Why Green Bay … ?

2006-09-06 Back story

Why the
Green Bay Packers … ?

At 5:30pm on November 7^th  1982 the ‘new’ UK national TV network, Channel 4 (sic) began to broadcast NFL games; anyone else remember when there were only three channels on UK TV? *oh boy*

 

Prior to the C4 coverage I’d only seen parts of a few intriguing but largely unfathomable ‘Rosebowl’ and ‘Gray Cup’ games on Dickie Davies’s ‘World of Sport (boy that is a whole other topic, too *parks it for later*).

 

So, it was a bold move at the time by the independent TV company, Cheerleader Productions, who produced the show, but it really paid off as the show became one of the top-raters on C4. But at least in one respect, they had less-than-impeccable timing in choosing to start airing that season – that’s right, 1982 was the NFL’s nadir, a 57-day strike that resulted in a fore-shortened 9-game season and saw millionaire players on picket-lines.

 

But it didn’t matter to
UK fans … C4 showed games played in September – before the strike started – and soon the labour dispute was settled and normal play was resumed on Nov 21st.

 

Whatever … the Packers, started hot, faded to patchy and finally hit the buffers in a 36-27 NFC Divisional Playoff loss to the Cowboys. That playoff spurt ended a 10-year drought (back to 1972) and started another one as the Packers would wait until 1993 for another appearance in the NFL playoffs *if only I’d known*.

 

But en-route to compiling that 5-3-1 record the Packers put-in a couple of improbable and thrilling come-from behind wins including overturning a 23-0 deficit to subdue the Rams 35-23 in the season opener (still a team record).

 

As fate would have it that game was on C4. I was glued. And I was hooked from the start as a Packer for life.

 

Ok it might have been tape-delayed second rate fare as far as the
US was concerned, but in comparison to the briefest of glimpses of the game I’d had (see below) it was power glamour. The equivalent I guess to the nation’s  more recent infatuation with the WWF and now ‘reality’ TV.

 

The show transformed mundane Sunday evenings. No more dodging between ‘Songs of Praise’ and regurgitations of the previous week’s news; no more slouching through black-and-white reruns of ‘The Glenn Miller Story’. Here was a vibrant, exciting sport. The highlights package format emphasised the strengths of the game and helped sell it to the uninitiated
UK audience.

 

So that’s when the Packers became my team; they were the underdogs who fought back … at least to my mind back then. The more I found out about them the more I liked ‘em. Here was a small town team that held a dominant position in the tradition of the NFL, A blue collar fan base with a fanatical devotion to their football team. And in all of that I saw parallels with
St Helens and ‘the Saints’.

 

Did I flirt with other teams as time went on? You bet! I loved
Montana and Young and the 49ers. They were everything I’d thought the Packers were – an exciting vibrant team who never knew when they were beaten. It was great to watch. I really enjoyed
Tampa’s success too because I remembered when they were the pits. I always wanted the Rams to put it together too – because of Dickerson I think – but it never happened … not in LA anyhow.

 

And
Washington? They were big at the time but I couldn’t get into them really; liked Riggins, thought Thiesman was a gutsy guy but never bought into the franchise as a liker.

 

And then there’s the Raiders, I liked them. And not ‘cos of any man-crush on
Marcus Allen either … just ‘cos you knew they’d come round and get ya’ if  ya’ didn’t!

Drug Slugs …

2006-09-06 View from the Bridge
The Drug Slugs …

So, you want to know who it hurts, eh? Yes, you, the guy who thinks Bonds is ‘maligned’ … who thinks that performance enhancing drugs in sports is a media-driven non-issue.

I’ll tell you who it hurts! It hurts guys like Ryan Howard.

Howard – if you don’t already know – is just coming off a three-homer game and is well on pace to break the 60 home run barrier this season.

The other guys in that club? Well, it used to be just Babe Ruth (60) and Roger Maris (61)… until what is sure to become known as ‘the Steroid-era’ … since which it now comprises Bonds (73), McGuire (70, 65) and Sosa (66, 64, 63); those hit between 1998 and 2001.

And that’s where the real damage of ‘drugs in sport’ can be seen. Not in what it does to the greedy, self-centred athletes who imbibe, but in what it does to the achievements of those who came before and of those who come after.

Proof or not, that unholy trio of Bonds, Sosa and McGuire will forever remain tainted as Steroid-cheats.

So … if Howard is up there in terms of run production with them, does that make him a cheat too?

Hell, I’m a baseball fan and I want to think it doesn’t. I want him to be a clean. But do I wonder if?

Well … if you can tell me how I could not … if maybe it’s just me … then I’d sleep happier tonight.

And in the era of Human Growth Hormone (which is virtually undetectable by the current testing process) even if this guy, or the next one or the one after that comes forward and tests clean for steroids … what would that prove other than ‘we can’t test for whatever they were on yet’?

That is the treacherous mire that the wanton use of performance enhancing drugs has left us in.

No more can we gaze in wonder at a remarkable sporting feat because we no longer know where the solid ground is and every remarkable achievement must raise a questioning eyebrow.

But even that is not the heart of the tragedy … have you ever seen the awe in your son’s eyes when he’s watched his sports hero excel? Maybe he saw a homer driven deep into the night, or a slam dunk game-winner, or a free-kick swerving and searing into the net. Well, remember that image … it is as precious – and now as fleeting – as his belief in Santa Claus; that sense of wonder is now something he’ll grow out of … and that is the real tragedy.

Noble Sentiment

View from the Bridge 2006-09-05:

Noble Sentiment …

Every so often a press-conference comment or aside will transcend the mundane clichés. Rare, but it does happen. Oftentimes the cordiality of the coach/media relationship means such references never make it into the mainstream media; last Friday I witnessed just such a thing post-match at the Wigan Warriors vs Bradford Bulls Super League Round 26 clash.

It had been a meaty game convincingly won by the home side and riddled with more sub-plots and back-story than a Hollywood scriptwriters’ convention.

Not least of those subplots was the fact that Wigan and GB coach, Brian Noble, was facing his home town club, Bradford – whose coach (Steve McNamara) he had mentored as a player and assistant for a decade – for the very first time.

More than that, the following Wednesday Noble was to attend a ceremony to grant him the ‘Freedom of Bradford’. This guy is a proud white rose, Yorkie, through and through.

What made this press-conference so poignant? The so obvious pain – and maybe guilt – that Noble exhibited at having pulled-off a very important win against a club he so very clearly still loves.

In these days when loyalty is so fragile it was a rare and precious moment; one that gave me pause to think that the paths of the Bulls and Noble may yet converge again in the years to come.

If Noble pulls-off the coup of avoiding Super League relegation with Wigan as now seems likely (indeed he could yet edge them into the playoffs) then … is it mission accomplished and all bets off?

Noble will have more than proved his point to the people who ousted him from the club he loves and Wigan will be safe to turn to the big-name talent so beloved of chairman, Maurice Lindsay.

If the Bulls do come calling Wigan will believe they could easily replace Noble by tempting a top Aussie or New Zealand coach over – oh look, Shaun McRae is free, so is Brian McClellan and Ricky Stewart. All top, glitzy names, to tempt the Warriors.

Or will Wigan heed the lessons of their excesses in seasons past, the profligate waste of talent that got them into the relegation mire in the first place … will they set aside their acquisitive temptations and build, constructively and methodically? Build with a coach who has shown he knows how to instil the basics into a faltering side and turn them into a team that can compete with the best?

As someone with no particular love or favour previously for either the Warriors or Noble, I can only say how much the work he has done with the Warriors has impressed me. Each visit has revealed massive progress in the discipline and character of his team. Where once I doubted his ability … now there is proof positive. A great job well done.

Favre eying the off-ramp …

View from the Bridge: 2006-09-05
Favre eying the off-ramp …

Have you ever been at a dinner party you really wanted not to be at, but were too polite to leave? Maybe it was your wife’s work-friends? Or a colleague’s wedding? Whatever! Brett Favre is that guy, right now.

Favre desperately wants to excuse himself but can’t screw-up the courage to do it. For the longest time he hoped against hope that his employers, the Green Bay Packers, would put him out of his self-imposed misery; but they had neither the balls nor the heart to do it.

And whilst any number of Sports Talk hosts will whisper that Favre has earned the right to go on his own terms … and in a way they’re right … I’d just ask you this; is this really the way a guy who predicated his reign on leadership would choose to go?

Is it? Really?

Look, every team athlete I’ve ever asked the question of has said the thing they most want, is to control the way they retire – or that the thing they most regret, is not leaving the game on ‘their own terms’.

That latter quote comes most often from players forced from the game through injury. There are more of those guys than you might imagine and plenty would jump at the chance to have said: ‘Gee, thanks guys, you know I’ve had a good run here and I really feel I could maybe do another year, maybe, but you know I’ve decided to go now, while y’all still want me.’

That simple statement, from Favre, in February would have set him … and the Packers … free.

Free to go on to the next stage. Favre to his tractor and the Hall of Fame and a sure fire media career if he wants it. The Packers through the fire of breaking-in another quarterback (Does Rogers have what it takes? Does anyone know) and into whatever the NFL gods have in-store for a franchise with a long and proud tradition.

Instead … they clung to each in a death-grip … each condemning the other to endure a torturous break-up down the line.

Now with the season opener all but upon them the light is beginning to dawn on the sad duo … Favre’s recent statement, implying he’d go – albeit maybe to another team – if only the Packers asked him, perhaps foreshadowing the simmering resentment that will eventually foul a hitherto mutually beneficial relationship.

As a Packer fan I don’t want to see it end this way. I guess no one does (‘cept the snickerin’ Bears fans).

But that light at the end of the tunnel … don’t look now fellow cheeseheads … that light is the signal at the end of the line … hold on tight guys because unless Favre pulls us up by his bootstraps again, or Aaron Rogers is really the second-coming, this is going to be one hell of a downhill ride.

If the ‘grand plan’ is to get Brady Quinn … we gonna have to go some to get him because I see the Jets and Saints and the ‘niners and the Raiders all hurtling the same way too.

Dumb luck …

Up at 1am to listen to the ‘Canes-FSU game on ESPNU. Stuck the phono plug into the usb socket in a sleepy haze and blew a fuse or something on my laptop; to dozy at that time to remember how I fixed it last time around. So after I booted up the PC and set that off streaming instead I went up to bed to listen on my bedside radio over the wireless transmitter. All that technology and still I dozed off halfway through the third quarter … way to go bozo.

Oh … but am up now at 6 and at least I remembered the reset button to fix the laptop … which is more than the ‘Canes can do for their season.