Late Night Rambling

i think you're just skimming along the surface here… yes, recent consistent success is money in the bank for awhile anyway. but a winning culture, a tradition, is the fertile ground for deep roots of fan support. we see that in every sport. the yankees were pretty mediocre when i was a kid but they were still the *yank-ees* still a marquee franchise. same goes for the lakers & celtics, the red sox, the steelers, the red wings, man united, real madrid, etc, etc, etc.

a long tradition of winning, especially garnering championships, is key… what happens when belichick and brady retire and the pats go back to being uniformly terrible like they have been for most of their existence? the fans will melt away. a core will remain (a core that i'll tip my cap to) but most will melt into thin air. there's something more going on here for the franchises that *define* a sport.

to get at why, now is not really the time to examine. the packers are a now good team with promise for even more. and they've been competitive for much of the past two decades. but that wasn't always the case. why did that support remain so strong throughout the dark years, from dan devine to lindy infante? anyone who witnessed randy wright's pathetic imitation of an nfl quarterback (and i did, good lord, i did) would have to marvel why the team's fans stuck by them through two decades of losing.

consider how fundamental fan support is to this team. all franchises are dependent upon fan support. but a few down years in attendance and performance can be ridden out by a patient owner with deep pockets. we don't really have such a buffer. bart starr – may the football gods forever bless him – is perhaps the best playoff qb of all time but as head coach his legacy is mediocre at best. 40% winning percentage. only trip to the playoffs during the strike shortened 1982 season. yet he coached for eight years. let that sink in. eight. years. that's how deep the loyalty runs here. (part of that was incompetence in the team's management, no doubt, but in general we rabble kept the torches and pitchforks neatly stowed in the shed out of respect). we don't forget. we don't waver. our principles are the ones that help define the “idea” of this sport. maybe not the reality of american football, but its narrative power.

american football, on the pro level, traces its mesopotamia to the rust belt… that's the cradle of its civilization. college football was an elitist venture played among the top institutions in the east (the ivys, army, navy). professionalism in the years around the turn of the 19th to 20th century was a dirty word, looked down upon. but pro football flourished in the big shoulder midwest: chicago, detroit, cleveland, pittsburgh, and, yes, green bay. teams came and went along the east coast (save for the giants & eagles) and around small communities in the midwest (duluth eskimos, anyone?) but the support of the major teams in the rust belt persisted and kept the sport viable until its popularity explosion in the late 50s and early 60s.

when i was a little kid, I would sit at my pop's feet on sundays. the game would be on, the tv's sound turned all the way down, the packers radio network blaring out of the stereo speakers (jim & max i'll always miss). my pop would be sipping a beer perhaps a little too quickly, occasionally getting up and pacing, flush with nervous energy and hope. almost inevitably a deficit at halftime would lead to a stinker in the 3rd quarter and our pack would be out the game before the 4th started. my pop's sighs would cease and he would explain why supporting the packers was important, because they were ours and no one could take that away from us unless we let them. he would talk about lombardi & the packers sweep. he would talk about herb adderley doing things he had never seen before on a football field. he would tell me that this is my history and that i had a right to it. and even the packers stunk for another two decades we still had the right to hold our heads high. because duluth didn't have a team any more. same for canton, muncie, and pottsville.

i thumbed through an nfl stars of the 60s book until it fell apart. profiles of jim taylor, bart starr, and willie davis among those of roman gabriel, lance alworth, jim brown, etc, forged for me an even deeper connection. it pained me to see the team losing (or, at a young age, perhaps it pained me to see my pops pained by the team losing) but i told myself i only wanted to win the right way… whatever that meant.

and thus we return to story. we don't need sports as they are… what we keeps us riveted is the power of their story. a story that unfolds before our eyes, one that happens in the moment. it's not like greek tragedy. the entire audience doesn't know what is going to happen (unless of course the lions are on the schedule). and the idea of the nfl resides in the teams of the rust belt, the steelers, the packers, the bears…

i'm not claiming an true exceptionalism for the packers or saying that diehard packers fans are better than other fans. we each have our teams and if we support them through thick and thin then we need no hierarchies. we just need space at the bar and a few good barbs for the fans of our opponents. but if you want to know why the packers are a statewide obsession, look no further than the power of the team's story and see how that story matches up with the values that the nfl sells us on autumn sundays…