the back door and into an arctic blast of air, a bagel in my hand, a weeks worth of clothes dragging behind me.

This is the yin and yang of motherhood, the balance Im constantly trying, and usually failing, to achieve. Maybe Im just emotional because I only slept two hours (fitfully, eye on the clock), knowing I had to catch a plane to Denver to catch a plane to Dallas and be ready to hit the ground running, as people in the news business like to say. But I know its more because I have already been gone from the house way too much in recent weeks during the frantic buildup to the Super Bowl. In fact, Ive hardly been home.

Youre not leaving again? my seven-year-old wails, hanging onto my leg with all of his first-grade strength.

We need you in Green Bay is the constant refrain from my bosses.

I live in Milwaukee. One hour and forty-five minutes door-to-door to Lambeau Field. Two hours if you stop at the Hardees in Sheboygan. Im the host of The Mike McCarthy Show. I need to interview the coach every week. Not to mention the constant coverage the station thinks we need to provide.

Feed the beast, the reporters joke with each other.

But no one expected this team to get to the big game. Just a few weeks ago I was still telling my mom, Dont worry, theres no way theyre going to the Super Bowl. Shes concerned because she wont be in the state to babysit. She has to travel to the East Coast to help my aunt whos going through chemotherapy.

My reasoning was based on some facts. The team was young, with hardly anyone on board with Super Bowl experience. They were injured, starter after starter going down. But as I watched from across the room as Aaron Rodgers, in his gray suit, straightened his tie in the locker room to take the captains picture, I started to have a premonition. There was a bounce in their step, something special about this group. Dont they always say the team thats most on a roll will win the Super Bowl? Defying all logic they marched magically through elimination game after elimination game. They were on course to be in the NFC championship. I had been sent to the Bears-Seahawks tilt at Soldier Field the week before. Winner would take on Green Bay. Chicago prevailed, but the players were so flat in the locker room. I walked out and said to my photographer, Man, if McCarthy can motivate the troops one ounce, theyve got this one. The Bears did nothing to convince me they wanted anything less than to go home, giving us quotes about being tired and looking forward to a few days off before their next contest. When I asked about playing their archrival the Packers in the NFC title game for the first time, most didnt seem to realize that was the case, or appeared not to care.

We did a funny piece in the parking lot, asking fans who they would rather have as their quarterback, Rodgers or Jay Cutler.

Cutler! screamed a burly guy in a Bears sweatshirt so his friends could hear. Then he leaned in closer to the camera. Is anyone listening? He whispered, Rodgers.