Ghosts of the Superbowl

For the 182nd time, the Green Bay Packers will play the Chicago Bears on Sunday – this time for the championship of the National Football Conference. No two teams have played each other longer and more often. Although the record is pretty even (Bears 92, Packers 83, and 6 ties), it’s not just Packer and Bear fans that will be heading to Soldier Field in downtown Chicago this weekend. There will be a lot of ghosts there as well.There have been other championship games. One of the great ones came a week after Pearl Harbor in 1941; Chicago took that one. But if you think this is just another football game, you are wrong. This is bigger than football. This is Shakespearean. Just scratch the surface and you’ll see that even though just 184 miles of frozen Midwest farmland separate the two cities, the rivalry really represents America’s great historic divide.Chicago is Carl Sandburg’s “city of big shoulders”, the tough, industrial metropolis set right down in the middle of the country like a great national anchor. It’s Al Capone, Mayor Daily (the original) and Hugh Hefner’s first Playboy Mansion … its fast talking and brash … it’s Tony Bennett’s kind of town.But take a schooner along Lake Michigan’s western shore and the further north you go, past Milwaukee, Sheboygan and Manitowoc, you enter another world. Small town America, picket fences, friendly neighbors and cheese, lot’s of cheese. Green Bay is the only franchise in professional football that isn’t owned by someone who made a fortune in hedge funds or retail stores. The Packers are owned by the city of Green Bay, and it remains the smallest town with an NFL franchise.Here’s an indication of how different things are there. I was once leaving Lambeau Field when we saw the police arresting someone. I am used to this sort of behavior at Yankee Stadium, but I was shocked to see it in Green Bay. A friend went over to find out what happened and came back with the big news: “He used the F-word,” she informed me. If they held New York fans to that standard, there wouldn’t be enough cells to hold them all.And the personalities … they are there in all their glory this weekend as well. The winner of this game takes home the George Halas trophy. Halas, known fondly as “Papa Bear” was the immortal Chicago coach from 1920 until 1967. Two weeks from now, the winner of the Super Bowl, will take home the Vince Lombardi trophy – the namesake of the legendary Green Bay coach who still defines football and life. Halas and Lombardi, those two iconic figures, each with a voice raspier than the other, facing each other across the distance of the field.Their players are with them too, with names that sound like they were meant to be pro-football players: Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, Mike Ditka, and William “The Refrigerator” Perry, the 350 pound defensive lineman. Only Chicago would tag someone with the nickname, “The Frig.”This is the way football was meant to be played – downtown Chicago, outside in the middle of January. Let the fainthearted go to Philadelphia where they call games for snow. Let them play in indoor arenas on artificial turf. That’s not football, it’s jai-alai. Vapor pouring out of nostrils, mud on the field, sleet and snow hitting the helmets, these old timers who played without multi-million dollar contracts. They had to take jobs in the off season to pay the mortgage. They played in those conditions for love, they played for honor, they played for glory.Finally, there is one ghost who retires this season. The ghost of Brett Farve that has haunted and divided Green Bay for the past three seasons is finally gone. Four years ago, when Farve played his greatest Hamlet and said goodbye to the Packers, but then changed his mind and wanted to return, the Packers made their choice. After the most star filled years at the helm of the Packers, management decided to go with the younger quarterback, Aaron Rodgers. They cut Farve loose.He went on to play one season with the Jets and two more with the dreaded Minnesota Vikings. But all that while, as Bret Farve continued to play his Hamlet and, at the same time, play with all his heart, bringing glory to both teams, Aaron Rodgers quietly came into his own. Taking on the impossible task of following Bret Farve, Rodgers gained skill and confidence and as he walks onto the field today in Chicago, he takes a back seat to no man.My friend Randy lives in West Bend, Wisconsin, where I spent my youth. He gets through the long nights with walks on the frozen lake with his wife and his beloved dog. “This team gets us through the winter.” He once told me. This time of year can be bleak up there. But there has been great excitement for the past week, since this match up fell into place. They’ll be watching the game in bars and living rooms throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. They’ll be watching it all across the country and they’ll be up in the middle of the night watching it in Afghanistan and Iraq.And if they have cable in heaven, you can bet they’ll be watching it there as well.

Ghosts of the Superbowl

Ghosts of the Superbowl

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