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| Lombardi's Den |
I played basketball in grade school, but didn't start playing
football until my freshman year in high school, which was the fall of 1967.
However, the reason I played football and consider football my favorite sport
may actually go back to becoming a Packer Backer.
It was Sunday October 9, 1966 and we had arrived at Grandma and
Grandpa's house for Sunday dinner and, as I recall, he had
the TV on and there was a NFL game playing and as I remember it, it was the
late game after 3 p.m. I
asked him what team was the best team in the NFL and he pointed to the TV and
said, "That one right there. That is the best team." The teams
playing were the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers and as we all
know, it wasn't the 49ers that were the best team in those days it was the
Vince Lombardi led Packers. I became a Packer Backer that day and have been one
ever since, come the Wilderness Years through the Favre Years and up to today
and until the day I die. Ironically, the Packers lost that game 21-20 for its
first loss of the season.
Being born and bred in Southern Illinois I am naturally a St.
Louis baseball Cardinals and a St. Louis Blues fan. When it became time to pick
a NBA team to follow I had a quandary. St. Louis didn't have an NBA team, only
a ABA team the Spirits of St. Louis, which didn't last long, so I chose the New
York Knicks. I guess you could say I was a front runner considering I chose the
Packers when they were the best and at the time the Knicks were also winning
championships, but really my reasoning was, at that time, every ex-Southern
Illinois University basketball player had played with the Knicks, beginning
with Walt Frazier and continuing with Mike Glenn and Joe C. Meriweather. And,
as it turned out, even a coach at SIU - Harry Gallatin - had Knicks ties.
I graduated from SIUC in 1976 and got my masters in sports
information from Northeast Louisiana University in Monroe (NLU) - us graduates
still call it that and don't like University of Louisiana-Monroe (ULM). I interned
in the SIU sports information office and in the sports information office of
the Baseball Cardinals in 1980 (Whitey Herzog's first season and Ted Simmons'
last season).
I ran a local business in my hometown for several years and then
in 1998 began a seven-year stint with the local weekly newspaper covering the
local high school and junior high teams. I then moved to the regional paper in
the October of 2005 and have been with them ever since as a sports writer
covering mainly high school, but also the local university and junior college
teams.
I have a group of Packer Backers I watch the games with in my
town. We used to the go to the local bar to watch the games, but the main
Packer Backer has bought NFL Sunday Ticket,
so I don't get down to the bar as often. They are the fourth-generation of
Packer Backers for me and the local bar is my second Packer Bar.
Ironically again, the current bar is listed as a Bear Bar these
days, because a majority of the students at the local university are Chicago
transplants. In fact, back on Sept. 7, 1980 my brother and I went down to that
bar when the only two Packers games we could watch in those days before cable
and satellite were the Bears games. We were there when Chester Marcol picked up
a blocked field goal and ran it in for a touchdown to the beat the Bears -
remember the Packers weren't good in those days during the Wilderness Years -
and after we yelled and jumped up and down we almost didn't make it out of the
bar alive.
So I am a working sports journalist and since 2001 have been a regular guest commentator on a local radio sports talk show on Sunday mornings. I think expressing my
opinions about the Packers on the talk show I have actually won converts,
including the host. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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