I get a lot of emails asking me, “How the hell did you become a Packers fan?” I guess I’m being asked that question because I’m not from Wisconsin, I live in Texas, and I was born in Oklahoma. For me, it all started with my dad. My dad was born in Texas and then moved to Oklahoma when he was a teenager. Back in the ’60s, everyone who lived in Oklahoma and Texas was automatically assumed to be a fan of the Dallas Cowboys. But not my dad. He liked the kind of football the Packers played in the ’60s and he loved how Vince Lombardi coached. He used to tell me, “It would be third down and one, and everyone knew the Packers were going to run the ball with Paul Hourning or Jim Taylor. But Bart Starr would take the snap, drop back to pass and throw for the first down or for a touchdown.” “. And then my dad would say, “That took guts, and Lombardi’s players were the bravest, toughest players to ever play in the NFL.” As a kid, I loved listening to my dad talk about the Packers and the glory days of the ’60s, the NFL championships, and the first two Super Bowls.

I heard all these great Packers stories as a kid in the 1970s and I was too young to watch the great Packers teams of the ’60s. The Packers by then were nowhere near the great team they had once been. They made the playoffs once in the ’70s, in 1972, behind running back John Brockington’s run. But in the NFC Divisional Playoff they lost to the Washington Redskins 16-3. The rest of the ’70s for the Packers was marred by mediocre teams and a coach, Dan Devine, who ruined the Packers for years to come with a trade he made to the Los Angeles Rams for aging quarterback John Hadl in 1974. The trade cost the Packers five draft packages, a first, second and third in the 1975 draft, and a first and third in the 1976 draft. be so bad from 1975 through the late ’80s. The Packers wouldn’t recover for long.

But nonetheless, no matter how bad they were, I was a fan of the Green Bay Packers. You know you are a true fan of a team because when your team loses, you get sick to your stomach and are depressed for days. I suffered through the ’70s and ’80s season after season growing up in Oklahoma, and I watched all my friends, who were Dallas Cowboys fans, watch their team win games, win in the playoffs, and play in the Super Bowl. .

The bright spot of the ’80s was when the Packers made the playoffs in the strike-shortened 1982 season. Green Bay hosted its first home playoff game since the 1967 Ice Bowl, with the Packers defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in the snow 41-16 in the First Round of the NFC Playoffs. The Packers then traveled to Texas Stadium to face the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Divisional Playoff, where they lost 37-26. I didn’t realize it at the time, but playing the Dallas Cowboys at Texas Stadium would be something that wouldn’t go down too well with the Packers and their fans for years to come.

I remember being sad and angry year after year when the Packers let me down. But I never gave up on them, always proclaiming that next year “The pack would be back.” But it never happened. And even though they were losing year after year, there was something special about the Packers for me. There was the whole story, Lambeau Field and Green Bay being the smallest city to have an NFL team. And I’ve always dreamed of attending a Packers game at Lambeau Field.

The closest he had been to Lambeau Field was in 1973, when he was 7 years old. While traveling to Escanaba, Michigan with my family, we drove through Green Bay, stopped at Lambeau Field, took photos, walked around for a few minutes, then got back in the car and kept going. I remember thinking that this would be the last time I would get this close to the legendary stadium. However, that would not be the last time he would see Lambeau Field, for some 28 years later, he would be there again.

Search for “How I Became a Packers Fan – Part 2.”