A Bears Fan in Packerland

When you live in Door County and work in retail, as I do, you are invariably asked, “What do you do in the winter?” For most of the summer I fall back on a variety of my stock answers that seem to suffice. As we move into the fall, however, I occasionally run into a few tourists who – seemingly skeptical of the stock answers I have provided throughout the summer – say something like, “Well, at least you can watch the Packers.” And then I am put into the position few retailers relish: having to correct a customer.

“Yes, I can watch the Packers, but I am a Bears fan,” I reply, putting special emphasis on “Bears” so there can be no question where my allegiance lies.

For whatever reason, there is an abiding belief that if you live in northeastern Wisconsin – or anywhere in Wisconsin, for that matter – you must be a Packer fan. But there are fans of other teams up here and most of the non-Packer fans happen to be Bears’ fans. There may not be a lot of us, but at least I am not alone.

Steve Grutzmacher, like most Bears fans, is still stuck in 1985.

I was raised a Bears’ fan and because my father worked in academia, I have been a fan of the blue and orange in Chicago, Carthage, and Knoxville, Ill. I maintained my allegiance when we moved to Fairfield, Iowa, and was a proud fan of the Bears when we lived in Tampa, Fla. Indeed, it wasn’t until we moved from Florida to Beloit, Wis. that I began to feel as though my allegiance might be somewhat isolating.

Still, with Beloit on the border with Illinois, I had enough compatriots that I remained self-assured in my support of my team. And then my family started coming to, and eventually moved to, Door County: 70 miles north of the home base for the Bear’s ultimate rival.

But even here, in the backyard of the green and gold, I eventually found compatriots. Al Johnson was one of the first to congratulate my father and me on our wise choice of teams when my father wore his Bears jacket into the restaurant one morning. Ken Church, owner of Sister Bay Automotive, is a fervent Bears fan. And Jim Laughlin and I once sat in a cafeteria in Oconto Falls watching a Bears playoff game between games of a middle school basketball tournament, being resoundingly booed as we cheered our team to victory.

So, on the whole, my direct relations with Packer fans are largely what you would expect amongst teams with such a long rivalry. I have always believed that, regardless of which team is supported, true fans – who stick with their team through both the good and the miserable – respect other true fans.

There was, however, a darker and unanticipated side to being a Bears fan in northeast Wisconsin, which I discovered not long after re-locating here: this entire region is defined by the Packers.

It is important to note that my family moved up here full time the summer before I started college. In those days there was no cable or satellite TV, no cell phones, and no Internet. If you were lucky you had a rotating antenna that allowed you to receive all three Green Bay television stations (that went off the air at 11:30 pm, by the way). So it wasn’t long before I discovered that when you tuned in to the local news the 30-minute broadcast typically consisted of 10 minutes of weather, 5 minutes of actual state and/or local news, and 15 minutes of stories about the Packers. And this was in summer when the Packers weren’t even playing. In season, the news and weather was reduced to accommodate even more Packers coverage. Thankfully, these days I can watch ESPN or CNN or hop onto the Internet.

The print media wasn’t much better. The front page of the Green Bay paper almost always had at least one Packer story – again, regardless of the time of year. And if the front page did not offer a Packer story or two, it featured a teaser headline leading you to a story in the sports section, which would say something like, FAVRE WALKS ON WATER! Then when you turned to the sports section to read the referenced story you would be regaled with Favre and friends’ ice fishing adventure.

I understand the uniqueness of the Green Bay Packers. Their ability to survive and thrive in a miniscule market, the fact that they are owned by the fans, and all the rest; but when Packers’ fans’ fervor approaches religious fervor I confess I have some problems.

Those who fall into this category lapse into worship when talking about their heroes and view Lambeau Field, a stadium with an undeniable allure and rich history, as a virtual cathedral. Still, I might be able to tolerate even these fans if they didn’t feel compelled to foist their ardor on anyone who doesn’t share their belief. These individuals seem certain that if I would just attend a Packer game in Lambeau or, at the very least, go to the Packers’ Hall of Fame, which they view as less a history of a team and its players than a holy shrine, I would be converted from my Bears’ heresy and become one of the faithful green and gold flock.

I will make one acknowledgement to all my friends who faithfully cheer their Packers, however: through 12 games this season (all that have been played at the time I write this) if I heard a news report or saw a headline that said, RODGERS WALKS ON WATER, I would be tempted to believe he had accomplished it…without the benefit of freezing temperatures.