A nostalgic look back at how one fan's lifelong love for the Packers was forged in the early 2000s, from static-filled TV to legendary radio calls, as the team navigated a transitional era.
It's fun to go back to the days when football was so much simpler, especially for somebody like me, for whom football can never be simple, with almost all my time interacting with the sport these days spent digging into minutiae from ten-plus years ago. You've done a fantastic job putting this feeling into words.
I didn't grow up favouring the local team (being Canadian, there wasn't one). I didn't grow up with this sport at all. I've never listened to a Jaguars' radio broadcast in my life. My earliest memories of the game come from PlayStation Madden titles, so to me that's when football was simple. I grew to love the RB combo of Fred Taylor and MJD, and that's truly all it took to form a bond with this game that I may never be able to break.
Still, even though our experiences are vastly different, they are also the same. We can both tell our story about becoming fans word for word as if it were yesterday, when it happened 20+ years ago for each of us. That's the effect that sports teams have on people, and that's what makes me sad about the environment today in which kids are watching less sports than ever. What childhood experience is going to last this long for them, in the way it did for us?
Sports have done a great deal of shooting themselves in the foot (the American TV situation, etc.), so I don't feel bad for them, but I do feel bad for all the humans who will never get to simply experience the game in the way we did. Although I don't simply experience it nearly as often as I should anymore, I still take great pains to keep the Jaguars away from this Substack thing, so I can at least experience one NFL team in a pure way.
Once again, fantastic piece buddy! You've put feelings into words in a better way than I ever could.
Thanks so much! It's funny how those early connections stick with us, whether it's listening to games on radio in rural Wisconsin or playing Madden in Canada. Appreciate you taking the time to read and share your experience too.
Fantastic piece buddy!
It's fun to go back to the days when football was so much simpler, especially for somebody like me, for whom football can never be simple, with almost all my time interacting with the sport these days spent digging into minutiae from ten-plus years ago. You've done a fantastic job putting this feeling into words.
I didn't grow up favouring the local team (being Canadian, there wasn't one). I didn't grow up with this sport at all. I've never listened to a Jaguars' radio broadcast in my life. My earliest memories of the game come from PlayStation Madden titles, so to me that's when football was simple. I grew to love the RB combo of Fred Taylor and MJD, and that's truly all it took to form a bond with this game that I may never be able to break.
Still, even though our experiences are vastly different, they are also the same. We can both tell our story about becoming fans word for word as if it were yesterday, when it happened 20+ years ago for each of us. That's the effect that sports teams have on people, and that's what makes me sad about the environment today in which kids are watching less sports than ever. What childhood experience is going to last this long for them, in the way it did for us?
Sports have done a great deal of shooting themselves in the foot (the American TV situation, etc.), so I don't feel bad for them, but I do feel bad for all the humans who will never get to simply experience the game in the way we did. Although I don't simply experience it nearly as often as I should anymore, I still take great pains to keep the Jaguars away from this Substack thing, so I can at least experience one NFL team in a pure way.
Once again, fantastic piece buddy! You've put feelings into words in a better way than I ever could.
Thanks so much! It's funny how those early connections stick with us, whether it's listening to games on radio in rural Wisconsin or playing Madden in Canada. Appreciate you taking the time to read and share your experience too.