1996 Super Bowl Team

[HarveyWallbangers]

DON BEEBE

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/18/1/

Don Beebe put his hands on his knees and gazed skyward as the final 10 seconds ticked off the clock in the Packers' 35-21 Super Bowl XXXI victory. He crouched 10 yards behind Brett Favre as the quarterback hiked the ball for the final kneeldown. Favre then turned and gave Beebe that game ball, a reward for reaching the top after coming so close four times before.

"I don't think there's anybody on that team that could feel the accomplishment and how hard it is to really win a Super Bowl more than me," Beebe said.

The wide receiver who lost four consecutive Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills before winning one in Green Bay cherishes the souvenir Favre bestowed upon him. The symbol of salvation appropriately rests in the den of his Yorkville, Ill., home alongside his rings from losses in Super Bowls XXXII, XXVIII, XXVII, XXVI and XXV.

The ball also sits near another deserving gift, a second game ball from Super Bowl XXXI autographed by Desmond Howard. Beebe did not catch any passes in that Super Bowl, but his special teams block helped spring Howard for the game's final score, a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the third quarter.

"Whatever it took for me to do in that game, be it a cheerleader on the sideline or whatever," Beebe said, "I was going to do that."

Beebe, 42, may soon receive other thank you's for helping athletes achieve their goals. After retiring from football in 1998, the wide receiver known for his sub-4.4 speed opened a training school called House of Speed. Through camps and training sessions, he has instructed more than 20,000 athletes, ranging from NFL players to boys and girls between 8 and 10 years old.

"I wanted to still be a role model and be a part of kids' lives," Beebe said. "It gives me a great opportunity to do that."

Beebe's first class included only five kids, but his operation has expanded greatly. In April he franchised it nationally. His clientele has grown as well and features 20 to 30 NFL players, including Tennessee Titans running back Jarrett Payton (Walter's son).

Wide receiver Greg Lewis represents his greatest success story. The former University of Illinois walk-on cut his 40 time from 4.65 to 4.4 seconds through three-and-a-half months of plyometrics, explosive strength and speed exercises. After Lewis showcased his newly-honed speed during the 2003 NFL Scouting Combine, the Philadelphia Eagles signed him, and he started for them in 2005. Despite helping his athletes reach such levels, Beebe had the itch to serve a more prominent role to a younger set.

That aspiration led Beebe to become head coach at Aurora Christian (Ill.) High School two years ago. To allow him to coach while keeping a hand in his eight-year-old business, Beebe hired Mark Chmura his brother, Dan, a former Chadron State basketball player, as president of the House of Speed. Don will remain actively involved, but Dan will run the day-to-day operations.

The fledgling Aurora football program, from a high school of 307 students, has only existed for eight years. When Beebe took over, the team did not have a weight room or a practice field, but he led Aurora to the quarterfinals each year.

"We have some good young talent," Beebe said. "I foresee us doing very well over the next few years."

As head coach, Beebe can rely on his experience leading the 1996 Packers squad. On the Monday before the Super Bowl, Packers head coach Mike Holmgren asked the two players with Super Bowl experience, Beebe and legendary bad boy Jim McMahon, to address the team.

"I want Don to come up here and tell you what you're supposed to do all week," Holmgren said. "Then I want Jim to come up here and tell you what you're not supposed to do."

Beebe advised his teammates to avoid distractions before the biggest game of their lives. He recommended keeping the routine of a regular-season week. He suggested avoiding extra phone calls, worrying about finding tickets for friends and distant relatives and treating the week as a late-night party.

Because of the magnitude of the game, Beebe told his teammates that every mistake would be magnified. So when the inevitable mistake did occur, the Packers had to remain even keel. In Super Bowl XXVIII the Bills gashed the Dallas Cowboys with their running game in the first half but only led by seven. Just 55 seconds after halftime, Cowboys safety James Washington returned a Thurman Thomas fumble 46 yards for a touchdown. The Bills came apart at the seams on the game-changing play and lost 30-13.

"On the sideline you would've thought we were down by 30 points," Beebe said. "It was over. From that point on, we got blown out."

Because of Beebe's words and sound leadership from others like Favre, Reggie White and LeRoy Butler, the Packers remained stoic during Super Bowl XXXI. Like the Bills, the Packers dominated the early part of the game, scoring the game's first 10 points. But the New England Patriots took a 14-10 lead on back-to-back Drew Bledsoe touchdown passes. The mood on the Packers' sideline, however, remained upbeat.

"A lot of guys were talking positive: 'Hey we're fine, no big deal,'" Beebe said.

The Packers persevered, and Beebe received a cathartic win, erasing the heartbreak from his previous Super Bowl losses.

"To feel what it actually feels like be in a locker room after a win in a Super Bowl...," Beebe said. "There's nothing like it in sports."

[HarveyWallbangers]

EDGAR BENNETT

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/19/1/

Ever since he was a little boy, Edgar Bennett wanted to be like the football players he saw on TV.

Out on the playgrounds of Jacksonville, Bennett would try his best to trace the moves he had just witnessed from some of his favorite athletes with the thoughts of one day stepping into their place.

Now, several years later, Bennett can proudly reflect on a seven-year career in the National Football League that included a Super Bowl championship with the Green Bay Packers.

To top it all off, Bennett was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame last summer and is now the Packers running backs coach.

Even the most imaginative dreamers probably wouldn't have thought of a career like this.

Clearly, Bennett's achievements are several. But to him, the 1996 Super Bowl season still ranks very high on his list.

"I have a number of different memories, but I think the thing that kind of stood out the most was the entire process, the entire journey starting way back in minicamp," Bennett said. "Working our way through the Super Bowl, it was one of those years where you had great chemistry amongst the team.

"You had great chemistry amongst the players and coaches as well as the entire organization. I think everybody was willing to go above and beyond to get us there as far as meeting expectations and what it would take to get there."

Certainly, Bennett played a big part in helping his team reach new heights, too. He led the team in rushing for the third straight season with 899 yards on 222 carries, good enough for a 4.0 average. The 6-foot, 215-pound Bennett also started 15 games and provided the team with the tough, versatile runner that it needed.

Drafted out of Florida State in 1992, Bennett arrived on the scene just as the Packers were becoming championship contenders again. However, he felt the frustration of not being able to take the next step as the Packers were knocked out of the playoffs for three straight seasons.

When the Packers eventually reached the mountaintop in '96, it provided the whole state with a sense of excitement and pride. To accomplish that goal with the Packer faithful was something Bennett said he never could have imagined.

"Unbelievable. Unbelievable," Bennett marveled. "One moment where I look back that I really felt was special for me was getting an opportunity to play in that NFC Championship game here in Lambeau in front of our crowd because I felt like, you know, what better place to have a chance to go to the Super Bowl than right out here in front of the home crowd, especially the Packer fans.

"I think the fans played just as big a role for us to get back and for us to go on that bus ride with the Trophy. And to celebrate with the fans, I thought it was a dream come true."

And when Super Bowl XXXI arrived on January 26 in New Orleans, Bennett couldn't help but think back to his time as a youngster.

"The thing that stood out the most was finally getting there and running out on the field knowing what was at stake," Bennett explained. "Because growing up, I can't speak for other people, but for me, growing up, those types of situations when you're a child watching those games on TV (you would) immediately go outside and try to re-enact certain plays that took place or emulate stars of the game.

"And to get that opportunity to be on that stage and to be in that game, it really meant a lot to me."

Bennett's Style Perfect Fit For "Packer" Weather

Though Bennett looked every bit the part of an NFL tailback, he originally entered the league as a fullback. He played that position for four seasons at FSU and in only his second season with the Green and Gold, Bennett was the starting fullback for 14 games.

However, you could argue that he was a hybrid of sorts. After all, not too many fullbacks are capable of putting up 1,007 yards of total offense as he did in his first season as the starter.

He also served as a great receiver out of the backfield and made his name as a "mudder," someone whose running style was perfect for the harsh elements Green Bay is known for.

Proving his versatility, Bennett moved to tailback in 1995 and closed out the season with 1,715 yards from scrimmage, which was a team record at the time. He also became the team's first 1,000-yard rusher since Terdell Middleton accomplished the feat in 1978.

Despite these impressive numbers, Bennett said he didn't really have a preference between playing fullback or tailback.

"It was one of those situations where I took pride in making the most of my opportunity," he said. "The main thing for me was, I just wanted to play. I wanted to be a part of something that was special. I wanted to be a guy that came in and was able to contribute.

"I was fortunate to come along when I did and play with the people I played with, as well as learn from the staff that I was able to learn from."

That attitude made it easier for Bennett to share the workload with Dorsey Levens, which created one of the best backfield combinations in the entire league in '96.

"I remember having conversations with Coach Holmgren and talking about the team concept and always putting the team first," Bennett recalled. "I think that's what kind of helped the situation. I think the next thing that helped was that Dorsey and I were friends.

"But I think the main thing was understanding the big picture and putting the team ahead of all your individual goals and everything that you wanted to accomplish as an individual."

Coach Bennett Glad to Return to Green Bay

Bennett's demeanor and team-first mindset hasn't changed a bit. The selflessness that made him a champion as a player still burns inside of him and now he gets to translate that to his players in his second year as the running backs coach. Prior to that, he served four seasons as the director of player development for the Packers.

Seemingly a natural fit to coach, Bennett insists that wasn't something he gave much thought until he was done playing.

"It was one of those situations where you try to make the most of every opportunity as a player," Bennett said. "I just tried to be a professional and I just think maybe some of the ways that I prepared myself as a player kind of helped me and gave me the opportunity to become a coach.

"I think that as far as doing what I'm doing now, becoming a coach, obviously I've met a great deal of people who have helped Edgar Bennett me along the way. And I will continue to learn because in life you never can stop learning.

"When I came back up to Green Bay again, I was fortunate to be around just genuinely good people that I could learn from. I feel fortunate to be in another situation again where I get a chance to continue my learning process with the staff we have up here now. I'm excited about it."

It's not surprising that Bennett shares such enthusiasm for his job and the team for which he played five seasons. But in his work these days, it's only natural that the same characteristics that made him so great as a player would make him want to take a step up in the coaching realm, too.

Yet, that's not the approach Bennett, 37, takes into his current job.

"I think right now I want to be the best I can possibly be as the Green Bay Packers running backs coach and continue to get better as well as continue to teach and help the running backs get better," Bennett explained.

"That's my approach. As far as long-term goals, you would like to see yourself down the road doing X, Y, Z, but I think I don't necessarily want to lose sight of what I'm doing now or where I'm at now because it's important and I enjoy it. I want to get better and be the best at this. That's the approach (right now)."

Bennett and his wife Mindy have two children -- a son, Edgar Bennett IV, 10, and a daughter, Elyse Morgan, 5 -- and they certainly have deep roots in Green Bay. In fact, Edgar has given nearly all of his professional career to the Packers and listening to him explain how his life with the organization has played out, it's not difficult to understand how passionate he is about the Green and Gold.

The fact that he's secured a place in team history after being inducted into the team's Hall of Fame has been the ultimate capper for Bennett.

"When you think about the Packer Hall of Fame, you think about the legendary players that were able to wear the Green and Gold," Bennett explained. "Some of the staff members, some of the coaches, some of the legends. It's a tremendous blessing and quite an honor.

"You kind of dream about things like that, but for something like that to occur in reality, you take a step back and are kind of in awe as far as some of the people that get to say I'm part of that fraternity. It's unbelievable. It's truly a blessing."

Just as he did in his playing days, it appears that Bennett has again outrun something: his childhood dreams.

[HarveyWallbangers]

ROBERT BROOKS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/20/1/

Robert Brooks has no problem admitting that he initially wanted nothing to do with the Green Bay Packers.

In fact, Brooks wasn't shy about telling anyone that before the 1992 NFL Draft, either. The 6-foot, 180-pound wide receiver wasn't accustomed to the cold weather or the Midwest, and if he would have had his way at the time, Brooks never would have landed in Green Bay, Wis.

"When people asked me where I would like to get drafted, I said anywhere but Green Bay," Brooks recalled. "And I think I named another team that was a cold-weather team. I mean, I'm a South Carolina guy, but I was living in Arizona, so I'm looking for a hot-weather team to draft me. And on top of the cold weather, Sterling Sharpe was there, who I just had replaced at South Carolina. I just didn't want to go to Green Bay."

It wasn't long before Brooks had a complete change of heart, however.

"When I went there, I started to get to know the people," Brooks explained. "I got a sense of the history and the pride in just being a Packer. When you get a sense of that, it totally changes your mindset of Green Bay. Because there's no place, no professional franchise that can compare to playing in Green Bay. It's just not the same.

"I think Green Bay is the best professional franchise that you can play for as an athlete. Especially if you go to Green Bay and win a Super Bowl. There's no place like it."

Win a Super Bowl is exactly what the Packers did in 1996, although Brooks spent the last two months of the regular season on injured reserve with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and patellar tendon in his right knee.

Despite not being on the field during the remarkable run, Brooks still enjoyed being a part of the bigger picture, which was getting the Packers back to elite status.

"Oh, it was the ultimate," Brooks, 35, said. "I remember when Mike Holmgren first came there and he said, 'You guys may have not been in the playoffs for a lot of years, but make no mistake about it, our goal is the Super Bowl. We won't mention it out in public because most people won't understand where we're coming from, not having made the playoffs, but our goal is the Super Bowl.'

"And that was his mindset from Day 1. And I think after the first year, we went to the playoffs and we were believers from there on. So, that team was destined to win the Super Bowl at some point."

The Packers eventually got over the hump, but it wasn't easy. They had lost to Dallas in the postseason three consecutive years and falling short that many times can often be disheartening. But for one reason or another, Green Bay kept coming back strong the following season.

According to Brooks, those three losses against Dallas gave the Packers an attitude of "Super Bowl or bust."

"We thought we were good enough to go to the Super Bowl in '95, but we fell short there at the very end," Brooks explained. "And Reggie (White), myself, Brett (Favre), some of the leaders on the team, we had made our mind up in the locker room in Dallas that we were going to the Super Bowl the next year. In our mind, that team was destined to go.

"And whether I played, or whether someone else played, or if Brett had got hurt, or Reggie would have not been there, that team was destined to go to the Super Bowl. That was just our mindset from the time we lost the NFC Championship game in '95. I'm pretty sure most of the guys on that team remember that scene of how hard we had played and how exhausted we were.

"I mean, there were guys crying in the locker room when we lost to Dallas because we knew that we were better than that team. We should have won that game, and we let it slip away."

Attitude Propels Wide Receiver, Packers to Ultimate Prize

Brooks was instrumental in the Packers' success for seven seasons. He finished his career with 309 receptions and a 13.8 yards-per-catch average. Not bad numbers for a guy who was only 190 pounds and considered too small by some to endure the pounding of the NFL game.

But the critics who want to talk about size should start with the size of Brooks' heart, because they'd be hard pressed to find someone with a bigger one. As far as his stature goes, well, Brooks never worried about that, either.

"I tell my kids every day that attitude is the little thing that counts the most," Brooks said. "How you approach things is all an attitude thing. Nothing is as big as it seems. No game is as big as it seems. No situation is as big as it seems. It's just your attitude and how you approach it."

It's that mindset that allowed Brooks to experience a great deal of success as a Packer. The leaders of the team -- and there certainly were several, including Brooks, White, Favre, LeRoy Butler and Sean Jones -- created more than just a winning attitude with the Packers. They re-established a dominance, particularly at Lambeau Field, which hadn't been felt for the most part since the glory days of Vince Lombardi.

"You understood the magnitude and the mystique that was there," Brooks explained. "We created an atmosphere, just like Fuzzy Thurston, Willie Wood, Bart Starr, and all these guys. They created an atmosphere up there that there was a mystique at Lambeau Field, that when you played there in the playoffs (as Green Bay's opponent), you did not win, and you knew you were not going to win. When you played there in December and January, you knew there was not a chance that you were going to win a game there. We tried to carry that on. When those old guys came into the locker room, we took pride in that."

Camaraderie was the critical factor in making success a reality, according to Brooks.

Not that he can explain it.

"It was supernatural, man," Brooks marveled. "It wasn't something you can find just anywhere. You can't doctor it up. And if one man's down, the next man picks up where he left off. And it was such a team effort. Everything we did was just team.

"There wasn't a time where guys weren't at each other's houses. We knew one another on and off the field. There were genuine friendships off the field. Sometimes you're just friends and acquaintances because you're on the same team and you see each other all the time. But that wasn't the case there, it was genuine. It was very genuine."

If anybody can speak about the meaning of genuine, it's Brooks. After all, he created an up close and personal relationship with fans when he took jumping into the stands to a whole new level. LeRoy Butler may have been the first member of that particular team to jump in the stands, but make no mistake about it, Brooks made the Lambeau Leap a tradition that is still going strong today.

He said he didn't have a dance so jumping in the stands was the only thing he could think of to celebrate touchdowns. Little did he know at the time, but his trademark jump would make him "feel like a rock star," he said with a laugh.

Clearly, Brooks enjoyed the atmosphere of Green Bay, but in his post-football career he now competes in the warmer climate that he preferred all along.

Brooks, who is married to Diana and has three children -- Austin, 14, Robert, 7, and Elisha, 6 -- lives in Phoenix. He keeps busy with his business ventures such as Brooks International, a company that he owns, as well as Samurai Sam's Teriyaki Chicken Grille franchises.

The former wide receiver also owns Brooks International Commercial, a real estate company. In addition to that, Brooks, along with Steve Rose, authored two books called Leap of Faith and Leap of Faith, 2.

Brooks Fulfilling Higher Calling

While Brooks has maintained a high level of success away from the field, it's not his business interests that he takes the most pride in. He views those as part-time jobs, but his work as a minister for a nondenominational Christian church in Arizona is something that requires full-time attention.

Brooks, who started his ministry in 1999, believes that is what God has called him to do. He now preaches at Trendsetter's Church, a 40,000-square-foot facility with about 2,500 seats that he said "was given to him as a gift from a well-known prophet."

According to Brooks, his faith has been the most significant change in his life in the last 10 years.

The irony is that Brooks said this journey started to take shape in the 1996 season.

"My faith in Christ has really, really taken off and become the focal point of everything I do," Brooks explained. "I feel like I was radically changed. God has been faithful to everything I've read in scripture. God has been faithful above and beyond that.

"There was a time when I was lost and very selfish and very unconnected with God. Part of my testimony was that I had a dream that I was going to have a career-ending injury and I was going to be supernaturally healed. And all those things came to pass."

The injury Brooks is referring to is the torn ACL that caused him to miss the latter part of the '96 season. But, like his dream stated, he recovered much quicker than expected. His work ethic and determination certainly played a role in his recovery, but he contends that his faith was the catalyst in helping him return to the field. Whatever the reason, it was nothing short of miraculous. Trainer Pepper Burruss, who is still with the team, said at the time that Brooks' recovery was the fastest he had seen in 20 years as a trainer.

"That was part of the dream that I was talking about and I wrote in the Leap of Faith book. My testimony has been totally supernatural and my change was very radical," Brooks said. "If it wasn't for God speaking to me in a dream and showing me those things and then those things beginning to come to pass, I probably wouldn't have made such a radical change."

According to Brooks, the faith he and many of his teammates shared may not have gotten much attention, but perhaps it should have.

"Most people write it off," Brooks said. "And Reggie would always say Green Bay was God's country and little things like that, but you know what, God had his hand on that team and a hand on a lot of fellows that played on those teams. I'm pretty sure now looking back, most people realize that those teams were special.

"And if you ask anybody with the Packers, they know that the people were different, the kids that played on those teams were different, the families, there was something special about that four- or five-year run."

It may not have been South Carolina, Arizona or some other warm-weather climate that Brooks initially preferred, but it sounds like Green Bay didn't turn out so bad after all.

[HarveyWallbangers]

GILBERT BROWN

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/21/1/

Thirty-six tackles, one sack and one forced fumble.

Defensive tackle Gilbert Brown's statistics from the 1996 season won't wow anyone, but that's because his blue-collar role -- while important -- lacked glamour. The 345-pounder used his massive girth to occupy blockers and clog up the run for a defensive unit that allowed only 88.5 rushing yards per game.

"I was like the cleanup guy," Brown said. "In between the tackles, there ain't nobody better. They can try to double-team me, triple me. They can't move me."

Brown became an immovable force on a star-studded defensive line, which featured Santana Dotson, Reggie White and Sean Jones. Brown, a four-year veteran and the youngest starter on the line, relished playing alongside his mentors.

"When you have two great ends like Reggie and Sean closing down the outside and you have Santana in the middle helping me out, it's just a joy to be out there playing with those guys," Brown said.

Brown is accustomed to absorbing the knowledge of his elders to hone his craft. Since the age of nine, he worked on the pit crew of his father's drag racing team. He learned how to repair, race and maintain cars from his father, a Detroit auto shop assembly line worker. Brown plans to capitalize on that expertise in his new role as director of new business development and minority investor in the Milwaukee Mile.

"I've always been fond of racing," Brown said. "We want to bring the love of racing back to Milwaukee."

Brown, 35, pursues group sales, sponsorship and hospitality opportunities for the country's longest continuous-running racetrack, and the only track to feature NASCAR, Champ Car and Indy Racing League events. He also goes to public places, boosting interest in auto racing among the younger set while emphasizing positive messages like staying in school. The run stuffer wants to communicate that auto racing could serve as a way for students to better their lives just as football did for him.

Already actively involved in the Gilbert Brown Foundation, such civic initiatives became a natural fit for Brown. The foundation Gilbert Brown uses Brown's fame to gather money for organizations like the Make-A-Wish foundation. Brown also visits schools and hosts football camps, urging kids to respect their parents, teachers and the law.

"Our young people need the help," Brown said.

Between his community service and auto racing obligations, Brown has seemingly carved out a nice post-football career. But Brown is not ready to hang up his famously dark-visored helmet quite yet. Brown, who last played in the NFL in 2003, wants to play two or three more years. He declined to name the specific teams but said four NFL clubs contacted him for tryouts last year. Brown remains open to playing anywhere in the NFL but would prefer suiting up in Packers' green and gold.

"If they gave me a dollar, I'd go back out there and play. If they have a problem giving me a dollar, just give me an I.O.U, and I'll go out there," Brown said. "I would love to come back to Green Bay and play again."

Brown said he works out regularly and weighs between 345 and 350 pounds and could drop as low 335.

"My body feels great," he said.

Brown knows the Packers have a young and talented defensive interior with players like Kenny Peterson, Colin Cole, Cullen Jenkins and Corey Williams. But few could blame him for wanting to return to the team where he played 10 years and developed lasting memories, including 1996's Super Bowl win.

"Green Bay is my love," he said. "Green Bay is my passion. I grew up as a man there."

If he does latch on with an NFL team, Brown wants to bring his career full-circle. After being on the receiving end of veteran knowledge during that magical year in 1996, he will be the one offering tips to younger players.

"It's also a plus for a guy like myself," Brown said, "to have the opportunity to teach a young guy because Reggie and Sean did that for me."

[HarveyWallbangers]

LEROY BUTLER

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/22/1/

Having averaged 10 wins per year at Florida State, LeRoy Butler had his doubts when the Green Bay Packers drafted him in the second round of 1990. He joined a team that had gone eight years without making the playoffs.

"When I first got there," Butler said. "I wasn't real sure if the Green Bay Packers were going to win a Super Bowl."

After the Packers finished 4-12 in his first season, the strong safety still had reservations. The Packers, however, continued to make strides, reaching the playoffs three consecutive years from 1993 to 1995, but losing to the Dallas Cowboys each time. Going through that adversity made winning Super Bowl XXXI in his seventh season even sweeter.

"When I finally got there that's when I said, 'This is the pinnacle of my career,'" Butler said. "It really made me appreciate it more."

Butler also enjoyed the attention he received throughout Super Bowl week. As soon as the team plane arrived in New Orleans, he rushed to deliver a press conference. Butler's friendliness with the media did not surprise anyone. Throughout his career he was often the last person to leave the locker room and willingly answered questions following the team's most difficult losses. Reporters enveloped him prior to the big game.

"They knew I was a quote-a-minute guy," Butler said. "I love this kind of media blitz."

Butler, 37, plans to continue his work with the media by gathering the juicy quotes instead of offering them up. Butler is actively pursuing television and radio jobs covering the NFL. He spent the 2003 and 2004 seasons contributing to Packers.com. He has had ongoing conversations with the NFL Network and awaits more openings as networks shuffle their announcing teams for the 2006 season. He enjoys breaking down how a wide receiver beat a cornerback, how the defense forced an interception, why the defense used a certain coverage and how a defender stormed past an offensive lineman.

"I love explaining to the ordinary guy that's sitting on the couch what happened," Butler said. "That's my number one love. I love the media."

As he awaits those media opportunities, Butler busies himself with his charitable work. Although he has not had a close friend or relative suffer from breast cancer, he helps raise money for research, financial assistance, treatment costs and public education of the disease through his LeRoy Butler Foundation.

"I've got four daughters," Butler said. "I didn't want to sit around and wait for one of them to get diagnosed for me to be actively involved."

The foundation has generated more than $300,000 from Butler's appearances at speaking engagements, business events, birthday parties, luncheons, autograph shows and other events throughout Wisconsin. From his autographed memorabilia and appearance fees, Butler donates 80 percent of the proceeds.

His foundation remains active in his hometown of Jacksonville, Fla., as well. Capitalizing on his fame, he helps underprivileged kids advance in school and eventually their careers. In 2004 he raised more than $2 million to build a 15,000-square foot youth center, and he is currently trying to purchase 55 to 100 computers for a tutoring program. This cause has become important to Butler because of his rough upbringing in Jacksonville.

"I was born in the projects," Butler said. "And no one was really there to help me."

Butler, however, played a major role in helping the Packers reach Super Bowl XXXI. A leader of the 1996 defense, he finished third LeRoy Butler on the team in tackles with 96, first in interceptions with five and second in sacks with 61/2 that season. Former defensive coordinator Frtiz Shurmur took advantage of Butler's versatile skills. He forced him into coverage like a cornerback on the opposing team's slot receiver and blitzed him like a rush linebacker.

"It was my best all-around year," Butler said. "I used to just dare quarterbacks to throw my way or dare quarterbacks to sit back there while I was blitzing."

He showcased those abilities during Super Bowl XXXI. Butler covered the New England Patriots' wide receivers, including Terry Glenn, but mainly locked horns with the Patriots' Pro Bowl tight end, Ben Coates. Coates, who had six catches for 67 yards, outweighed Butler by 45 pounds and stood five inches taller.

"He had been terrorizing people. So I went in there and just wrapped him up," Butler said. "Man, that was a fun battle."

Butler also displayed his pass rushing forte. The Patriots became so concerned with the outside rush from defensive end Reggie White that they max-protected toward his side for most of the game. Blitzing from the opposite side during the second quarter, Butler sacked quarterback Drew Bledsoe for a 9-yard loss.

"All 80,000 people cheering for me, millions of people watching, all the cameras on me," Butler said, "that was awesome."

If his job opportunities in the sports media world come to fruition, Butler soon may have all the cameras on him again.

[HarveyWallbangers]

MARK CHMURA

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/23/1/

It goes without saying that all NFL teams would love to have an outstanding player at every position.

But while that may be a dream shared by every general manager and coach alike, it's just not reality.

It's not that there aren't enough good players in the league to make it work. It's just that it takes unique individuals to make it work.

That's what made the Packers setup at tight end in 1996 even more remarkable. Forget about having one good player, the Packers had two great players.

With Mark Chmura and Keith Jackson, Green Bay had two playmakers that could have held full-time roles with any other team in the league. But it wasn't about individual accolades, it was about making the team better.

And that's exactly what Chmura, who had been the starter the previous season, had in mind when the situation called for him to split time with Jackson.

According to Chmura, who had been to his first Pro Bowl in 1995, sharing time with Jackson was without question the right thing to do, not that all players would have been so open to the idea.

"I think the biggest thing, which doesn't happen in today's game, is you had two guys who checked their egos at the door," Chmura, 37, said. "I was coming off the best season I ever had, going to my first Pro Bowl. And they were going to bring Keith back and I didn't have a problem with it whatsoever.

"I think Keith would say the same thing. He could have started for any other team and so could I. But I think we were both after the same thing and that was to win a championship, and we knew it wasn't going to work if we were bickering back and forth like they do today. You know, everybody wants to be on the field and I think for us to go where we wanted to go was to complement each other's game."

Chmura broke into the league as a sixth-round draft choice out of Boston College in 1992 and in his first two seasons, his biggest strength was his blocking. But when tight end Ed West was injured near the end of the '94 season, Chmura came on and played well in the playoffs as a receiving threat, too.

Chmura had his best season as a pro in '95, exemplifying what it means to be a complete tight end. He was perhaps the best Mark Chmura blocker in the league at his position and also had 54 catches and seven touchdowns. When the next season rolled around, Chmura still caught his share of passes, but doing whatever the team needed was his main objective.

It was the 6-foot-5, 253-pound tight end's ability to excel as both a blocker and receiver that set him apart in those seasons. To this day, tight ends still are often one-dimensional, but to Chmura, it wasn't that big of a deal to handle both facets of the game so effectively.

"Tight ends today are kind of glorified receivers," Chmura explained. "But that is just something else I brought to the team to fill a role. I didn't have a problem dropping down and blocking a 300-pound defensive end.

"Where today, most tight ends aren't willing to do that, but you know that was just part of the unselfishness of that team. Guys were just fulfilling a role and not trying to do more than what they're capable of doing. In today's game, if a team's featured receiver doesn't catch 10 balls in a game, he's whining in the press. That's something that we didn't do back then."

Chmura's selflessness may have been understated that season, especially since he remained a starter. But the setup worked perfectly as Chmura served as the all-around tight end and Jackson made the Pro Bowl as a downfield threat.

Yet, Chmura insists he was far from the only one making sacrifices for the team.

"That was the great thing about that year," Chmura said. "We just had a bunch of unselfish guys. You had it in the backfield, too, with Dorsey (Levens) and Edgar (Bennett). You had guys that just wanted to win.

"And you know, we relished the other guy scoring a touchdown or having a good game. That's something you don't see in today's game. That's why it was so refreshing to see it back then."

After going to the Pro Bowl following the '97 and '98 seasons, Chmura only played two games in 1999 due to a neck injury. He never played football again and he now lives in Genesee, which is about 25 miles southwest of Milwaukee.

According to Chmura, who was born and raised in Massachusetts, there was no reason for him and his wife Lynda and their two sons, Dylan, 11, and Dyson, 9, to move on from Wisconsin once his days as a Packer were over.

"We just like the state," Chmura said. "It has so much to offer. It's a great place to raise a family. I've had so many great friends here that I've known for 15 years now. Now we consider this our home."

Chmura is entering his third season for ESPN radio (http://www.espnmilwaukee.com) where he works Sunday mornings on The Football Show and occasionally during the week as a consultant once the regular season begins.

Chmura said that besides his work schedule, family life keeps him plenty busy these days, too.

"I coached Dylan's padded football, which was fun," Chmura said. "And we ran the Packer offense. I remember some of the stuff. They love it. They're into every sport under the sun. My life is spent chasing them around."

Chmura acknowledged that it's very difficult to attend Packer games, especially since his ESPN radio commitments take up his Sundays from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. However, that doesn't prevent him from keeping up on the team as he estimates that 75 to 80 percent of his time on the radio is spent discussing the Packers.

That doesn't seem to bother the former tight end, either. The organization that he played seven seasons for will always offer up great memories for Chmura, and one that he will never forget is the attitude the team possessed.

"We had a lot of great players, but there weren't a lot of egos," he said. "Everyone kind of fulfilled a role and I think that's a big reason why we were so successful."

That team-wide attitude may not have gotten the attention it deserved at the time, but 10 years later, there's no denying just how big of an impact it made.

[HarveyWallbangers]

RON COX

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/24/1/

When Ron Cox returned to Green Bay for the Packers' Monday night contest versus the Minnesota Vikings, on Nov. 21 last year, he was like a fish out of water. Cox was experiencing two firsts on the night and he wasn't sure he could handle one of them.

It was the first time Cox -- who now lives in Lake Forest, Ill. with his wife Michelle, Kelsey, 14, Cailin, 12, and Ron Jr., 9 -- had returned to Lambeau Field since it was renovated in time for the 2003 season.

The former outside linebacker, who had played on the Packers' Super Bowl XXXI team, attended the game with his brother-in-law and nephew, who came all the way from New Hampshire to see the Green and Gold. And Cox was treating his son Ron Jr. to the Packers' game on his ninth birthday.

What Cox, 38, didn't realize at the time was that getting a chance to see Lambeau Field once again was going to be a treat for him as well.

"We came down, went to the game and the stadium is so much more beautiful now than it was when I played," Cox said. "I didn't recognize it when I pulled up. I was like, 'Man, this is different.' Everything was completely different. It's unbelievable."

Yet, there was one downfall. And it happened to be another "first" for Cox.

"For me personally, it was the first time probably in my whole professional life and college life that I ever sat in the stands at a football game," Cox said. "And let me tell you, I can't do that again. It was so difficult for me to sit there and watch some of the same guys that I played against play the game.

"There were some wonderful people in the stands, but I'm just so used to being on the sidelines or somewhere in that capacity. The kids had a wonderful time, but I was sitting there on pins and needles and couldn't wait to get up. Still, it was fun."

Cox, a 6-foot-2, 246-pound linebacker, enjoyed playing football so much that he decided to stay involved in the game by coaching. He spent three seasons at Fresno State, his alma mater, and helped out on the defensive side of the ball. When he was in the NFL, he and his family would relocate to California after the season. But there came a time when he decided enough was enough.

"It was hard to take my family from Chicago to California, back and forth," Cox said. "The kids never had a chance to have friends over to the house because we were always moving and that was tough. That was my biggest decision by retiring from football. They sacrificed for me all those years and I had to stop and do the same for them."

Since Cox and his family enjoyed the Midwest so much, he decided to make Chicago their permanent home. Last season, Cox served as a linebacker coach and assistant defensive coordinator at Division III Lake Forest College. He guided two linebackers to all-conference awards and another to honorable mention recognition. Cox said he's had success at the college level because he relates well to the players.

"It's a lot easier for me to talk to some of these college guys because I did it all," Cox explained. "I played hooky from school like they tried to do and, you know, they can't pull it over me because I've done it.

"I think that the trust that the college kids have for me came because I have some kids right now playing in the National Football League that know me very well and I coached with them. They still call me and still respect a lot of things I did for them."

Still, despite the job he's done in the college arena, Cox knows the place where he wants to be, and it's one he's very familiar with from his time as a player.

"I'm still trying to take that next step back to the NFL, where I started," Cox said. "Coaching college football has been a lot of fun. I love to teach. But I want to get back (to the NFL)."

For now though, Cox is happy to be back where he can concentrate on his interests outside of football and his family can do the same.

"I'm a big hunter so between Illinois and Wisconsin, those are some of my favorite hunting grounds," Cox said. "I'm a big bear hunter, bow hunter, I've done it all. Lions and leopards and everything else a person can think about.

"That's one of the reasons we wanted to come back from California to the Midwest. It's nice to have a change in season and my kids like to wake up on Christmas like they did and see the snow in the yard. Sometimes you have to make those decisions and they have worked out very well for us."

Talking to Cox, you understand that the man loves football. That much is obvious. But you also find out quickly that his family is more important to him than anything else on earth.

"I have three beautiful kids and to have the opportunity to watch them grow and be a part of their lives, coaching soccer for them, and just having the family life for me was very important," Cox explained. "I think a lot of people need to spend a little bit more time with their kids because my dad died at an early age of 56.

"And before he died, he told me, 'I wish I had more time with my son.' I'll never forget that. He died about two minutes later. It's Ron Cox times like that...That's why I have spent a lot of time with my kids. They get mad, and they say, 'Dad, give me a little space, give me a little space.'"

Cox jokes around about his children, but make no mistake about it, he's very proud of them.

"My 14-year old Kelsey is a first-degree black belt and my 12-year-old Cailin is a brown belt," Cox said. "And my son, he's almost a brown belt. They have been pretty dedicated in sports and everything else, too."

"They're getting so grown up now that I need to get away from them for a little bit," Cox added with a laugh. "They're starting to talk too much and they always want to correct me all the time. But I can't complain."

When Cox talks about football, and about the '96 season in particular, he sounds like a fun-loving kid who just had the time of his life. While some players don't remember much besides the season itself, Cox fondly recalls the NFC Championship game against the Carolina Panthers and the Super Bowl the most.

"All week they had been talking about how good the Carolina Panthers' running game was and how this was going to be our toughest challenge," Cox recalled. "George Koonce got hurt and I ended up starting in the middle. I played outside linebacker my whole life and now all of a sudden, I'm playing middle linebacker.

"I worked pretty hard that week and all the guys supported each other real well and we went out and played one of the best football games we ever played. They had 45 yards rushing and I had a pretty good game. It was the first time the Packers had been to the Super Bowl in 29 years. And I was very happy to be a part of that dream."

Cox joked that he didn't know if he would actually be able to take part in the next step of that dream because he had been up most of the Saturday night before the Super Bowl. And the nerves carried over into the game as well.

"I am still a little numb from it because I will never forget when I called a play out, and when we broke the huddle, Drew Bledsoe came up to the line, and Reggie turned around and he said, 'Hey Cox, what's the play,' because he forgot the call," Cox recalled. "There were so many nerves, and I was nervous myself. Bledsoe started making an audible, and Reggie turned around and asked again, 'Hey Cox, what's the play?'

"And Curtis Martin ran the ball and hit me right in my mouth. I said, 'That's the play right there.' That was one of the most fun times I had when I played."

Cox enjoyed his time in Green Bay so much that he wouldn't mind reliving those happy moments. Only this time from a little different perspective.

"My dream would be to have an opportunity to come back there (Green Bay) as a coach and do it all over again," Cox said. "I did it as a player, but to have an opportunity to come in there as a coach in the frozen tundra and do it all over again, that's one of the reasons why I have been trying extremely hard to get back in some capacity. It's just one of those dreams where I could see it happening all over again."

By then, Cox would definitely get used to the new-look Lambeau and he wouldn't have to worry about watching the game from the stands, either.

[HarveyWallbangers]

JEFF DELLENBACH

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/25/1/

Growing up in Wausau, Wis., about an hour-and-a-half from Green Bay, one would think Jeff Dellenbach had plenty of opportunities to attend Packers games.

When that didn't turn out to be the case, Dellenbach had to figure out a way to watch the team he loved.

Well, the 6-foot-6, 295-pound offensive lineman took it a step further when he found a job that allowed him to work at Lambeau Field for three seasons. Instead of watching the organization he grew so fond of as a youngster, Dellenbach was now playing for it as an adult.

He may have gotten older, but Dellenbach still viewed it as a treat to play for the hometown team.

"That was spectacular," Dellenbach explained. "Growing up in Wisconsin, you had to be a Packer fan. You didn't have any other choice. I was a Packer fan and my grandfather had tickets forever. I managed to sneak to a game or two during preseason or during deer hunting, but other than that, there was no way you were going as a young kid.

"I was well aware of the hoopla and the backing that the Packers had. When I had the opportunity to go there, I was excited about that."

Dellenbach signed with the Packers on Dec. 3, 1996, and played special teams in three regular season games as well as the three playoff contests, including the Super Bowl win. He gave the team depth along the offensive line and served as the long snapper for placements on special teams.

Besides representing the Packers in the Super Bowl, Dellenbach had other fond memories of that day as well, including one that doesn't really involve the game itself.

"My kids just asked me the other day what it was like riding to the Super Bowl," Dellenbach recalled. "And that's probably one of the things I will never forget, the bus ride from the hotel to the game that day. It wasn't much of a bus ride, we only stayed a few blocks away, but in that short time, it was quiet on the bus, but yet you had a time to reflect and see fans, knowing that I made it to where I was trying to get for 15 years."

Dellenbach entered the league with the Miami Dolphins as a fourth-round pick out of Wisconsin in 1985.

It was his goal from day one to win the Super Bowl, but it came with added incentive in '96. The New England Patriots had cut Dellenbach earlier in the season and that made the victory even sweeter for him.

"Obviously it meant that much more going in there," Dellenbach admitted. "I knew everybody on that team. Bill Parcells was coaching the other team. I had a conversation or two with him prior to the game that week. And it obviously meant a lot for me to go in there and to come out with a victory."

Dellenbach went on to play for another three years after he earned his Super Bowl ring and stayed in the game as an assistant offensive line coach with the Miami Dolphins.

Despite being involved in the game he loved, Dellenbach admitted coaching was somewhat of a mixed bag for him.

"I loved the coaching part of it, some of the political stuff I wasn't real thrilled with it," Dellenbach acknowledged. "I had opportunities to stay in it, but I was at the point with my kids and everything going on, I really didn't want to pick up and move again, so I went on to something different."

That something different still involved sports and exercise, however.

In fact, Dellenbach who lives in Weston, Fla., with his wife Mary and their three sons, Dane, 17, Dax, 15, Dilon, 12 and daughter Dailey, 5, is still around athletes everyday. In February, Dellenbach and a couple of partners started a business called Ultimate Sports Institute.

The institute focuses on training people ranging from 6-year-old kids to professional athletes, each coming with different expectations.

"On the younger kids, it's about making them good people and using athletics to bring their best out," Dellenbach explained. "On the upper end, we are training a couple of Major League Baseball players. We are getting a couple (of football prospects) ready for the Combine, things like that."

Dellenbach knew long ago that a career like this would be rewarding and he said he's glad the pieces fell into place the way they did.

"I always enjoyed helping people, kids in particular, and I kind of always knew that I would do something along the lines of helping people," Dellenbach explained. "But this exact thing, two of the people that I partnered up with, they had the same dream and we sat down and I said, 'Hey, this makes a lot of sense to me,' and it makes a lot of sense to them."

Of course, this new business venture has allowed Dellenbach to stay in the warm weather of Florida, something he also enjoys. But he is also fond of those days as a youngster in Wausau, where his parents, Art and Sharon, still reside.

"The idea of being down here, we've been here for 20 years now and it's home," Dellenbach said. "The weather part of it, you can't argue with that, either.

"I do miss the Midwest and the people back there. Everybody is very friendly and very nice. Down here, it's a big-city atmosphere. Sometimes I wish I was back there, but days like today (pleasant weather), it's pretty nice being down here."

Now, if Dellenbach wants to see the Packers play, he can make the in-state trip to Miami or Tampa Bay. It may not be Lambeau Field, but hey, when you grow up as a Packers fan, you'll take it.

[HarveyWallbangers]

EARL DOTSON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/26/1/

Today's NFL has turned into a game of numbers.

At the pre-draft combine workout, for instance, the 40-yard dash and 225-pound bench press garner a great deal of attention. On Sundays, millions of fans spend several hours crunching their favorite players stats for their fantasy football team.

And the box score on Monday morning is often times the only thing fans can hold onto if they don't actually get to watch the game.

In this case, only the die-hard fans would know who Earl Dotson is. After all, offensive linemen don't grab headlines and they certainly don't rack up fantasy statistics. In some ways, what they do is very difficult to measure.

But then again, the size of one's heart doesn't show up in box scores, either. And that's where Dotson could have stacked up with anyone.

The 6-foot-4, 315-pound right tackle played 10 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, including the 1996 season when he started 15 regular season games as well as the three postseason games that followed.

Though Dotson stayed relatively healthy in that super season, he battled injuries throughout his career. Between his back, elbow and ankle problems, Dotson dealt with plenty of pain, but he refused to let it get the best of him.

Yet, that doesn't mean Dotson didn't wonder about how long he'd be able to play.

"It got to the point where I had to do so much just to prepare for a game off the field that yeah, those thoughts go through your head," Dotson admitted. "And a couple games, I couldn't do it.

"But, I've always been one of those guys that didn't like to let my teammates down so I pushed it the extra mile. I look back on it now and I don't regret a thing I did."

In addition to being part of such a great team, Dotson also took satisfaction from that season simply because there were no shortcuts. Nothing came easy as the Packers had fallen short in the three seasons leading up to their Super Bowl win.

That's not something Dotson took lightly, either, especially when it came against the Dallas Cowboys for three consecutive seasons.

The irony is that Dotson and the rest of his teammates never got the opportunity to meet the Cowboys in the playoffs the next season, but in the end, it really didn't matter.

"It was time to get over the hump," Dotson explained. "It's kind of weird because I live down here in Texas but they gave us all we could handle all those years leading up to that. And we always thought if we could just get past that one game, we'd be on our way to the Super Bowl.

"But we finally did it against Carolina. Yeah, it would have been better against Dallas, but hey, we got there. And I just think it was a time where everybody knew what they had to do and they stepped up."

The Super Bowl win was obviously the pinnacle to that season, but when Dotson reflects back on it now, it wasn't the most memorable aspect of the year.

"I've got fond memories of the Super Bowl, but to tell you the truth, my best memories are the championship game against Carolina before the Super Bowl that got us there," Dotson said. "I think that was just a game in my heart that everybody pulled together as one, we overcame, we got the job done and got to the next level."

Dotson also had the pleasure of playing with a great offensive line and in the Carolina game that he so fondly recalls, he was part of a group that paved the way for 201 rushing yards, many of which came on his right side of the line.

The Packers also averaged 114 rushing yards a game in '96, up from an 89-yard average the year before. It was a special group, but again, not one that always received the notoriety it probably deserved.

However, that's not something that bothered the group, according to Dotson. Instead, he thought the lack of attention brought the unit closer together.

"You know what, we're still a tight bunch," Dotson said. "Especially Adam Timmerman, a great guy, I loved playing with him. We had a lot of nice guys. Frankie Winters, the leader of the offensive line, A.T., (Aaron Taylor) we just had a real nice group.

"So, I have real fond memories of those guys. After that, it's kind of (part of) the game. After we won the game, a lot of guys went to other teams. I just wish we could have stayed together a little longer. We could have done great things."

As it stood, Dotson and the Packers certainly did their share of special things, and he insists that he still is a "big fan" of the Packers and counts Rob Davis and William Henderson as close friends.

To Dotson, it was a treat to play with a storied franchise and serve as one of Brett Favre's personal protectors. He admitted that it was special to share the huddle with the legendary signal caller, too.

"You can't help but think of him," Dotson said. "The guy has so much confidence that you can't help going into a game thinking, 'You know what, as long as we've got No. 4, we've got a fighting chance.'

"He's just got that aura about him where you feel like you can be down 20 points in the fourth quarter and you can look into his eyes and he'll say, 'You know what, we can still do this.' He's a born leader, I think."

Dotson has found out that there are many people quite fond of not just Favre, but the Packers altogether, many of whom reside in Texas. He said he often sees Packer Backers at the 50-Yard Line, a sports bar he owns, as well as the lounge he owns named 624.

Dotson is happy with his life in Texas and said that he feels good, although he did undergo two back surgeries.

"I'm getting along with it," he said. "I worked out and dropped some weight so I'm feeling pretty comfortable right now."

And even if he wasn't, you could bet Dotson would still go out there and compete on Sunday.

It's that type of dedication that made the Packers champions, and in a game of numbers, that's still the most important statistic of all.

[HarveyWallbangers]

SANTANA DOTSON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/27/1/

In his first season with the Packers in 1996, Santana Dotson was looking forward to having fun playing football again. That's what brought him to Green Bay in the first place.

But it's not necessarily the Super Bowl championship or all of the individual success that Dotson enjoyed during the season that he remembers the most.

Instead, when the 6-foot-5, 290-pound former defensive tackle recalls that unique season in Green Bay, he thinks of a certain look that he hadn't seen in a long time.

And it wasn't the look in his teammates' eyes. Rather, it was the glance opponents gave him upon seeing what they were up against.

"It was my first season with the Packers and I remember the look in one of the first games we played, one of them was Tampa and one of the first home games was San Diego, if I recall that correctly," Dotson explained. "I remember the first quarter, just the way when the offensive line broke the huddle and when they looked across you could see the fear in their eyes when they saw myself, Gilbert Brown, Sean Jones and Big Dog, Reggie White.

"They almost had a puzzled look on their face like, 'Who we going block, who we going to double-team, who we going try to keep from making plays?' I remember realizing we had something so special at the time."

Back then, this type of team success wasn't something Dotson was necessarily accustomed to, either. Sure he played well in his four seasons with Tampa Bay, but he never set foot on a team like the one Green Bay assembled in '96.

When he became a free agent, Dotson came to the conclusion that Green Bay was the best place for him, but not before he had a little help in making his decision.

"I remember when I was a free agent, Reggie called and when he asked me to be a part of something special, the deal was done," Dotson admitted. "It didn't matter what Ron Wolf said or didn't matter what Larry Brooks, the defensive line coach said. When Reggie called me, and I was at home in Tampa Bay, I was going to Green Bay. It was a done deal.

"You had somebody who was a perennial Hall of Famer -- somebody I had watched since the college years, and you know, somebody I had tried to emulate -- call me and when he did, and did his best job to recruit me, the deal was done."

Clearly, the Packers' front office had little recruiting to do in the case of Dotson.

"They could have offered me 50 cents. Well, not 50 cents," Dotson, 36, recalled with a laugh. "They had me at hello. Let's just put it at that."

Defensive Tackle Relished Doing the Dirty Work

Undoubtedly, the transaction worked out well for both parties. Dotson helped the Packers defense reach greater heights by providing an up-the-field pass rusher along the defensive line, not to mention a terrific worker, leader, and someone who helped Gilbert Brown plug the middle.

And although his teammates and coaches knew what Dotson brought to the table, defensive tackles don't often garner a great deal of attention, especially with players like White and Jones manning the defensive end spots.

But the lack of attention never bothered Dotson. In fact, it seemed to be what drove him.

"The heartbeat of the defense is the defensive line and the heartbeat of the defensive line is the defensive tackles," Dotson said. "I do a lot of speaking engagements, and the message I always tell kids, or anybody for that matter, is that you can ask anybody, and everybody wants to be successful, and everybody wants to be a champion in their different venues, in their different sports, or their different workplace everyday.

"But the way you differentiate is the people who want to put in the work or the effort to get it done. And that goes back to Gilbert and myself. Especially myself, when I came to Green Bay, I think there were a bunch of questions and the team I came from wasn't a successful team.

"So there were a bunch of questions I wanted to answer, and I wanted to answer them not only on the field on Sunday, but I felt it was a priority to answer those questions to my teammates during training camp and during minicamp, to show them the kind of effort I was willing to put forth, not just in practices but also in the weight room so they knew I was somebody they could rely on and count on."

Now Dotson is trying to pass that message on to his family as well. He married his high school sweetheart, Monique, and the couple has a son, Khari, and two daughters, Amani, and Sananaá, with another child on the way in August. They reside in Santana's hometown of Houston.

After spending six seasons with the Packers, Dotson signed with the Redskins but retired after the 2001 season when he tore his Achilles' heel. He's now an entrepreneur in four businesses, and along with two other partners, he recently purchased a tequila company called Distinguido.

Foundation, Friendships Still Going Strong

Dotson said that his business ventures keep him extremely busy, but he still manages to make the Santana Dotson Foundation (www.santanadotson.com.) a huge success.

According to Dotson, the foundation has been operating for 14 years. It raises money through a raffle and auction as well as a pool tournament that is held annually in Houston and Milwaukee. This money allows the foundation to give scholarships and grants to underprivileged youth to continue college and Dotson said it has helped over 150 kids continue their education who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to go to college.

Because of this foundation, Dotson said he gets back to Milwaukee "about every other month." He also comes back to Green Bay each season for at least one game, and sometimes two. He admits that his time in Titletown was special, primarily due to the relationships he built.

To this day, Dotson marvels at the camaraderie he experienced as a Packer.

"I used to say it was because we were in Green Bay and there was not a lot to do," he said. "But now I think it's the caliber of guys that were in that locker room. What I'm talking about is we had the whole defense, the whole special teams, and the whole offensive line.

If one guy went out, if one guy was going to have dinner, we all were going to have dinner. We did everything together and I used to think it was because we were in a smaller town like Green Bay and there was really nothing else to do, but it's not like that. And I think it's really hard to build that camaraderie."

It's comes as no surprise that Dotson maintains many of those friendships today, too.

"I talk to Gilbert all the time," Dotson said. "We're like brothers. Brian Williams and I are real close. I talk to Desmond (Howard) every so often. (Antonio) Freeman and I, we keep in contact. I talk to Dorsey Levens, and Tyrone Williams, so it's still a close unit.

"The NBA All-Star game was in town earlier this year, and all those guys were in town. So they came to the house. It's like a brotherhood or a fraternity. Even though a lot of players have retired and moved to different parts of the world, there's still that common grain of sand or common unity. So whenever we're all in the same area at the same time, we always get together."

If fun was what Dotson was looking for in joining Green Bay 10 years ago, it's fairly safe to say that decision is still paying dividends.

[HarveyWallbangers]

DOUG EVANS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/28/1/

Doug Evans always loved Green Bay. In fact, he still does. And to this day, it pains him that he didn't finish his career with the Packers.

Evans, who played on both of the Packers' Super Bowl teams in the 1996 and 1997 seasons, played in the NFL for 11 years, but only five of them were in Green Bay. Evans became an unrestricted free agent after the '97 season and regrettably, his time in Green Bay was up.

Of course, Evans was free to sign with any other team, and in the end he made his own decision to leave, but he still wishes it would have worked out to stay in Green Bay.

"It was definitely hard to leave Green Bay," Evans, 36, said. "Because I had considered myself a football player and that was it. Nothing came in the way of football, and to me, Green Bay was truly a football town.

"It was definitely heart-breaking to leave, especially because I know the type of talent and things we had on the team and we possibly could have gone on another Super Bowl run."

But for how much he wanted to stay, Evans doesn't live in the past, nor does he dwell on what could have been. Rather, Evans likes to think about the great moments he had during the Packers' title run.

"Being in a locker room with guys like Reggie White, it was a family-type atmosphere," Evans explained. "Being in that situation in Green Bay, I keep trying to tell everybody, it was truly a football town. That is one thing that I miss is that it was truly a football town and there is no other city like it. There's no other team like it. Win or lose, the fans are still going to love the football team."

Playing with the late White was something Evans still marvels at. And while many players and fans alike probably don't truly appreciate a player until his career has ended, Evans doesn't fit into that category. Instead, he knew just how great White was from being around him so much.

"It was really unbelievable," Evans said with awe. "I knew because I sometimes would become a spectator and it was amazing what this guy could do as a lineman, how he could control a defensive game.

"I knew what type of ability I had, but I always thought, 'The man in front of me is making it a whole lot easier for me.' To have a great line like we did, that helped us out a whole lot back in the secondary."

Not that Evans needed a whole lot of help. He was part of a solid if not spectacular defensive backfield that included Craig Newsome, LeRoy Butler, Eugene Robinson, Tyrone Williams and Mike Prior. Evans finished with five interceptions on the season, and coupled with Newsome, the Packers might have had the best cornerback tandem in the NFL, if not the most physical.

Evans weighed in at 190 pounds and stood 6-foot-1. Because the Packers faced wide receivers like Cris Carter, Curtis Conway and Herman Moore on a weekly basis inside of what was then the NFC Central, it was imperative to have big, physical corners, and Evans certainly fit the bill.

When he helped the Packers reach the Super Bowl in New Orleans in '96, it was especially gratifying for Evans since he was born in Shreveport, La., and all of his immediate family attended the game. Playing in the Superdome was very exciting for Evans, who came up with an interception in the first quarter that led to a field goal by Chris Jacke. All of this added up to one fond memory for Evans.

"The interception that I had, was a great feeling, especially playing in Louisiana," Evans said. "I played a lot of high school football games in the Superdome, and just being back home and having my family come down, that was a great feeling."

Because he knows just how difficult it is to make it to the biggest show on earth -- the Super Bowl -- Evans breaks out his championship ring every now and then.

"Normally I really don't wear it that much, but around playoff time and Super Bowl time, I wear it a little bit more," Evans explained. "Especially since I have retired, I wear it a little bit more. I am proud of what I have accomplished because a lot of people never even get one. You're proud of something that you worked so hard for."

His mind is filled with several memories from his time in Green Bay, but it doesn't take Evans long to think of something that would make him laugh on a daily basis.

"I could remember the late Wayne Simmons," Evans said. "It was really unbelievable how funny that guy was in the locker room. He pretty much kept everybody loose. I remember one episode during that Super Bowl run, where the late Fritz Shurmur...He was pretty much in love with Wayne. That was his guy.

"Wayne would come in early in the morning and always do impersonations of Fritz," Evans added with a laugh. "That used to get the morning going. That was pretty much a tradition, it was a great thing."

According to Evans, he really couldn't have learned his craft from a better coach than Shurmur, either.

"It was a guy that you know had your back," Evans said. "That's the most important thing about being a coach. If you feel that he has your back, you're going to go out and give 100 percent.

"We felt that way about Fritz, that he was going to put us in the best situation to win. And that is what you look for in a coach."

After spending some time in Tampa Bay, Evans is now again living in Shreveport with his wife Myria and their two children, Aymara, 12, and Doug, 11. While he said he is "taking it easy and looking out for his investments," he eventually would like to follow in his mentor's footsteps and take on the challenge of coaching, but he admits he's not quite ready for the NFL.

"I know how much work those guys in the NFL put in," Evans explained. "Right now, I don't have that desire to be an NFL coach because I know how much work and dedication it takes. I want to get into it more and get the passion back. I like to teach young guys and watch them grow and develop."

While Evans wishes his stay in Green Bay could have been a bit longer, it appears that he made the most of his time there with a Super Bowl ring and a lifetime full of memories to show for it.

[Partial]

Some of those were really great to read :wink:

[HarveyWallbangers]

BRETT FAVRE

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/29/1/

Three-time MVP. Eight Pro Bowls. 52,615 passing yards. 4,678 completions. 396 touchdowns. 139 regular season wins.

In case you were wondering, the aforementioned numbers all belong to Brett Favre. Spectacular accomplishments to be sure, but anyone who has watched the legendary quarterback play -- even for five minutes -- understands that the most important, if not most impressive, feat of his career is the Super Bowl XXXI victory.

Of course, you'd need a dump truck to carry around all of Brett Favre's awards and accomplishments throughout his 15-year career, but make no mistake about it, bringing the Vince Lombardi trophy back to Green Bay had been his primary goal since he first donned the Green and Gold in 1992.

In fact, Favre has spent his whole career focusing so hard on winning it all that even he admits he doesn't know where the time has gone since that Jan. 26, 1997, evening.

"You know what I honestly think?" he said. "Damn, that was a long time ago, but it doesn't seem like that long ago. How quickly time goes by. I mean, it's been 10 years. I know that's a long time in some respects, but it seems like it was yesterday. And over those 10 years, I think about the changes that have occurred.

"You know, you lose Reggie (White), you keep in touch with some guys and lose touch with others. I think about all the guys I've played with in those 10 years. I'm still standing here in this locker room and most of those guys are gone now, but those memories will be there for a long time. I'm thankful of how far I've gone, but it's kind of an eye-opener to think about. It doesn't seem like 10 years."

Making the game even more special for Favre was the fact that it was played in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, a short distance from his hometown of Kiln, Miss. But beyond the win, and beyond being surrounded in the company of family and friends, Favre topped his day off with another spectacular performance.

It's safe to say that expectations were high for the Packers and their 6-foot-2, 225-pound gunslinger entering the game, but it didn't take very long to realize what kind of day Favre and his teammates were in for. He passed for 246 yards, connecting on 14 of 27 attempts, with two touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown.

It certainly was an impressive day overall, but according to Favre, his first pass of the game was his favorite. It also turned out to be a tone-setter and gave the Packers the early momentum boost, as Favre found wide receiver Andre Rison down the sideline for a 54-yard bomb that gave the Packers a quick 7-0 lead with 11:28 left in the quarter.

At that very moment, it was the epitome of everything Brett Favre stood for as a football player: great play call at the line of scrimmage, beautiful throw, and then a celebration that symbolized exactly how much the game he grew up playing as a young boy still meant to him.

Favre immediately removed his helmet, clutched it above his head and ran down the sideline like a kid who had waited his whole life for that very moment. It certainly was a time that Packers fans will never forget, and it meant just as much to Favre.

"Probably throwing the touchdown pass to Andre, the first one," Favre said when asked what his favorite memory of the game was. "The one to Antonio was awesome, too, and was a record for a long time. But with Andre, here we are in the Super Bowl and I audible to this play ... It was everything you dream of, and it worked on top of that, so that's probably my fondest memory."

The aforementioned pass to Antonio Freeman was an 81-yard touchdown completion in the second quarter. It gave the Packers a 17-14 lead and was a Super Bowl record until Carolina's Jake Delhomme hooked up with Muhsin Muhammad in Super Bowl XXXVIII for an 85-yard touchdown pass.

Favre has continued to rewrite the history book as he has set almost every passing record in Packers' annals and is closing in on several of Dan Marino's NFL records, including touchdown passes and passing yards.

According to Favre, it's always been about winning and having fun, not setting records. His 221 consecutive starts make it easy to believe him when he says that he's always played for his teammates and given everything he's had in the name of victory.

However, it's the memories with those teammates that make Favre, 36, feel a little old.

"You know you're getting old when some of the guys you played with are now coaching," he said, referring to running backs coach Edgar Bennett (1992-96) and assistant offensive line coach James Campen (1992-93).

Favre primarily keeps in touch with former center and longtime roommate Frank Winters and is also close with Doug Pederson, now the head football coach at Calvary Baptist Academy in Shreveport, La. He also had remained in touch with Reggie White and even spoke to White during the week prior to his death.

As Favre mentioned, a few things have changed since the Super Bowl win 10 seasons ago. He possesses more records, has played in several games since, and most of his teammates have moved on or retired.

However, there is one thing that still remains the same.

Favre was the leader of a team that will undoubtedly go down in Packers history as one of the best ever, and in such a storied franchise, that just might be all you need to know to understand his legacy.

[HarveyWallbangers]

ANTONIO FREEMAN

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/30/1/

Wide receiver Antonio Freeman keeps his Super Bowl XXXI ring in a safe at a location he declines to disclose. He will wear it for special occasions, but it's a good thing he does not wear it every day.

"None of my knuckles can fit any of the rings," Freeman said. "My knuckles are all blasted."

His mangled appendages are the result of catching Brett Favre fastballs for eight years. The Packers training staff regularly built splints for him during his playing days, and Freeman now has swollen pinkie, middle and index fingers and hyperextended thumbs. But those wounds are not his only memories from a nine-year NFL career in which he caught 477 balls for 7,251 yards and 61 touchdowns.

A game-changing play during Super Bowl XXXI serves as one of his most memorable moments. With the Packers trailing 14-10 in the second quarter, Freeman lined up in the slot on a play called "All Go." New England Patriots strong safety Lawyer Milloy crowded him, playing man-to-man coverage while free safety Willie Clay provided over-the-top help. Milloy then moved to his right, giving Freeman a free release and a clear lane.

"All I had to do was get behind him, and there was a string of land back there," Freeman said. "Brett saw the mismatch from the beginning, and he laid out a great, nice soft ball. I was able to run under and catch, and the rest was just getting to the end zone."

Freeman did just that. He dashed 81 yards in all for the score, giving the Packers a lead they would not surrender the rest of the game. It represented the longest gain of his 105-yard receiving day and remains an enduring highlight.

Antonio's mother was watching television in late January when an NFL Films special on Super Bowl XXXI came on the screen. After viewing several of Freeman's standout plays, she called to thank her son for those cherished moments, saying nothing will ever replace those for her.

"It made me teary-eyed to think I had that kind of effect," Freeman said.

The Super Bowl capped Freeman's breakout year. Following his rookie season in which the Packers reached the NFC championship game, he earned the starting job at split end in 1996 and posted 56 catches for 933 yards and nine touchdowns.

"It was a sweet year," Freeman said.

Despite a prolific career and multiple playoff appearances, Freeman would never taste the same success he did in 1996. Freeman and the Packers returned to the Super Bowl in 1997 but lost to the Denver Broncos, 31-24. That was the last time he reached the title game. Having won a ring in just his second year in the league, he expected to reach the grand stage six times.

"You're young," Freeman said. "You think you can get to the Super Bowl every year."

Freeman joined the Philadelphia Eagles as a free agent in 2002 before re-signing with the Packers in 2003. The Miami Dolphins signed him the next year but cut him during the preseason. Freeman, 33, has not played in the NFL since. Although he has yet to file his retirement papers with the league, he has no plans of playing again.

Instead he lives outside of Baltimore and is in the process of surveying several business opportunities. Freeman declined to divulge many details, but one venture includes private real estate investment.

"I'm just finding myself in the business world, taking my time, using my resources," Freeman said. "I haven't quite found my niche."

In the mean time he busies himself caring for his two-year-old son Alexander and nine-year-old daughter Gabrielle. Freeman would like to work in the NFL again but not in a coaching capacity, which often puts great strain on family life. He seeks a player evaluation role.

"I would really, really love to do scouting," he said.

He watches football every Sunday and still roots for the Packers. But that interest could wane in time once his friends or former teammates on the current roster retire. Freeman does not miss the game but longs for the camaraderie of the players and the structure an NFL career gave him.

"I miss being around those guys because they became my family," Freeman said. "I miss the regimen."

Freeman received some exposure to his Packers family, including friends William Henderson and Rob Davis, when the Packers played the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football in Week 15. Freeman ate with the Packers players and coaches at the team hotel for four hours. During the game he enjoyed hanging out on the sideline but not enough to consider playing again.

Freeman remains content without his shoulder pads and cleats.

"I'm just enjoying life," Freeman said. "I'm just enjoying my time."

[HarveyWallbangers]

BERNARDO HARRIS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/07/31/1/

Bernardo Harris has always been a huge fan of football. He loved to play it and he loved to learn about it by breaking down film and soaking up knowledge from teammates and coaches.

The 6-foot-2, 247-pound Harris enjoyed a nine-year career in the National Football League, including seven years with the Green Bay Packers. He was often in charge of making the calls for the defensive unit and it goes without saying that when you play linebacker in the NFL as long as Harris did, you have to be an intelligent player.

So it should come as no surprise that the North Carolina native is ready to get back into football. Harris and his wife, Kellie, who recently graduated from the University of North Carolina Law School, enjoy spending time with their three children - Bradley, 11, Blake, 8, and Brooke, 3. And although Harris' career as a player is over, he thinks coaching could be a natural fit.

"Coaching is something that I always wanted to do when I was growing up," Harris said. "Football has been a big part of my life. Being a player and a fan, I love football. So that's what I'm working on right now."

Listening to Harris, 34, and how he describes his passion for football, it's obvious that he appreciates the history of the game as well.

Harris, a member of the Super Bowl XXXI championship team, says that playing the bulk of his career in Green Bay allowed him to experience the great tradition of the Packers.

"Just coming out of the tunnel and onto Lambeau Field and thinking about the greats that played on the field -- the Starrs, the Hornungs, the McGees -- it was great to think I was a part of it," Harris explained. "There is no place in America like Green Bay as far as a football town, a football team, a football atmosphere and a football environment.

"It was just special to reward yourself on Sundays for your hard work and play on the field where the great ones did. It was great to bring the glory days back to Green Bay and win a Super Bowl when things were down for a long time before that."

Although Harris became a regular contributor later in his career, he backed up George Koonce at middle linebacker and mainly played special teams with the 1996 squad. He led the team with 21 special teams tackles in the regular season and tied with Travis Jervey for the team lead with six in the playoffs. This accomplishment wasn't lost on Harris, either.

"They always preach that special teams are a third of the game, but you only get noticed on special teams if you do something great or if you do something terrible," Harris explained. "But we were able to be an asset to the team in making something happen to make us victorious."

None of this success for Harris seemed possible just two years earlier, however. After going undrafted out of North Carolina in 1994, Harris signed with Kansas City in June only to be waived in August. He spent the year out of football before Green Bay signed him in 1995, and he admitted that his success moved at a fast pace with the Packers.

"Just being a young kid and being 10 minutes away from the Super Bowl in my first year when we made it to the NFC Championship was very memorable," Harris explained. "Then in the second year, we made it to the Super Bowl, and to be a special teamer and be a part of a special teams play (Desmond Howard's 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown) that played a big role in the game, that made me feel proud as a player and as an individual."

Despite being at an early stage in his football career, and surrounded by plenty of superstars, Harris said one of his fondest memories of that championship team was that everyone was treated the same.

"Being a part of a team with Reggie White, Brett Favre, superstars, Hall of Famers, they treated you like men, and they made you feel like your role was just as important as theirs," Harris recalled. "And you don't get that everywhere in football."

Playing with the late White was something Harris still treasures. In typical fashion, he wanted to soak up all the wisdom the Hall of Famer would share both in the locker room and on the field. And he made sure he put this knowledge to good use, too.

"Being a middle linebacker and having to make the calls and line everybody up, I had to know what I was doing," Harris said. "I had to earn that respect and do the things I needed to do. But I always wanted to learn from the great people and watch what they did. He was the type of guy you could learn a lot from on and off the field."

Harris said that despite all the things both he and his teammates learned from White, there was no way to replicate what No. 92 brought to the gridiron.

"There was only one Reggie," Harris acknowledged. "Nobody was as strong as Reggie, nobody could play like Reggie, but you saw his motor, you saw the abilities he had and you just marvel at the things he did. You were just thankful that he was on your team."

Harris also appreciates the collective effort of the 1996 team and that's why he fashions his Super Bowl ring from time to time.

"I don't wear it every day, but I wear it when I go out to eat and things like that," Harris said. "If I'm going somewhere, I wear it. I'm proud of it. I mean, it was a lot of hard work. It's not going to collect dust. I earned it, I wear it."

And who knows, maybe Harris will earn another one, only this time as a coach.

[woodbuck27]

Don Beebe

What a story !! :D

[HarveyWallbangers]

CHRIS HAYES

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/01/1/

By most accounts, Chris Hayes didn't have a lot of time to get acclimated to Green Bay in 1996. After all, he spent nine weeks on the practice squad and played in only five games. And the Packers were his third stop of the season.

But don't try telling Hayes that his time in Green Bay wasn't well worth it.

It's hardly a legacy, but Hayes gained enough valuable experience in his brief stay to guide him to a productive six-year career in the NFL as well as his life after football.

And though his rookie season featured a few ups and downs, the season was hardly a loss.

"For me, it was basically a dream come true," Hayes gushed. "It was a good learning experience for me. It taught me so much and prepared me for the next seven years.

"Starting off with the Jets and not having the types of players Green Bay had, it was just a blessing because I got to learn a lot in that one year's time and I got to see a lot."

The 6-foot, 200-pound safety came a long way in a year's time. He was originally drafted by the Jets in the seventh round and cut in training camp before spending time on Washington's practice squad and also being let go from there.

Before he knew it, however, Hayes was on a team contending for the Super Bowl as a 24-year-old rookie, and needless to say, he was a little awestruck by his surroundings.

"If you really look at it, it was like a Hall of Fame team put together," Hayes explained. "You had the Reggie Whites, you had the Jimmy McMahons, you had the Don Beebes, you had the Sean Joneses. Basically being young and having the opportunity to play around those type of people right out of the gate, it was a dream come true.

"It was crazy. I remember seeing John Madden in the locker room. All that stuff I can remember. In fact, that was one of my first star-struck moments, to see John Madden in the locker room."

Still, Hayes didn't think it would come down to that when the Jets drafted him. He thought he had played well enough in training camp to stick around awhile, but obviously it didn't work out that way.

And then the business side of the NFL set in for Hayes.

"I didn't really know, again I was young," Hayes recalled. "I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know my next move, and I didn't know what was going on.

"My wife was still my girlfriend at the time. We just had our first son and she was in college so I was at a point in my life where it was like, OK, I still have the opportunity to go back to school, but I knew I could play ball. I just didn't understand because it was happening so fast."

However, things slowed down for Hayes under the tutelage of special teams coach Nolan Cromwell, which also paid off later in his career, too.

"He really gave me my shot," Hayes said. "He believed in me on special teams. I was actually able to maintain and stay in the NFL for all of those years because I was able to set my position (on special teams), which eventually took me to a starting position at safety. But I was able to learn it and really see the value it had through Nolan."

Hayes has since retired and lives in California with his wife Aran, and their three sons, Chris Jr., Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Though his football playing days have been over for three seasons, Hayes said his job with New Century Mortgage Corporation requires many of the same skills to be successful.

"You never stop really playing the game," Hayes explained. "It's just different football fields, different arenas that I'm playing. I do know something about winning and being the best and how to compete because that's just the thing that football teaches us throughout our life.

"You get to compete, and it's a very aggressive market, and it's all about teamwork. It's all about putting the right people together, being coachable. Being able to lead people, the whole nine yards. It's very correlated.

"On the football field, you're only as good as your last play, and in corporate America your last big deal. The thing about it is this...when you make a mistake in the NFL you're viewed by millions of people, as opposed to corporate America where your mistake may not even be known or you might only have to be scolded by one person, your boss."

After a workmanlike approach in the NFL, Hayes excelled on special teams and now he seems to have a pretty good handle on the mortgage banking industry, too. Despite that success, Hayes explained that the most significant thing to happen to him in the last 10 years was in a different field: his faith.

"I gave my life over to the Lord and I became a man of God," he said proudly. "It's just a growing process. When I was playing, I was young and just like every other young guy that comes into the business, you get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the industry. It's just been such a blessing to be in the situation I'm in."

And 10 years later, Hayes still has that same fire in his belly for the team that resurrected his career, even if it was a short stop in his NFL road.

"I still support and root for the team (Packers) because that was the team that really gave me my start," Hayes said. "To be on a Super Bowl winning team, that will always be something that I cherish and be grateful for, to have that opportunity to play around that caliber of players and that caliber of coaching staff and to go out there and be a champion in life."

It just goes to show that the amount of time you spend with an NFL organization isn't nearly as important as what you do with it.

[HarveyWallbangers]

WILLIAM HENDERSON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/02/1/

Minutes after the Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl XXXI, second-year fullback William Henderson sat next to defensive tackle Gilbert Brown at the steps of the Superdome podium set up for the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation. They soaked in the moment following a year of intense dedication.

"It was such a whirlwind that year," Henderson said. "We're sitting there. Both of us are dog tired from the adrenaline and everything else, and we look across each other like 'What do we do now?'"

Henderson would continue to do the same thing he did during that Super Bowl-winning season well into the 21st century. He bulldozes a path for the running backs, takes out blitzing defenders, hauls in key receptions and carries the ball once in a blue moon. Even in his 11th season, Henderson remained one of the few starters in the NFL to contribute consistently on special teams.

"I've learned the best thing I can do is just be a utility person," Henderson said. "Whatever I'm asked to do, I try to do to the best of my ability and whatever my team needs I try to execute for the sake of winning."

That single-minded drive has allowed the 35-year-old to play more than a decade for the Packers. Along with Brett Favre he remains the only holdover from that Super Bowl-winning team on the current roster. He ranks eighth in franchise history in receptions with 308 and sixth in games played with 174.

In 1996, Henderson caught 27 passes for 203 yards and one touchdown. Eleven years later he compiled even better numbers -- 30 receptions for 264 yards and earned alternate status to the 2006 Pro Bowl.

In a league where running backs in their mid-30s are few and far between, Henderson credits his endurance to three main things -- the grace of God, luck and conditioning. As a result Henderson has missed just two training camp practices in the last five years. Further displaying his dedication to keeping himself in shape year round, Henderson conducted this interview shortly after a March 2 workout at the Packers' facility. During the first two weeks in March, most NFL players are on vacation -- but not Henderson.

"If you love the game, you've got to jump on it and keep yourself in shape while others are letting themselves get out of shape," Henderson said. "I give my conditioning and hard work a lot of the credit for me having my longevity."

Henderson has an extra edge too. Having majored in physical therapy with a concentration in sports science at North Carolina, he uses that knowledge to better regulate his diet and exercise.

"That's probably one of my best assets," Henderson said. "I kind of know how to train myself. I know my own body."

As durable and hard-working as he is, Henderson knows he cannot play forever and may put his undergraduate major to use after he finishes his NFL career. Next year he likely will take an internship with Stryker Corp., a pharmaceutical sales company, during the offseason.

"It's an amazing company," Henderson said. "They're one of the top in the world for any type of medical sales or medical equipment."

Henderson also continues to pursue a career in broadcasting. He has served as co-host of Monday Night Kickoff, a show on Green Bay's ABC affiliate since 1999. In the spring of 2003, he began working as an analyst for Fox's telecasts of NFL Europe. This past April, Henderson also worked for ESPN as an analyst during the NFL Draft.

"That's just the ultimate opportunity for me," Henderson said, "to be in front of the cameras talking about athletes."

Henderson has entertained a captive audience in other ways. He rarely removes his 1996 Super Bowl ring from the jewelry box in house but does so during special occasions. When he spoke to kids at Thomas Dale (Va.) High School (his former high school), he used it as part of a message of improving one's lot in life.

"Mom and Dad didn't have everything so it's up to you," Henderson said. "It's your job to get academically and physically eligible so that someday you can have one of these."

Indeed Henderson exemplifies what can happen with a little hard work.

[HarveyWallbangers]

CRAIG HENTRICH

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/03/1/

Craig Hentrich was about to kick off in the biggest game of his NFL career and he wasn't thinking of the bright lights, the opponent, or the magnitude of Super Bowl XXXI.

Instead, Hentrich, the Packers punter and kickoff specialist, had just one thing on his mind: the turf monster.

He had good friend and kicker Chris Jacke to thank for that.

Ten years later, Hentrich, 35, who is now entering his 14th season in the league, still thinks about how nervous he and all of his teammates were, and then having Jacke convince him that he would literally fall flat on his face in front of millions of viewers.

"Chris Jacke had me convinced that the turf monster was going to grab me on the way up for the opening kickoff," Hentrich recalled with a laugh. "And what I mean by the turf monster is that the turf was coming to grab my foot and trip me. So I just remember that was my last thought out there before I was getting ready to kick.

It wasn't that I'm playing in the Super Bowl, it was, 'Please don't let the turf monster get me.' So that was the kind of memory that stuck with me all those years."

Despite having those thoughts running through his head initially, it turned out that Hentrich really had nothing to worry about at all. In fact, it would have been difficult to imagine him having a stronger performance than the one he had that day.

In addition to handling the kickoff duties, Hentrich averaged 42.7 yards on seven punts, including booming 58- and 54-yarders. The playoffs were just an extension of maybe his finest regular season as a Packer in '96 for the 6-foot-3, 200-pound punter. He possessed the rare combination of being able to place the ball inside the 20-yard line (he managed that a team-record 28 times) as well as being able to punt with power.

The Packers may have been known for their stingy defense and explosive offense that magical season, but the special teams units came up big -- particularly in the postseason -- and Hentrich was instrumental to the team's success.

According to Hentrich, much of that success can be attributed to the players enjoying their time with one another.

"We just had so much fun, and that's what I remember the most," Hentrich said. "I remember a lot of Jim McMahon stories that I still tell to this day."

McMahon may have not seen the field that season, but Hentrich isn't the first teammate who suggested the backup quarterback played a role in helping the team be successful.

"I just remember getting a lot of laughs," Hentrich noted. "He was just one of the funniest human beings I ever met in my life. He kept the locker room loose and even minutes before we were going out for the Super Bowl, he had guys laughing in the locker room.

"That was a big key for us. We came out relaxed. Or as relaxed as you can be in a game like that. And a lot of it had to do with Jim and his humor."

Hentrich has now been with the Tennessee Titans for eight seasons, and he admits that things just aren't the same since he entered the league with the Packers in 1993 as an undrafted free agent out of Notre Dame.

"I think the whole mentality of the younger players nowadays has changed from back when I was a rookie and in my first few years," Hentrich explained. "I came into the league and was spoiled. I came into a great team. And every year we made the playoffs. We never had a record below nine or 10 wins.

"Then I came to Tennessee and the first year we were 8-8 or 7-9 and that was my first losing season. So, I was spoiled early."

His numbers may have been gaudy and the team certainly had plenty of great years while Hentrich was in town, but he acknowledged that punting in Green Bay wasn't as easy as he may have made it look at times.

"It was tough," Hentrich said. "I mean, I had probably what I consider the best year of my career up there and didn't even make the Pro Bowl, so that shows you hard it is to punt up there."

And according to Hentrich, punting in Green Bay may have been even more difficult if it weren't for special teams coach Nolan Cromwell.

"I think the best thing I learned from Nolan was poise," Hentrich explained. "I was so nervous coming into the league and really insecure. I didn't know if I really belonged in this league or not because I didn't know if I was good enough.

"But he taught me poise and confidence that stuck with me to this day. I got to see him for the first time in gosh, eight years, when we played them last year and it was really good to see him again. I owe him a lot."

Hentrich, who has two kids -- a daughter Abbey, and a son Sam -- resides with his wife Lisa, in Canters, Tenn. When it's suggested that Hentrich is still punting at a high level, he said, "Well, not quite as strong as I used to be, so I have to make up for it in other ways. But I still feel pretty good."

Hentrich may have moved on from the Packers, but he admits he still watches William Henderson and Brett Favre as well as a couple others that are still around from the time when he was there. And of course, his Green Bay days still bring him fond memories.

"It was a great run up there and I had a great time," he said.

One aspect of his life that Hentrich hasn't moved on from is his love for golf. For him, it offers another sport he excels in and something he very much enjoys. But despite his success, he claims to have no interest in pursuing it professionally.

"It's something I love to do," Hentrich explained. "It's my passion when I'm not in football. That's my relaxation time to get out there on the golf course and solve the world's problems. I don't know what I do when I'm out there, but I enjoy it.

"I'm just a Sunday hacker and just love to get out and enjoy the company and fresh air."

He probably doesn't have to worry about the turf monster, either.

[HarveyWallbangers]

DARIUS HOLLAND

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/04/1/

Reggie White, Santana Dotson, Gilbert Brown, Sean Jones.

Take a glance at those four names and you understand why the Packers' defensive line was so dominant in the middle to late '90s. Everything about the aforementioned list suggests greatness, if not outright dominance.

It also suggests that there really wasn't much playing time left over for backups along the defensive front.

For Darius Holland, the 6-foot-5, 320-pound defensive tackle, getting on the field in 1996 was very difficult playing behind Dotson and Brown. Instead of viewing this as a discouraging arrangement in his second season with the team, Holland looked at it as just the opposite.

"I think in the long run it benefited us," Holland explained. "It showed versatility, adaptation to different philosophies. That's the thing that's needed in a player. And you'll see a lot of the guys I played with, they didn't get hurt and they played a long time.

"I mean, we had a lot of guys like that. Just blue-collar, get 'er done kind of guys that we just always seemed to be able to depend upon. And none of them were first-round draft choices, except the guy I came in with, Craig Newsome. Outside of that, everybody else was second, third, fourth-rounders that came up and started playing. We were able to be resilient and play well."

Many of the players Holland was referring to arrived with him in the 1995 NFL Draft and played instrumental roles in the success of the team.

"That draft class was special," Holland, 32, acknowledged. "All those guys ended up doing things in other places. They ended up playing for a long period of time, you know. So, it's just amazing. When you've got that caliber of draft where you got four and five guys that are starting in the same year, that's pretty impressive.

"If you think about it, Brian Williams was a third-rounder, you had William (Henderson), who was a third-rounder, myself who was a third-rounder, Adam Timmerman, a seventh-rounder, you had Antonio (Freeman, a third-rounder) and you had Newsome. So you had six guys that eventually started for you. That's impressive.

"It was awesome to have that kind of bench and ability to do that. How often do you find a team that can do that? Not very often."

Holland obviously learned a great deal from the men who played in front of him as he played parts of 10 seasons in the league. He finished out his career playing with the Denver Broncos, but also made stops along the way with Kansas City, Detroit, Cleveland, and Minnesota.

Despite spending his last season in Green Bay in 1997, Holland remembers those days very well and looks back on his time there with a smile. He said the best part about the team was "the relationships and how everyone got to grow together."

Still, it has been difficult to stay in touch with his Packer teammates throughout the years.

"Now, you kind of sit back and not only wonder where guys are, but more importantly how they're doing," Holland said. "I mean, like myself, I have been in the league for 10 years so you run across guys when you're playing, but when you stop playing, it's difficult because everybody goes and does their own thing.

"So, it tends to be difficult and you try to do the best of your ability. But numbers change, locations change. You just hope that once in a while you get to run across somebody and say hello."

Though Holland may only have been out of the league for two seasons, he said it's difficult to keep tabs on the Packers or any team, for that matter.

"I think when I was younger and I was playing, I'd get excited about somebody playing," Holland explained. "Well, now, you just kind of get out of it. Something does something to you when you play that you just can't get out of it when you don't play. There's not as much joy. You hope your guys or friends do well, but you lose that camaraderie, you lose that team spirit or whatever you want to call it."

Clearly Holland has moved on from his days as an NFL football player. But Holland, who was adopted in his teen years, is thankful he won a Super Bowl ring with the Packers, even though he no longer has it in his possession.

"When I knew I was going to retire, I gave the ring to my dad," Holland said. "He thought it was pretty cool. We had a private little ceremony between me, my mom, and dad, and brothers and sisters."

One thing Holland hasn't given away but has actually acquired in his time away from Green Bay is a renewed faith in God. He says that Stonebrook Christian Church in Denver and his son Isaiah, 10, are the two best things to happen to him in the last 10 years.

"You know, I think it took a long time for me," Holland said. "It wasn't really until a couple years ago that I started to recognize that part of being deep in my faith."

Holland said he helped the Broncos out in that area as well and said he remembered some of the things an old friend taught him.

"I really enjoyed it," Holland said. "I'm not ordained, therefore, I'm not a pastor, but I would say I'm more like a lay pastor or someone who basically is an educated seminarian.

"Reggie being a mentor in my life, I think it's a blessing today that his legacy exists because of things he put into each individual. This would be one of those things."

[HarveyWallbangers]

LAMONT HOLLINQUEST

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/05/1/

Lamont Hollinquest only played three seasons in Green Bay but that doesn't mean he doesn't consider himself a lifelong Packer.

In 1996, Hollinquest appeared in all 16 regular season games as well as the three postseason games that followed. The 6-foot-3, 243-pound outside linebacker may not have played extensively on defense, but to say he had a prominent role on special teams would be an understatement.

In fact, Hollinquest finished with 15 special teams stops in the regular season, second only to Bernardo Harris for the team lead.

Yet, for all the impressive feats the team accomplished on it's run to a Super Bowl XXXI victory, as well as his individual contributions to the team, all of that takes a back seat to what Hollinquest, 35, remembers the most.

"The camaraderie was unbelievable," Hollinquest said. "We had leaders like Brett Favre, Reggie White, LeRoy Butler and Santana Dotson. The years I played in the league with Cincinnati and Washington, that type of team camaraderie is something we didn't have."

The fact that Hollinquest had played football since he was a youngster but never enjoyed the game the way he did with Green Bay is the ultimate testimony of how unique the team really was.

"Without a doubt, playing in Green Bay was definitely the first time I had fun playing football," Hollinquest explained.

The players that made up that team will forever live in Hollinquest's memory, too.

"I still feel that the team, even though I haven't seen a lot of these guys and even some since then, I feel like we have a bond as a team that will never be broken," Hollinquest said.

Before he landed in Green Bay, Hollinquest was hanging on for his football life. Washington drafted him out of the University of Southern California in 1993 and he played nearly two seasons for the Redskins before Cincinnati picked him up. But he never played a game in a Bengals' uniform, and then he spent the 1995 season out of football.

At that point Hollinquest's future was looking pretty bleak, but all Hollinquest wanted was a chance, and a certain coach gave him just that.

Of course, that coach was Mike Holmgren.

"Mike Holmgren, being an USC alumni, he gave me a second chance in my career," Hollinquest explained. "After going through some hardships in Washington and Cincinnati, Mike Holmgren didn't listen to any of the negative stuff that had been out there and he gave me a chance."

Obviously his football days are over, but Hollinquest has long since moved on to another career. He lives in Phoenix, Az., and has three children -- Chaz, 15, Courtney, 12, and Cohl, 8. He currently serves as an enrollment advisor with Phoenix Online, an online university that serves the educational needs of working adults.

Working with music has always been one of Hollinquest's hobbies, and he's parlayed that passion into his position as vice president of operations for the record company Blaq Ice Entertainment (http://www.blaqice.com). He also has a clothing line called Urban Grunge Apparel Company, which is geared toward cycle sports and board sports. Hollinquest would also like to get into public relations work down the road, too.

Despite all the hard work and dedication to his new line of work, Hollinquest has managed to keep tabs on his old team. And although most of the guys he played with are no longer on the team, Hollinquest said that will never affect how he feels about the Green Bay Packers.

"Oh man, I'm a Packer Backer forever," Hollinquest said. "Win, lose, or draw, I follow every game."

It just goes to show that "once a Packer" means "always a Packer" to some.

[woodbuck27]

I don't re-call that Packer.

ST's and OLB, mmmm. I really don't remember him.

GO PACKERS !

[Badgepack]

Are DVD's of the 1996 Superbowl game available?

[b bulldog]

He was a very good Special teamer who was also a backup LB. He left for a year or so to KC but came back for a season and was than cut. I think he wore #56.

[b bulldog]

Once a Packer, always a Packer.

[HarveyWallbangers]

Woody is trying to trump me on these, but I'm posting them all in this thread anyways.

DESMOND HOWARD

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/06/1/

With the season Desmond Howard enjoyed in 1996, it's almost a shock that the big-wigs in Hollywood didn't knock down his door with thoughts of reenacting his every move.

After all, you could make one unbelievable film based on the year Howard had in helping the Green Bay Packers win their first Super Bowl in 29 years. Among other accolades, Howard finished with 875 punt return yards, which demolished the NFL single-season record of 692 previously held by Fulton Walker.

He also held an NFL-best 15.1-yard average per punt return, making him the first Packer to lead the league in that category since Ken Ellis in 1972.

The irony to the Howard story, however, is that the movie producers probably wouldn't be interested in Howard's special season solely for how it concluded.

No, it's the fact that Desmond Howard's season nearly ended, at least in Green Bay, before it began.

Long before Howard earned three "NFC Defensive Special Teams Player of the Week" awards in the regular season as well as one in the postseason, he was fighting just to earn a spot on the Packers' roster in '96.

And it's not as if the Packers' brass wasn't giving him every opportunity to show what he could do.

General Manager Ron Wolf liked the potential that made Howard the No. 4 overall pick out of Michigan by the Washington Redskins in 1992. So he figured he had nothing to lose in taking a flyer on Howard.

The only problem was that Howard didn't get on the field that often in training camp. That is, until August 11, when the Packers hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers at Lambeau Field. Perhaps it still doesn't get enough publicity, but it shouldn't be understated that Howard began his legacy in Green Bay during what otherwise might be termed a meaningless preseason game.

Howard, who had played the previous season in Jacksonville, took a punt return for a 77-yard touchdown and neither he nor the Packers looked back with their return game from that point on.

Even Howard admitted that he came a long way in his quest from preseason pickup to special teams stalwart.

"It was such a special season because of the ups and downs," he said. "I think the trials and tribulations you have to go through make things that much sweeter at the end. So it was a great season from the Monday night victories we had, even going back to the preseason games. That game I had against Pittsburgh, with a punt return for a touchdown, it pretty much started everything up there for me. It's just a lot of great, great memories for a special season."

It may never be known why Howard didn't originally experience the same kind of success at the NFL level that he had at Michigan. Maybe it was because the Redskins and Jaguars were hoping he'd develop a little faster at wide receiver. Or maybe it was because expectations were too high for a player that once was one of college's best.

Whatever reason Howard's career didn't take off, at least initially, was even a mystery to Howard himself.

"I think as players, if you're a player from a big collegiate program who's used to playing in big games, you think it's going to carry over," Howard admitted. "You feel as though you're going to carry that over to the NFL. That's what you're about: big games.

"If you go to the University of Miami, I don't think those players think they're going to the NFL and then are not going to play in big games and be impact players. If you're from Florida State, Ohio State, Michigan or Notre Dame, it's the same. I think that's the real mindset of a player who has played in the big games and played in a big program that has been successful."

Well, to Howard's credit, he proved that he could indeed succeed on the game's biggest stage after all: Super Bowl XXXI.

The 5-foot-10, 190-pound playmaker did as he had all season, getting a game-breaking return when the Packers needed it most. With New England cutting Green Bay's lead to 27-21 near the end of the third quarter, Howard took the ensuing kickoff 99 yards for a back-breaking touchdown (the longest in Super Bowl history), bursting through the middle of the Packers' well-blocked wedge then juking kicker Adam Vinatieri to break free.

Howard finished with 244 total return yards in the game en route to becoming the first special teams player to ever win MVP.

Howard, who now lives in Florida and works for ESPN's College Gameday program, said recently that the Super Bowl was a dream come true for him.

"It's really one of those honors that when it's bestowed upon you, there's really no words that explain it, Howard said. "There are probably a handful of experiences in life that can fall under that same category. That's just one of those crème de la crème. It doesn't get any better than that."

The fact that it's been 10 seasons since the Packers won the Super Bowl also comes as a surprise to Howard. He mentioned that the highlight clips he sees of that special day make it seem more real.

"They (movies and documentaries) do such a fabulous job building up that excitement and getting that adrenaline flowing again, letting you know how special that moment really was," he said. "I think that's when you get an understanding of what you accomplished."

Speaking of recognition, Howard may have had one of the all-time best seasons in not only Packers lore, but NFL history as well. But it wasn't good enough to get him voted into the Pro Bowl in Hawaii.

Interestingly enough, Howard likes to use that story to illustrate just how good the Packers' special teams units were, and he doesn't mean just the return units, either.

"Some people don't remember that, but I was pretty much snubbed for the Pro Bowl that year, and they chose Michael Bates from Carolina," Howard explained. "Well, not only did we return kicks well, but we shut him down in the NFC Championship Game and he was the NFC special teams Pro Bowler returning kicks.

"And then in the Super Bowl, I believe New England had Dave Meggett and he was the representative from the AFC. So obviously we had a monster game returning kicks because I got MVP, but the flip side was that we also shut down the AFC Pro Bowler, Meggett, because they really didn't do anything. They didn't really bust a grape in the return game."

For all the success he had, it wouldn't be out of the question for Howard to take a bulk of the credit, but that's not his style. Instead, he gushes when he speaks of the quality teammates he had, not to mention Nolan Cromwell, his special teams coach.

"I think that those guys were very, very special," Howard said. "I always tell people when I talk about special teams -- and I don't know how much airplay this particular response gets -- but we had a great special teams both ways, returning kicks and defending against them. The kickoff team was special, the punt team was special. We covered kicks well and we returned kicks well. We were a very, very good special teams.

"That has to be attributed to Nolan Cromwell. Nolan Cromwell did a great job of preparing for us for teams week in and week out. But it wasn't just the return game, we took a lot of pride in stopping the top returners also. And I don't think that our special teams, those individuals that were a part of it, get enough credit."

According to Howard, it also didn't hurt that a certain leader stepped up and let the team know, after a Monday night loss versus the Cowboys in Week 12, that it wasn't acceptable for Howard to be suffocated every time he touched the ball the way he was that particular night.

"I pretty much just got pummeled by their best special teams coverage person," Howard explained. "And after that game, we watched film on Tuesday evening and I remember Reggie White stood up in the meeting and he was like, 'Listen, I don't want to see little Desmond getting hit like that back there again. If you got an assignment, you've got to get your man because we've got a guy who at any point at any time can go the distance. And if not go the distance, at least put us in excellent field position. So, I don't want to see this happen again.'"

It turned out to be a powerful memo, especially coming from a man of White's ilk. Fortunately for the Packers' sake, Bill Parcells and the New England Patriots didn't get the message until it was too late and Desmond Howard went from preseason pickup to Super Bowl hero.

Hey, if that's not a script straight out of Hollywood, what is?

[HarveyWallbangers]

CHRIS JACKE

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/08/1/

Playing in the Super Bowl is no small feat. That much is obvious. After all, playing on the world's biggest stage is something a select few players ever get an opportunity to do in their NFL careers.

What isn't so obvious, however, is that for the players that do climb the mountain, it's not always the game itself that they remember the most.

For Chris Jacke, who played for the Packers for eight seasons, it was the journey to Super Bowl XXXI that he looks back on the most. And from what he remembers, the fact that the Packers had only three losses and had little trouble with the rest of their schedule comes to the forefront of his mind.

"I would just say we dominated," Jacke said. "That's the way it was then. In prior years before that, we were knocking on the door against Dallas, we just couldn't knock it down.

"Obviously we knocked the door down and we went all the way. And that's what I remember from that year of the Super Bowl."

Jacke, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound kicker, had plenty to do with the Packers' success, too. He had one of his best seasons in Green Bay in '96, scoring 114 points and converting on nearly 80 percent of his field goal attempts. Currently, he's third on the team's all-time scoring list.

With numbers like that, it's clear that Jacke had several critical kicks in his career, but it doesn't take him long to decide which one is his favorite.

"The San Francisco game that went to overtime is the one that I remember the most," Jacke said. "It was the Monday Night game and I made the long game-winner. To me that game was the turning point to our season. That was another team we had trouble beating to that point."

The kick Jacke is referring to is a 53-yarder that he booted through the uprights in Week 7. It happened to be his fifth field goal of the game, and it was the longest game-winner ever in overtime. What's more, Jacke also made a kick with eight seconds left in regulation to force the extra session.

According to Jacke, who also made two field goals in the Super Bowl win over the Patriots, playing in such a big game was "a lot of times like a blur."

"There is just so much going on leading up to the game that the game is almost like a side note," Jacke added. "You really remember after the game, you don't remember too much during the game. You're so in awe of everything that's going on, the media hype, the fans, New Orleans.

"But after the game it was just great. Everybody being down on the field, the presentation of the trophy, it's those things that stick out the most. It's really nothing particular during the game, just finally getting to bring the Lombardi Trophy back to Green Bay."

For a kicker who seemingly had no trouble kicking in pressure-packed situations, he admitted that the Super Bowl wasn't easy on the nerves.

"We were all nervous," Jacke said. "It didn't matter if you were a rookie that year or a 10- or 11-year vet, and we had a couple of those on the team. It was just a whole new ballgame being in the Super Bowl. I was nervous before the game, everybody was nervous before the game. But it was a lot of fun."

It turned out to be Jacke's last game as a Green Bay Packer, as he moved on to stints with the Washington Redskins and Arizona Cardinals. However, Jacke never really left Green Bay.

He still resides there with his wife Tracey and their two sons Jacob, 12, and Jonah, 10. To Jacke, who now works in financial planning for a company called MML Group in Appleton, Green Bay has been home for a long time.

"Well, obviously, it's a great community," Jacke explained. "This is a great area to have kids and I played here for eight years. I left home when I was 18 for college and never looked back.

"I was originally from Dallas and haven't really been back other than to see my parents, who still live there. I've basically just stayed here other than the couple years after I left the Packers."

Now, life is all about family for the Jackes, and Chris wouldn't want it any other way. He admitted that getting back in touch with family life once again is the most significant thing that has happened to him since he left the game.

"I guess getting to know my kids again (is the most significant)," Jacke explained. "I have two young boys and I think just being able to be around and raise them and not be off on the road for football is very important. I don't miss that working out year round. Even for kickers, we had to work out year round and then be ready for training camp. I don't miss it. I enjoy being around the kids."

So, does Jacke still find the time to watch the Packers or the game he loved and played for so long?

"Well, not too often," Jacke admitted. "With the kids being involved with things, it's difficult to watch football a whole lot. But if it's a good game between a couple good teams, I will. I still make it to a couple games in person.

"But do I really follow it per se? No. We'll be out and someone will say, 'Hey, that's so-and-so.' And I'll be like, 'Well, who's that so-and-so?' I don't know. I really don't follow them a whole lot."

It should come as no surprise that just like in his football days, Jacke's journey with his children is more important than the destination.

[woodbuck27]

[quote="HarveyWallbangers"]Woody is trying to trump me on these, but I'm posting them all in this thread anyways.


Harvey: I now re-call you doing this thread ( I was into it to post on not re-calling LAMONT HOLLINQUEST ) and I forgot about it yesterday when I found the write-up on Desmond Howard. Sorry . . .

yet, I do believe his story can, as well stand by itself being the Super Bowl MVP.

[HarveyWallbangers]

KEITH JACKSON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/09/1/

It's no secret that the weather in Green Bay isn't for everybody. Some choose to stay away altogether, while others learn to like it. In the case of Keith Jackson, he simply learned to live with it.

Initially, however, Jackson seriously contemplated not showing up in Green Bay at all.

Actually, after being traded to the Packers in March of 1995, Jackson sat out all of training camp as well as the team's first six regular season games.

But the tight end finally reported on October 20, indeed proving it is better late than never. Though it's impossible to know for certain whether or not the Packers would have captured a Super Bowl title the following year without Jackson, one cannot argue against what he brought to the Packers' table.

He may have been 30 years old at the time with already seven seasons in the league, but his skills were as sharp as ever. In fact, General Manager Ron Wolf gave up a second-round pick to acquire Jackson even though he knew there was a possibility he wouldn't ever play in Green Bay.

Fortunately for all parties involved, it never came down to that. Jackson showed up for work and provided the Packers with another downfield threat to go with Antonio Freeman and Robert Brooks. With Mark Chmura already in the fold, the Packers suddenly had a one-two combo at tight end better than any team in the league.

According to Jackson, being part of a great team -- one that he knew could win the Super Bowl -- and playing an important role in an explosive offense were the key factors in his decision to join the team.

When it came to his reluctance to be a part of the team from the get go, Jackson doesn't hide the real reason.

"It had nothing to do with Green Bay," Jackson explained. "It had everything to do with cold weather."

Jackson admitted just as there were misconceptions about him, he also had some preconceived notions about Green Bay. That is, until Reggie White set the record straight.

"You know, before Reggie White joined Green Bay, it was kind of a place you got drafted to, and you had to play there," Jackson said. "That was kind of the thought about Green Bay.

"Then Reggie White goes up there and says, 'Hey, God wants me to go up to Green Bay.' And he started calling around the league and telling people how great it is, how good the people are. 'Yes, it gets cold, but let me tell you something, it's a nice place as a football town, and you'll love it.' He became a huge ambassador at that time, across the NFL, in the offseason, at the Pro Bowl. He would talk about Green Bay all the time.

"It made me look at Green Bay for more than just this place like Siberia, but also for the football team that it had. And once you get there, the tradition, the history, you're just done. You're bought in for the rest of your life."

Jackson played in Philadelphia with White earlier in his career, and the two remained close friends through the years. Due to that friendship, Jackson trusted White's word on what Green Bay was like.

"Oh, he was huge in the recruitment of me coming up there," Jackson recalled. "Because I just left Miami and I wanted to go somewhere else warm and play. I was pushing Barry Switzer in Dallas. Buddy Ryan was in Phoenix. So, I was pushing to get to those spots where there were coaches I knew, already had relationships with, and guys that understood me."

The 6-foot-2, 249-pound Jackson wasn't thrilled about how he found out he'd been traded, either.

"I didn't know about it," said Jackson, 41. "I found out that I was traded to Green Bay on a flight back from Africa. I picked up a USA Today when I got to London Heathrow because I hadn't seen any news and I picked up the paper and there I was. That's how I found out.

"So, the whole thing didn't go down the way I thought it should. And it was one of the greatest blessings that could have ever happened to me. Sometimes we will miss a blessing and I almost missed out on that."

Chmura, Holmgren Gave Jackson Chance to Succeed in Titletown
Well, if Jackson was blessed to be in Green Bay, the Packers were certainly blessed to have him, too. Despite technically being a reserve behind Chmura, he finished with 10 touchdown catches in '96 and earned the sixth Pro Bowl selection of his career.

Perhaps what gets lost in all of this success is that Chmura was coming off a great season in 1994 and many players would have probably sulked over a new role. But when Jackson arrived in '95, Chmura embraced the idea of having such a talented tandem at Brett Favre's disposal. And that is what made this a successful setup in Jackson's mind.

"We had a one-two punch with me and Chewy," Jackson said. "And you talk about fitting a hat on a hat, and driving guys in the ground and blocking, as they say, 'blocking out the sun,' he could do it. Really when it came to all that pounding and contact, he took a lot of that.

"It was a great relationship between us two tight ends. And I realized my role at the time. It was to make big plays downfield. That was my job. This is what I do. At that point, it wasn't hard to do in the cold or the warm. But if I had to sit there and pound like Chewy did everyday making all those blocks, it would have been a lot colder."

It also didn't hurt that the commander of the team, Head Coach Mike Holmgren, engineered several ways to make the most out of not only Jackson and Chmura's talents, but the whole offensive unit as well. To this day, Jackson is still impressed by Holmgren's approach.

"I think that Mike Holmgren was one of the greatest offensive minds that I have ever been around," Jackson said.

"He's a brilliant mind and he's also an educator. And that's what I take from that season. I had many coaches, but none of them came from a background of education where they were educators and all they wanted to do was teach the game. He didn't scream and holler and tell you about your daddy, kick you in the butt, or grab your facemask.

"He was just an educator. He sat down, and he showed you why you should do certain things. That was a valuable season. Both seasons were, but the Super Bowl season, seeing him put the game plan together, and outthinking coaches, just from a veteran player's standpoint, that was fun to sit there and watch."

Big Play Made Possible By Reading Favre and Patriots' Defense
For a player who seemingly did it all in his career -- several Pro Bowls, a Super Bowl ring, putting up gaudy statistics -- Jackson no doubt has a bundle of memories too large to share.

Perhaps it's fitting that Jackson's fondest memory comes from the biggest game of his career. But chances are, you'd be very surprised what play it is that he remembers the most.

It turns out that Jackson didn't even catch the ball on the play, but his most enjoyable moment was the 54-yard touchdown reception by Andre Rison that set the tone for the game and gave the Packers a 7-0 lead.

"Brett Favre will check to where he wants the two receivers to cross and I think he called razor," Jackson explained. "You'd have one person running a corner and one person running a post, and he checks to it. But the problem is we're in a three-receiver set. Usually it's me and another receiver and we run the play. But I've got two receivers outside of me, and I see what he's trying to do.

"I saw Lawyer Milloy, who was a corner, trying to hold Andre Rison. The greatest thing to me in that game was that I was able to pick that up, see what he was trying to do from a quarterback's standpoint, and stay in to give max protection so he can get that touchdown off."

Jackson admits he doesn't care if people knew the role he played in that touchdown, either.

"I think I'm still the only one who knows about it," Jackson said. "No one ever said anything to me about it, but that's not what it was about. It was about winning the game and to me, it's one of those things where I call myself a student of the game. And as a student of the game who really challenges himself, I was proud of myself for picking it up."

He closed out the final chapter of his playing days with a Super Bowl championship, but to truly understand Jackson and what he stands for, you have to realize that he doesn't consider it the most important accomplishment of his career.

Instead, that honor belongs to what keeps him busy these days, something that also almost prevented him from coming to Green Bay in '95.

Touching the Lives of Others Tops Jackson's List
Jackson, who lives in Little Rock, Ark., with his wife Melanie, and their children, Keith Jr., 21, Kenyon, 7, and Koilan, 6, is the president and the executive director of P.A.R.K., which stands for Positive Atmosphere Reaches Kids (www.positivekids.org)

According to the website, P.A.R.K. is a comprehensive after-school program for at-risk youth, grades 8 through 12. It offers a balanced program of homework management and tutoring, sports and recreation, leadership development and community service to students from Little Rock and Pulaski County schools.

Jackson also finds the time to broadcast football games for the Arkansas Razorbacks, for whom Keith Jr. plays defensive tackle. But his work with P.A.R.K. is what he takes the most pride in.

"I say it's been more important than my Super Bowl ring and I don't think anybody gets mad at me," Jackson admitted.

"It takes students that are struggling academically, puts them in a program that attacks their deficiencies, and sends them off to college," he explained. "That's what I gave up football to come and do and I have been doing it since the day I retired. I'm here all the time, seeing a lot of success stories go through. I founded it, started it, and we've been able to run it this long."

Jackson said P.A.R.K. had been in its "infant stages" when he was playing for the Eagles. When he moved on to the Dolphins, money was being raised for a building, and when he arrived in Green Bay, the building was in place, as were the program's first students.

P.A.R.K. has been a success ever since.

"We've had 103 kids graduate," Jackson said proudly. "We've sent 79 off to college and we had our first two kids graduate from college. Usually the grade-point average of kids who come into our program is about 1.8, but they have a high success of not only going to college, but sticking with college."

Despite serving as the man behind the creation of P.A.R.K., and obviously a large part of its success, Jackson doesn't want to take credit for the program.

"Well, you know it was a vision from God," Jackson said. "I can't say I came up with the idea because I have no educational background. I went to the University of Oklahoma, and majored in communications. It was just a vision God gave me to be able to give back.

"There's a scripture that says, 'To him that much is given, much is required.' And to think about where I came from as a kid from the inner city to the NFL, boy I had been given a lot. So my level of giving back had to go up a couple notches.

"We have the ability to do it and we need to go do it."

If you didn't know any better, you'd think that message was the exact same one that brought Jackson to Green Bay in 1995.

[HarveyWallbangers]

TRAVIS JERVEY

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/10/1/

It's not surprising that Travis Jervey loves surfing and hanging out at the beach, having been born and raised in South Carolina.

Needless to say, when Jervey served as a backup running back with the Packers' Super Bowl XXXI team, he didn't get a chance to catch any waves during the season. But once the offseason arrived, Jervey would head to his favorite vacation spot: Costa Rica.

After four years with the Green and Gold, two with the San Francisco 49ers and three with the Atlanta Falcons, Jervey is now officially retired in South Carolina. But, he'd be the first to tell you that he's basically the same fun-loving extremist who loves to surf, work out, and spend time with his new wife Annie Vann Harlingen. He even has the same pet, Jaco, the Labrador he had in Green Bay.

Clearly, he still has the same interests, but Jervey also now finds more time for his business called Fit Street Fitness. He was a part owner of the fitness center for four years, but as of December, he took over the business completely, which has been a rewarding experience for the 34-year old Jervey.

"It's been really good for me so far," Jervey said. "I've been making some money and also interacting with people and helping them feel good, showing them how to work out, that sort of thing."

Jervey, the muscle-cut speedster who was always in impeccable shape during his NFL career, said he still works out every day himself. But when his career ended, Jervey was in unfamiliar territory and in some respects didn't know what to do with himself. He bought a house two doors down from his parents' residence where he grew up and spent six months in Costa Rica. And Jervey even took up gardening, until he admitted he got bored with it.

Jervey said it's difficult to beat the relaxation of Costa Rica.

"I hang out in Costa Rica all the time," Jervey explained. "I have 12 acres down there in the Dominical. I surf down there, and I have a bunch of friends down there. I've been going there for 10 years, ever since my first year in Green Bay. In the offseason, I was spending a couple months down there. Every year, I would spend more and more time.

"There are a whole lot of people from Wisconsin from down there. I bet my in my village there are probably 250 people, and there are probably 10 Wisconsin people down there. It seems like in all tropical places, there are a lot of people from Wisconsin."

Despite spending so much time in warm weather, Jervey laughs at the notion that playing in Wisconsin and getting acclimated to the cold temperatures would be a tall order for him.

"You know people think it's so cold there, but it's also one of the hottest places I've ever been," Jervey said of Wisconsin. "I mean Wisconsin summers are like 100 degrees. It's so hot. But I always enjoyed playing in the cold. I'm a big weather person so I like any kind of extreme weather."

Extreme weather in Wisconsin? Jervey certainly can attest to that.

"I saw hail in Green Bay and it was the craziest thing I had ever seen," Jervey said. "I went out in the middle of the night and it was completely silent, and then there were these crashes every now and then. It was hail the size of a softball and it wasn't shaped round. It dented my car all up."

Weather wasn't the only thing in Jervey's life that would fall under the "extreme" classification while he was in Green Bay, either.

Jervey lived with fellow running back LeShon Johnson during part of his time as a Packer and the two lived by the Oneida Indian Reservation, near the airport. At the time, Johnson had 18 pit bulls, and they both took care of a female pet lion named Nala.

According to Jervey, Nala was a great pet. It even slept with Jervey from time to time. But after five months, there came a point when they knew it was time for Nala to find a new home.

"It did bite me one night and that's pretty much when we decided to get rid of it," Jervey explained. "Once it got to the size of a dog, it started to get pretty aggressive. I mean, it was so durable and it looked like a cat, but acted like a puppy. It started to chew on everything. I felt sorry for it too. We played with it all the time, but obviously it's cold in the winter and we had to keep it in the house.

"We took it to a ranch and they are taking care of it. It's really doing well, it's out in Oklahoma at this ranch where a guy had been in the business for like 40 years. Kids can see it and it's got a good home."

A different home altogether is what Head Coach Mike Holmgren preferred.

"He was more concerned than anything," Jervey recalled. "He just wanted to find out if it was true that we had it and why we did. It was funny. He didn't want it to affect our game, I guess."

It turned out that Holmgren never really had anything to worry about. In '96, Jervey tied Bernardo Harris for the team lead in postseason special teams tackles with six, including three in the NFC Championship versus the Carolina Panthers. He also backed up Edgar Bennett and Dorsey Levens, which made carries difficult to come by.

But Jervey's role was still impressive considering he came from the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. Even though the school was not known to produce a great deal of athletes, Jervey never thought his odds were longer than anyone else's to make it in the National Football League.

"Everyone's different I guess, but ever since I was a little kid, I said I was going to play in the NFL," Jervey said. "I really thought I would. I was always the best player on my team. The fastest. The strongest kid in my high school.

"I think my senior year we had the most yardage of anyone in the NCAA and I had the highest average per carry of any player. And once they timed me, I ran so fast, and I was definitely going to get drafted."

While Jervey acknowledges he had a lifelong goal of making it in the league, it would have been difficult for even him to predict he was going to play on a Super Bowl team once he got there. Just like so many of his teammates, Jervey cherishes the title he won in Green Bay and the piece of jewelry that came with it. And now he shares that excitement with those at his fitness center, too.

"I've been carrying it (Super Bowl ring) around in this leather bag lately," Jervey said. "Some people at the gym want to see it. I don't wear it, but I'll carry it around in this bag and break it out and show it to them. I'll wear it to special occasions, mostly. When I'm older, like 50, I'll wear it all the time I decided."

By then, Jervey will probably still be working out, surfing, and enjoying life on the beach. And he'll still carry the same allegiances to his favorite team.

"I'm still a huge Packer fan," Jervey explained. "I'll be a Packer fan for life. We were all family. They're my family's favorite team. Everybody that I meet, if they remember me, they remember me as a Packer."

[woodbuck27]

Solid Harvey. :mrgreen:

[HarveyWallbangers]

SEAN JONES

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/11/1/

When Sean Jones signed with the Packers in 1994, he wasn't new to success. He already had 881/2 career sacks, a Pro Bowl appearance, and was generally considered one of the best players at his position in the NFL.

But one thing was missing: a Super Bowl ring on the defensive end's finger.

That was something Jones set out to change just as Green Bay was starting to turn the corner by competing at a high level on an annual basis. Naturally, it was a great fit for both parties. And beyond that, Jones already had a relationship with General Manager Ron Wolf, who was in the front office for the Raiders when Jones played there.

So when he had the opportunity to sign a defensive end with the resume Jones had, it would be a piece of cake for Wolf, right?

Well, the answer to that was yes and no, according to Jones. He said that he was interested in the Packers and he knew Wolf was interested in his services as well, but it wasn't quite that simple.

"I talked to Ron at the time and I said, 'Are you going to try and get me up there?'" Jones, 43, recalled. "And he's like, 'You've got to love football to play up in Green Bay.'

"So I became a free agent and we started arguing about nickels at the end, and he said, 'I thought you loved football. Then it shouldn't make a difference.' It was another $200,000 and he said again, 'If you love football, this is a special place.'"

Indeed, he later found that to be true. But coming from a man like Wolf, Jones said he really didn't have any doubts in the first place.

"It was everything I expected and more," said Jones, a native of Kingston, Jamaica. "And you know, it's just a matter of trust. I trusted Ron."

In addition to having an opportunity to play for a Super Bowl title, Jones felt that it was important to have the support of good players around him, particularly a solid defensive end on the opposite side.

Of course, that player was the dominating force named Reggie White.

"I've always played with a good defensive end," the 6-foot-7, 283-pound Jones said. "In Oakland and Houston (where he spent six seasons), I had a nice cast of players around me and good ends, too. So, I was accustomed to playing with good players.

"When I got there (Green Bay), at first it was just me and Reggie. Which is OK, all I need is one. Then Santana (Dotson) and Gilbert (Brown) came along."

The Jones-White tandem was going to be a great one. That wasn't a secret. In his three seasons there, Jones racked up 241/2 total sacks. And Green Bay's defense finished as the top-ranked unit, leading the league in several defensive categories.

However, Jones admits that even he didn't know the unit, and the defensive line in particular, would be as good as it was.

"With Santana, people were questioning him as to what kind of player he would be," Jones explained. "And then you had Gilbert, who people were questioning that he was just this chubby guy.

"When you put me, Santana and Gilbert altogether, and then Reggie, it was pick-your-poison. It was fun."

Of course, Jones' fun didn't stop when the games were done. He saw to it that his teammates enjoyed themselves off the field as well. To him, sharing interests outside of the gridiron would translate to success on it.

That's a big reason Jones began the team tradition to eat chicken wings on Thursday nights.

"To have Thursday nights where you have 30-something of your teammates there, drinking everything from a beer to a Diet Coke in Reggie and Keith Jackson's case, that's how you build camaraderie," Jones said. "That's what I really remember. We had a bunch of guys that really cared about each other. It's a sport where teamwork is important.

"Some guys might think those are my guys when we are playing. But a lot of times when they stop playing, they aren't teammates. So we had a very good standing with teamwork. And we had good teammates who cared about each other and who took care of each other. We made Mike Holmgren's job very easy. He didn't have to control things off the field with us because we took care of it ourselves."

Jones said it was instances like those Thursday nights that he remembers the most from his time in Green Bay.

"The fondest memories are just the camaraderie," Jones recalled. "Luckily for me, I had it everywhere I went. It was something that I tried to develop. I made it a point that if it was something that wasn't there when I got there, I wanted to make sure it was there. That's what I remember the most. I learned it with the Raiders, I had it with Houston, and then I perfected it with Green Bay."

During his three seasons with the Packers, Jones obviously made many memories. He hasn't forgotten about the men who made those moments possible, either.

And it wasn't just teammates who brought joy to his life. Jones also had a mentor, friend, and leader that he learned a great deal from in the late Fritz Shurmur, the defensive coordinator.

"Fritz was like the old grandfather that kept saying the same things over that you didn't pay attention to," Jones recalled with a laugh. "But then when you start living your life, you have success and failures. And you think of what Fritz tried to teach you.

"I wish I had the chance to tell Fritz the impact he had on my life and the love I had for him. He really did impact me as a man. And he really taught so much. I came there as a seasoned veteran who had tremendous success before I got there, I got to the Pro Bowl, all the things. But he still taught me so many things."

Jones said he visited Shurmur and his wife, Peggy, at their home shortly before he passed away. They mostly talked about teammates and the great times they had together, including the Super Bowl title they brought to Green Bay.

According to Jones, there were plenty of people who transformed that dream into a reality.

"We had Desmond Howard and that was special," Jones recalled. "We had Andre Rison and he was special for us. Antonio Freeman, he was special. Keith Jackson, Chmura, all our skill guys were good.

"We had a great, not just good, but great front-line players that could dominate and wanted to dominate. They had an air about them, a cockiness about them that they didn't want to be defeated."

Football seems to be in Jones' blood. You get the feeling that it's also where he belongs. And that's why he hasn't given the game up, though he's been out of the league since the Packers won the Super Bowl.

Jones is currently in his third season in personnel for the Oakland Raiders. He also worked for FOX television doing football games for three years as well. He and his wife Tina have a son, Dylan and a daughter, Daryl.

He doesn't know when he will get the chance again, but Jones would love to come back to Green Bay. Tina and the kids travel to a couple games a year and also have a fondness for the Packers.

"It's hard to work for the Oakland Raiders when your kid is cheering for the Packers," Jones explained. "Daryl wasn't even born yet when I was up there, but her favorite team is the Packers," he added with a laugh.

To think, all of this nearly slipped away for Jones heading into his last season with Green Bay in '96. That's when Wolf approached him about re-doing part of his contract.

Jones was admittedly hesitant at first, but the conversation went back to the one he and Wolf had before Jones became a Packer two seasons earlier.

"He was like, 'Once again, you said you wanted to come here and win a championship, and if you're with us, I guarantee you we will win a championship,'" Jones recalled.

Needless to say, Jones accepted less money, but got a rich reward with a Super Bowl win.

Ten years later, it's safe to say Jones' trust in Wolf really did pay off.

[HarveyWallbangers]

GEORGE KOONCE

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/13/1/

After middle linebacker George Koonce tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee against the San Francisco 49ers during the Divisional Playoff game in January, 1997, he took on a different role with the Packers three weeks later in Super Bowl XXXI.

"I was a coach/player," Koonce said. "When guys came to the sideline, I kind of gave them a little bit of insight of what I was seeing from a coach's standpoint."

Koonce, 37, continues to guide Packers players in his new job as Packers' director of player development. In March 2006, Koonce succeeded Turner Gill in helping players and their families prepare for life after football. He develops their ability to adjust to their next career through internships, continuing education, family assistance and financial management.

"Their playing days are going to come to an end one day," Koonce said. "And I just want those guys to be prepared so that when they take that jersey off, it's a smooth transition."

Koonce has experience aiding athletes and advancing in the academic and career world. One year after beginning his master's degree in sports management at East Carolina, he accepted a job as assistant athletic director/program development at his alma mater. He raised money, recruited, took prospective student-athletes on tours and offered academic support.

Before working for East Carolina, Koonce took advantage of the knowledge he gained there. After leaving the NFL for good in 2001, the former industrial technology construction management major developed Koonce Properties -- a real estate holding designed for New Bern, N.C., multi-families. Over the years, he expanded it from 48 to 160 units. His wife Tunisia (who has a UNC-Charlotte business major) and mother Lina oversee the properties with Koonce now preoccupied with his Packers job.

As Koonce readies Packers players for their eventual career transition, he underwent quite a conversion himself before the 1996 season. To make room for emerging outside linebacker Brian Williams, Koonce switched from right outside linebacker to middle linebacker with only a week left in the preseason. Koonce, who played that middle position for two years at Chowan Junior College in Murfreesboro, N.C., adjusted seamlessly. The former undrafted free agent led the team in total tackles that year with 97.

"When I first broke in to the Packers, I played whatever position I could play just to get on the field." Koonce said. "I felt at home. I felt very comfortable."

Adding to his comfort zone, Koonce played behind a stout defensive line, arguably the strength of the Super Bowl winning-team. Gilbert Brown, Santana Dotson, Reggie White and Sean Jones occupied blockers, allowing Koonce to pursue the ballcarrier unimpeded.

"I knew they weren't going to let a whole lot of guys get on me," Koonce said. "I was able to run around and make some plays."

After performing so well that year, Koonce's knee injury, which forced him to miss the season's ultimate game, was disappointing. But Koonce looks back at that situation from a pragmatic standpoint. Contributing in the 16 regular season games to help rack up a 13-3 record and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs in frigid Lambeau Field carried greater significance for the Packers.

"If I had to pick when I would get hurt, I would say playoffs," he said. "We know the most important time of the year are those 16 games."

For Koonce the enduring memory from that game was his friend and defensive leader, Reggie White, holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy as high as he could. That celebration capped the comeback from the previous year's disappointing loss, a third consecutive playoff defeat at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys.

"That whole year was kind of magical because we came so close the year before," Koonce said. "Everybody kind of thought 1996 was going to be our year, but we had to put forth the time and the energy."

Now his career has come full circle. After playing eight years with the Packers, he returns to Green Bay for good.

"I'm never leaving. I'm going to retire in Green Bay," he said. "The Packers gave me a great opportunity to just come here and try to make the team in '92. Now I have a chance to come back and help give to the players and the organization that gave me so much."

[HarveyWallbangers]

Okay, here's the first guy that I absolutely don't remember being on the team.

LINDSAY KNAPP

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/14/1/

Lindsay Knapp had thought he found a home with the Kansas City Chiefs. So when the Green Bay Packers traded a 1996 sixth-round draft choice to the Chiefs for him prior to the 1995 season, Knapp became disillusioned. He chafed at adjusting to a change of scenery, learning a new offensive system and meeting new faces.

"I was kind of bummed about it," Knapp said. "But it worked out for the best -- without a doubt."

Indeed Knapp ended up playing for the 1996 Super Bowl champions. He backed up Adam Timmerman and Aaron Taylor -- whom he played next to in college -- at guard and served a crucial role on special teams. Wearing the Green and Gold also made his father, a devoted Packers fan and New London, Wis., native, proud.

"It was kind of neat to play for the old man," Knapp said. "My Dad grew up watching Lombardi."

Knapp's brief career featured success reminiscent of the Lombardi era. He played in one Super Bowl and one NFC Championship but injured his right knee and tore his left calf toward the end of training camp in 1997. Both injuries would have required a year away from football to recover. Upon inspecting him, team physician Patrick McKenzie offered some words of wisdom.

"Your knee's kind of chewed up," McKenzie said. "Maybe it's time to put on a suit."

Knapp had prepared for the transition from cleats to loafers. He went back to Notre Dame to complete his MBA, which he had started during his fifth year as a college lineman. After finishing his graduate business degree in 1998, he worked various consulting jobs around Baltimore.

Three years later he found his niche as a bond salesman for Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., in Minneapolis. Knapp sells corporate, mortgage and agency bonds to banks, insurance companies and money managers. Because he works on commission, Knapp has to prove himself every month, and having to outhustle others still drives him.

"As a former athlete the competitive nature of the business is something that drew me toward it. So I really enjoy that aspect of it," Knapp said. "This is a good fit for me."

The Packers proved to be just as good a fit. Knapp only played four years in the NFL before injuries forced him out of the game, but he will remain linked to the Packers' 1996 championship team forever.

"I feel very lucky to be a part of it," he said. "At the end of the day, I left on a high note."

Being identified with the Packers and a Super Bowl championship squad has also bolstered his business career. When selling bonds he sometimes forms an instant bond with his customers who followed the Packers.

"It's helped out a lot," Knapp said. "That experience has contributed to my success."

Knapp now lives in Minneapolis, a part of the country he deems "dreaded Vikings territory," but he remains a Packer at heart. On special occasions he will display that connection by removing his Super Bowl from its hiding spot in his house and using it to egg on the natives.

"I get a good thrill wearing my ring around here," he said. "I like to tell folks: 'They don't make 'em around here in Minnesota.'"

[HarveyWallbangers]

BOB KUBERSKI

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/15/1/

Bob Kuberski's football career in Green Bay lasted four seasons, but his career in the financial services industry has been going strong ever since.

Kuberski, a 6-foot-4, 295-pound defensive tackle, parlayed smarts and hard work into a five-year career in the NFL, and he has used those same traits to build a successful career for himself working for AIM Investments.

This all began for Kuberski in Green Bay when he initially worked for Associated Investments and then Morgan Stanley. And now, he's been with AIM for five years.

The irony to all of this is that Kuberski, 35, never dreamed of working in this industry as a kid and never went to college to study it. According to him, it's just one of the many things he learned while he was in Green Bay.

"I started looking into the financial services industry after my rookie year and the players union had a career internship program," Kuberski recalled. "And that was actually when I got elected to be a union rep after my rookie year and I was like, 'I might as well take advantage of this while things are going good because who knows what is going to happen.'

"I chose to work at Associated because they had a good group of people in sales and the investment department. They offered me an internship and the first week I was there, they offered me a better deal with my finances. I thought it could be a learning process, but it turned out that I made a career out of it."

Kuberski and his wife Janet live in Boothwyn, Pa., and they have three daughters -- Brooke, 9, Brynne, 7, and Bridget, 1. Besides working in financial services, Kuberski currently works in something else he's always loved: motorcycles. He enjoyed riding cycles when he was in Green Bay and now Kuberski owns a shop called Delaware County Custom Cycle (Delawarecountycustoms.com).

The shop opened in March, but the idea of this business wasn't anything new to Kuberski.

"It's a dream of mine that started about five years ago," Kuberski recalled. "I didn't capitalize on it then, but it came around to getting in the right situation here. In 2005, I met with a guy who has a business. We're going to infuse a little capital into it, and do a better job of marketing it, and moving it to a better location."

The fact that Kuberski is just now getting the motorcycle venture off the ground after pondering it for some time shouldn't come as a surprise to those who know him. After all, patience went a long way for Kuberski in the Navy and in the early stages of his career in Green Bay.

Kuberski was drafted by the Green and Gold in the seventh round of the 1993 NFL Draft. He then took all of his personal leave time to join the team for a month during training camp, but then fulfilled his Naval commitments for two seasons.

This arrangement required patience on the Packers' end of the deal, too. But fortunately for Kuberski, he had someone who believed in his Green Bay future in General Manager Ron Wolf.

"I really got lucky and found a friend in Ron Wolf," Kuberski admitted. "He came there personally to be with me, try me out, and interview me. He was my ace in the hole in terms of drafting me, and allowing me to come back to play after a couple years of active duty."

He seemingly took a less conventional route to Green Bay, but Kuberski has no regrets about attending Navy. It was something he had wanted for some time and when it came time to play football and attend college, he knew he made the right choice.

"I had a chance to play Division I football at Navy and I capitalized on it to the nth degree," Kuberski explained. "When I was a sophomore, I became a starter. I didn't get the experience that I may have otherwise had, had I went to a school like Penn State, but that was part of the reason why I chose not to go to a bigger school.

"Another part was that I was enamored by Annapolis. I was always real respectful of the military. My father was an enlisted guy for a little while, pretty much all the males on my father's side were in the armed services at one point in their life. So I had a respect, interest, and fondness in it. I thought it was a great place to have been a graduate from, and they offered me a job when I graduated, regardless of what happened. My education would probably be the most important thing in my life."

Despite having arthroscopic surgery on his knee in training camp and playing in only one game in the '96 Super Bowl season, Kuberski has several memories of his time in Green Bay.

"When I talk to people about my experience with that team, I don't just talk about that season," Kuberski said. "I talk about the whole group that we had, and being able to make it to two Super Bowls. When I look back, the thing that I really have the fondest memories from is really the cohesion of the team.

"It was a great thing to be on the plane to go home after winning a Super Bowl. The thing you miss besides the money, and playing on Sunday, are the guys. My best memories come from the week before the game when we got to hang out with each other in New Orleans. It was just so much pleasure to hang out with all the different characters we had on the team. And boy, did we have some characters."

Those characters made up quite a team, but Kuberski said they were much more than teammates. They were also very good friends.

"That team was great. We used to go out to eat together on Thursday. Sean Jones actually started it, and when he left we all kept going out to eat chicken wings. Occasionally this guy and occasionally that guy would stop by, but we had a good group of people.

"It wasn't like some teams where you wouldn't see the guys until the next day or the next time you had to be there. We hung out, knew each other's wives, went over to each other's houses for dinner. And that was a good thing because that doesn't happen everywhere, I assure you of that."

His football days in Green Bay have been over for seven years, but Kuberski is still in the financial services game that he initially learned while he was in Wisconsin. And to no surprise, his allegiances haven't changed, either.

"I still root for Green Bay and every time they come to Philadelphia, I go to the game," Kuberski explained. "Even though they don't write my paychecks anymore, I still have a special place in my heart for Green Bay and Wisconsin."

Coming from Kuberski, that sounds like a solid recommendation.

[MJZiggy]

Bumped to keep it on the front page for a while. Too good to fall.

[HarveyWallbangers]

DORSEY LEVENS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/16/1/

Anyone who watched the Green Bay Packers' season unfold in 1996 certainly can understand how the organization brought home the Lombardi Trophy. Superstars, timely plays, and plenty of persistence quite often receive the most credit for the Green and Gold becoming the best team in the league that year.

However, in the Packers' recipe of success, the key ingredient was the ability of players to leave their egos at the door. Despite having a team chock-full of superstars, the team concept took precedence, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of this than the attitude displayed by Dorsey Levens.

Sure, you probably remember the incredible performance the third-year running back had in the NFC Championship against the Carolina Panthers when he had 205 total yards from scrimmage.

But did you know that Levens entered the season as a backup fullback? Or that prior to that season, he was primarily a tailback that took the position change in stride and didn't say a word about it?

Fittingly enough, Levens' selflessness paid off as the season wore on. His playing time began to gradually increase, and late in the season he was a key cog in the Packers' offense, particularly in giving Edgar Bennett a breather in one-back sets.

Obviously, the more Levens played, the more evident it became that at 6-foot-1 and 230 pounds, he had both the size and the speed to be an every-down back. Levens finished with 566 rushing yards on only 121 carries, a 4.7 yards-per-attempt average, as well as 226 yards on 31 receptions. He also scored 10 touchdowns, sharing the team lead with tight end Keith Jackson.

Taking a glance at these numbers, it's difficult to believe that Levens was a backup fullback at one point. But Levens never sulked over his role because he understood the team's ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl.

"I think ideally Edgar and I would have both loved to get 25 carries a game," Levens admits. "But that's not how the system was built. Going into the preseason I was the starting fullback, but William Henderson beat me out. We decided to split time at running back with Edgar. They (coaching staff) thought I would be more effective running as opposed to being a lead blocker.

"And they were 100 percent correct. It just worked itself out. I started playing more and I started playing better. So, my playing time increased the further we got into the season. We all had the same goal in mind of winning the Super Bowl. Nobody was really tripping about playing time, individual accolades, or who got what. We all just wanted to win the Super Bowl."

Now, 10 seasons later, and after an 11-year career that included stops with the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants, Levens fondly recalls the Packers' special season.

"My favorite memories are watching the clock tick down in the Super Bowl, knowing that the game was finally over and that I had won a Super Bowl," Levens said. "That is what I remembered the most. It was so nerve-wracking the entire two weeks."

It's understandable that Levens was nervous for the biggest game of his life, but in the NFC Championship two weeks earlier, he had perhaps the best game of his professional career. Against the Panthers, Levens had 10 carries for 88 yards and five catches for 117 yards, a whopping average of 13.7 yards each time he touched the ball. And if you want to talk about big plays, Levens certainly had a penchant for them on that brutally cold day at Lambeau Field.

On the last play of the first quarter, on third-and-1, Levens ripped off a 35-yard run. Then on the initial play of the second quarter, he hauled in an incredible 29-yard catch inside the right edge of the end zone for the Packers' first touchdown. Later in the game, he had a 66-yard burst along the right sideline on a screen pass to set up a 4-yard touchdown by Bennett on the next play.

When asked if he thought this type of season was in store for him entering the year as a backup, Levens displayed his trademark humble approach.

"No, absolutely not," he said. "I guess everything happens for a reason and it worked out just fine. Earlier in the season, my goals were just to catch the ball out of the backfield. That's what our offense was based upon. But things took a turn in the preseason and I just rolled with the punches. Everything turned out perfect."

And though the Packers' backfield didn't feature a perfect back, it did feature a near flawless combination of Levens, Bennett, and Henderson. Bennett excelled in poor weather conditions and was very versatile. Henderson was a young bruiser not afraid to take on anybody. And Levens was "Dorse the Horse," somebody who did all things equally well.

In fact, Levens believes the key to his NFL career was his ability to be a jack-of-all-trades back.

"I don't think there was one thing that I really excelled at," Levens explained. "I think it was just a combination of being solid all the way around. I was a decent runner, a decent blocker, and a decent pass-catcher. I wouldn't say I was extraordinary at any of them, but good at all three."

Levens, who has a 4-year old daughter named Amaya, now lives in Atlanta and is working on broadcasting at a local level. Eventually, he would like to broadcast football, too. Seeing what kind of career he had in the game, it'd be a smart move to bring his knowledge of the game into the booth. He's also exploring work in football personnel, taking an internship in the Packers' personnel department during the 2006 training camp, compiling scouting reports and helping evaluate players.

And just either of those options seem like a good fit for the next step in Levens' career, so does the fact that he will always be a Green Bay Packer. Levens made sure of that on June 2, when he signed a one-day contract only to retire one day later as a member of the Green and Gold. For the 36-year-old Levens, his choice to be a Packer for life was easy.

"That's just where my heart is," he said. "The last couple years I played, I wasn't my old self. I got a little older, slowed down a little bit, but my heart was still in Green Bay. I don't know, it just felt like the right thing to do."

[HarveyWallbangers]

DERRICK MAYES

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/17/1/

Wide receiver Derrick Mayes had a unique role on the Packers' Super Bowl XXXI championship team. Former college teammates Aaron Taylor and Lindsay Knapp watched out for the rookie second-round draft pick while veterans like Brett Favre, Andre Rison and Santana Dotson treated him like their little brother, even giving him a fraternal nickname that has endured.

"Being the baby of that family, it was totally new," Mayes said. "I was their 'Sugar Bear.'"

Since exiting stage left from the NFL in 2001, Mayes, 31, has become a veteran of the television and film world. After a short stint with the Kansas City Chiefs, Mayes shuttled between New York and Los Angeles. He aggressively networked, meeting luminaries like Ernie DiMassa, former producer of "The Oprah Winfrey Show." He also knew Regis Philbin's daughter, a former college classmate of Mayes.

Using those contacts and the expertise he learned as a television and film major at Notre Dame, Mayes has paved quite a career for himself. This past season he co-directed the BET reality show entitled "Ultimate Hustler." In the show, 16 contestants vied for the chance to work with hip-hop mogul, Roc-A-Fella CEO, and co-founder Damon Dash. Occupying the Donald Trump role, Dash delivered his own version of the show-ending "You're fired" line by yanking Roc-A Fella gold chains off the necks of the losers.

"It's basically the hip-hop generation of 'The Apprentice,'" Mayes said.

Mayes has started working on his most ambitious project, a full-length movie entitled PDR, an abbreviation for the Philadelphia Department of Recreation. The Lions Gate Film, starring Bernie Mac, Terrence Howard and Jada Pinkett Smith, tells the true story of the first black all-state swim team. Howard plays the coach of the early 1970s team, which swam at the recreation center because black schools did not have swimming pools in that era.

Mayes' film work also involves his football background. He produces "Irish Weekly," a show that chronicles Notre Dame sports and serves as the film component to his columns for Blue and Gold Illustrated. Those gigs for Notre Dame, where he periodically returns to speak to film and business students, resemble a passionate hobby more than a job.

"When it comes to the Notre Dame stuff, I'd do that for free," Mayes said. "I have such a genuine affinity for my school and my fellow colleagues, all the folks there that really got me my start."

Whether in South Bend, Ind., New York or Los Angeles, people will recognize Mayes from his playing career. They remember his ability to snare the acrobatic grab. "For a short time, I definitely was the best pass catcher in the NFL," Mayes said. "I could catch anything that came to me." Fans also remember his 31/2 years with the Packers and his role on their 1996 Super Bowl championship team. He caught six passes for 46 yards and two touchdowns during that rookie season, but his production decreased once the Packers signed Rison that November.

Mayes lived with Rison and his former rapper wife, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez. While Mayes made sure the capricious Rison showed up to practice each day, the eight-year veteran took the rookie under his wing. He even hung out with him to prevent him from participating in the annual Thanksgiving hoax, which dupes rookies into believing they will pick up turkeys for the rest of the team.

"He was looking out for me," Mayes said.

As much as Mayes enjoyed Rison's company, the added competition limited Mayes' playing time. The Packers deactivated Mayes for the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Mayes, however, would have become more disappointed if he had not been on the championship roster at all. And that was almost the case. After he dislocated his left shoulder during the third preseason game, the Packers considered sitting him for the season. But Mayes returned to play in seven games.

"What would've really, really probably stunk is if I sat out for the year," Mayes said. "Had I been on injured reserve, I would've been an unmentionable when it came to that Super Bowl team."

Instead Mayes remains an indelible part of that Super Bowl-winning squad, and maybe one day he will place an Academy Award next to his jewelry box, which contains his ring from Super Bowl XXXI.

[HarveyWallbangers]

KEITH MCKENZIE

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/18/1/

It wasn't something tangible. You couldn't touch it and you couldn't see it, either.

But Keith McKenzie knew it was there.

The 6-foot-2, 242-pound linebacker/defensive end, who played for the Green Bay Packers from 1996-99 and again in 2002, knew almost immediately that the 1996 season was going to be a special one.

Indeed he was right.

It was during that season that the Packers went on to Super Bowl XXXI, defeating the New England Patriots 35-21. But it comes as somewhat of a surprise that one of McKenzie's fondest memories of that season happened to come from an exhibition contest.

"Obviously, when I think back to that season, I think of the Super Bowl," McKenzie, 32, recalled. "And before that, I got into the NFC Championship game and got a sack and I was only in there for three plays on defense and that was a fond memory.

"But that first preseason game was one that I remembered the most because I knew I was about to be part of something special. The team was that good and I knew I had to do whatever I could to make the team."

Of course, McKenzie did more than just make the team. Though he served as a backup pass rusher, he played a vital role on special teams. And because that particular unit had such a great impact on the Super Bowl victory itself, McKenzie is even prouder of his accomplishments with the Green and Gold.

Desmond Howard, the MVP of Super Bowl XXXI, gave the Packers a much-needed lift with a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown with 3:10 remaining in the third quarter. This was especially important because the Patriots had just scored on a Curtis Martin touchdown to cut the Packers lead to 27-21, which swung the momentum in New England's favor.

"We knew that we had to make something happen because they had just scored a touchdown and got back into the game," McKenzie explained. "You could see it in the eyes of everyone on the kickoff return team that, 'This is it, we've got to do it right now.' Desmond had been getting good returns all game, but we knew we had to break that one."

The Packers had a dynamic return game all season long and it was only fitting to McKenzie that the special teams shined in the Super Bowl as well. In fact, Howard finished with 244 combined punt and kickoff return yards and was the first special teams player to be named MVP of a Super Bowl. McKenzie said he'd never forget Howard's touchdown.

"That kickoff return was the biggest highlight of the whole game for me," McKenzie said. "I got a chance to play defense and I think I had the most tackles on special teams that day, but that selfless act of just blocking and making sure someone else could do what they had to do, that's what I really remember. I was excited and joyful to be a part of this guy becoming MVP."

And for how big that play was in the game, McKenzie said it represented even more than that.

"It was like the definition of what a team was supposed to do," McKenzie explained. "Everybody did what they had to do, everybody did their job at 100 percent and it just happened that that was one of the plays that sealed the game."

After short stints in Cleveland, Chicago and Buffalo, McKenzie has been out of football since 2003. He married Tamiko Parker in July and currently resides in Detroit, where he owns a real estate company called KDM Investments.

McKenzie said he still follows football, including the Packers, and it's his belief that winning a title in the NFL is one of the toughest accomplishments in all of professional sports.

"Not to take away anything from the other sports, but in baseball you have a World Series ring and you can get an NBA Championship ring, but it's not like a Super Bowl ring because a Super Bowl ring is a one-time deal," McKenzie explained.

"When you go for the championship in baseball, basketball, or hockey, you have seven games, and you have to beat the other team in four games. We only have one game. There is really no room for error. You have to bring your 'A' game and play your best game that day."

Fortunately for McKenzie and the Packers, Green Bay did just that in Super Bowl XXXI.

[HarveyWallbangers]

JIM MCMAHON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/20/1/

It is a surreal scene to picture. Jim McMahon, the symbolic rebel of the 1980s Chicago Bears teams lounging with Brett Favre, the gunslinger of the 1990s Green Bay Packers teams, after practices during the 1996 season.

"We got along pretty well," McMahon said. "Every once in a while we'd go out and have a few cocktails."

The Packers signed McMahon, best known for his days with the archrival Bears from 1982 to 1987, toward the end of the 1995 season to back up Favre and impart his knowledge from one storied franchise to another. Along with wide receiver Don Beebe, McMahon was the only player on the 1996 roster who had played in a Super Bowl. McMahon, who completed 3 of 4 four passes for 24 yards in mop-up duty in five games, downplayed his impact.

"If you're not playing," McMahon said, "it's hard to be leading anybody."

When pressed, however, McMahon said players approached him during the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl with questions about the big game. Perhaps McMahon, who mooned a local TV helicopter hovering over a Bears' Super Bowl practice, learned from his previous wrongdoings. He advised his Packers teammates to watch their backs, know where they are at all times and avoid any craziness because of the intense media scrutiny.

"It's become a bigger and bigger zoo every year," he said. "When we won 20 years ago, it was nutty. Now it's just out of control."

McMahon described going from one NFC Central rival to another as "strange at first." That, of course, begs the question, does McMahon root for the Packers or the Bears?

"I'm nobody's fan," he said. "I don't watch football."

McMahon has little involvement or care for the NFL. He does not even watch the Super Bowl. Although McMahon did attend the Packers-Vikings game at Lambeau Field and the Packers-Bears game at Soldier Field in 2005, he sat in the press box, eating hot dogs and chips and chatting with old friends instead of observing the action.

"In the last 10 years, if you put everything that I've seen together, it might equal one game," he said. "I enjoyed playing the game, but I'm not a fan of it. I don't like watching it."

Removed from the game unlike so many former NFL players, McMahon busies himself with several charities, which keeps him traveling away from his Northbrook, Ill., home for more than 100 days a year. He currently has become very involved with two charities, Impact Player Partners and American War Heroes, supporting injured veterans from the Iraq War.

"The government's not doing a hell of a lot to help these guys," he said. "(We) try to raise money and make these guys' quality of life a little better."

In addition to using his fame to raise money, he recently took a group of veterans, who had been in the hospital more than a year, on a trip to the Pro Bowl so they could have some fun and experience a much-needed diversion.

Helping to generate funds for those charities allows McMahon to participate in one of his favorite hobbies -- golf.

"A lot of these events are golf tournaments," he said. "I get to do what I like to do. I get to do it all over the world"

A five-to-six handicap golfer, McMahon also plays on the celebrity golfing tour, featuring athletes, comedians and actors. He has nine scheduled tournaments this year. Through those events he became friendly with former NBA basketball star and current TNT studio analyst Charles Barkley.

"Barkley's one of my favorite guys out there. Too bad he doesn't play it enough," said McMahon, adding a dig. "He's a lot of fun. I enjoy playing with him and all the guys. ... It's good to sit around the locker and just B.S. about guys' different sports or whatever they did. "

McMahon still keeps in touch with Packers people as well. While attending the two Packers games in 2005, he visited with equipment manager Gordon "Red" Batty and director of administrative affairs Mark Schiefelbein. McMahon may have played seven years with the Monsters of the Midway, but he enjoyed his last stint in the NFL with the Green and Gold.

That 15th NFL season capped his career in fitting fashion. Eleven years after defeating the New England Patriots on the NFL's largest stage in the Superdome in New Orleans with the Bears, he did so again with the Packers.

"It was a good way to finish," McMahon said. "It was perfect."

[HarveyWallbangers]

JOHN MICHELS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/21/1/

Offensive tackle John Michels' cleat caught in the ground, and his knee twisted while blocking defensive end Vonnie Holliday during a one-on-one pass protection drill in the last week of the 1998 training camp. Michels tore his anterior cruciate ligament, his medial collateral ligament and cartilage. That devastating injury and the lengthy rehabilitation process that followed, however, gave him a new direction in life.

"It was kind of through the process of all these surgeries that I found a passion for medicine and decided to go pursue that," Michels said. "I enjoy the fact that (doctors) really get to impact people's lives."

Michels, in his second year at USC's medical school, studies toward a different career than he expected. While undergoing six knee surgeries and the accompanying rehabilitation, Michels, a religion major on the undergraduate level at USC, worked as a youth pastor.

Few thought Michels would be pursuing a career in ministry or medicine after just three years in the NFL. The Packers drafted him in the first round in 1996 and planned for him to protect Brett Favre's blind side at left tackle well into the 21st century. And that future started earlier than expected.

Because Michels had only played one year of left tackle in college, the Packers wanted him to spend his rookie year learning behind 12-year veteran Ken Ruettgers. Then Ruettgers injured his knee in mid-August. Michels became the starter, but suffered an ankle and back injury in the third preseason game, and starting duty fell to three-year veteran Gary Brown. Michels replaced Brown in late September and started nine games. As a result of Michels' instant impact protecting the Packers' franchise quarterback, his teammates' spared him the usual rookie treatment.

"I was kind of thrown into the fire right off the bat," Michels said. "There were a lot higher expectations probably placed on me just because of the position the team was in. They couldn't wait for a rookie to make rookie mistakes at left tackle because this team was destined for Super Bowl XXXI. The previous year they had lost in the NFC Championship game to Dallas and they weren't going to let that happen again."

Although the rookie performed ably under those demanding circumstances, Ruettgers regained the starting job before retiring in late November because of re-occurring knee problems. In December the Packers changed tackles again, going with the experience of 10-year veteran Bruce Wilkerson for the playoff run. Shuffling from backup to starter to backup became challenging for the rookie.

"I was constantly in and out. It was hard to kind of develop a rhythm," he said. "That was an element of frustration. I was hoping to get a little more consistency."

Michels figured to receive more consistent playing time later in his career, but his injury derailed that goal. He tried to return to action in 1999, but his knee no longer could bear the weight of his nearly 300-pound frame. An exasperated Michels wondered why his leg did not improve and why he could not run like he used to. That frustration inspired him.

"I want to go into medicine and figure out how to prevent this in the future," Michels said.

As he looks toward the future, Michels, 33, has considered becoming an orthopedic surgeon or a team physician. But he does not know if his knee will allow him to stand for hours on end to perform surgery and is still determining which specialty to enter.

"I haven't decided that yet," Michels said. "That's part of the journey I'm on right now."

His difficult road in trying to come back from his knee problems is part of the reason he has not attended a Packers game since retiring. He talks to Ruettgers once or twice a week and closely follows the Packers, especially former teammates like Mike Flanagan and Brett Favre. But visiting Lambeau Field would remind him of the long career he had hoped to enjoy.

"It's bittersweet. It's a little bit painful because I really miss the game," Michels said. "I was really hoping to make it back to it. Unfortunately that wasn't my lot in life."

Although his lot in life may turn out to be helping others sustain the decade-long career he missed out on, Michels had his share of special football moments. Topping them all is winning a Super Bowl in his very first year.

"There are players who go their whole career and never have a chance to play in that game, and my first year in -- I get that opportunity," Michels said. "That year was filled with a lot of really great memories."

[HarveyWallbangers]

TERRY MICKENS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/22/1/

In many cases, people don't enjoy going to work. But Terry Mickens was never one of those people when he played in Green Bay.

In fact, Mickens couldn't wait to arrive at 1265 Lombardi Ave. because he knew he wasn't the only one who enjoyed being there.

"We were having fun all year," Mickens said. "We were having fun everyday during practice, during games. We were always having fun. But at the same time, we were getting our jobs done."

Mickens, a 6-foot, 198-pound wide receiver who played for the Green and Gold from 1994-97, admits that the situation he stepped into while in Green Bay probably wasn't common for young players.

"I think for me, it made me kind of spoiled," Mickens, 35, explained. "My first four years with Green Bay, we went to the playoffs every year. In the third year, we won the Super Bowl, and in the fourth year we went to the Super Bowl and lost.

"In my mind, because success was happening with that team so frequently, when I left, I didn't realize how hard it was to make the playoffs. When I left and went to Oakland, and when the season was over and we didn't make the playoffs, it was weird. So, that was different, and I learned that it takes more than just a good team to make the playoffs. It takes chemistry."

Mickens married Pamela in 2000 and the couple lives in McKinney, Texas, with Terry's 14-year-old son, Tyler. Mickens is currently in his second year as a college scout for the Philadelphia Eagles, and he insists team chemistry can't be overstated because it isn't a given in the NFL.

This is something he didn't realize as a player until he signed with another team.

"Things are just done different (when you leave)," Mickens explained. "Different style, different kind of chemistry, different kind of people around you, different attitude. In Green Bay though, everybody was on that same page.

"Whether they were happy with their role or not, you never knew. Everybody just committed to the job at hand and trusted in (coach Mike) Holmgren and we just went out and did our job."

Though he probably wasn't what one would call a "star" in his NFL career, Mickens was at the very least a solid contributor. In his four seasons with the Packers, he played on passing downs and on special teams. But that didn't stop fans from noticing what Mickens brought to the table.

"I tell you what -- the fans in Green Bay made you feel like family," Mickens said. "So you really felt welcomed. You really felt like not only do you want to represent your family and your teammates, but also the fans as well. You knew they appreciated whatever role you had because I wasn't a starter there, but I played special teams and came in as a third- and fourth-down receiver."

When he was playing, it was one thing, but Mickens can't believe the loyalty Packers fans still show to former players.

"People knew you," Mickens said. "Everybody knew everybody on that roster. And to this day, I'll get mail sent to my house here in McKinney. Somebody in Green Bay will want me to sign a card. I'm like 'wow.'

"I'm a long time removed from playing football and especially playing for the Packers, and in some kind of way, people are finding my address here in McKinney."

Mickens is plenty busy with the Eagles these days and admits that he hasn't been to Green Bay since 1997. However, he still uses valuable lessons that he learned in his time here while playing behind wide receivers like Robert Brooks and Sterling Sharpe.

"I was always a hard worker anyway," Mickens said. "But I think a lot of the stuff that I picked up was probably from Robert Brooks because Robert Brooks worked just as hard. I was there a year before Free (Antonio Freeman) got there, and I had a year with Sterling. I learned from Sterling on game days and I learned from Robert Brooks during the week."

Playing with such a strong group of wideouts did, however, pose one disadvantage. It made playing time difficult to come by. So when Mickens received an offer for potentially more time on the field in Oakland, he took that chance. Despite moving on from the organization, Mickens doesn't harbor any ill feelings against the Packers.

"I will always have a special place for Green Bay," Mickens said. "I often hear former players who, for whatever reason, don't feel anything about the teams they played for. They don't like the way it ended, or the opportunity that they had to play.

"But I always have. I always will have a special place for them. I enjoyed my time there. I guess when you are winning it helps, but I always did enjoy myself up there."

[HarveyWallbangers]

RODERICK MULLEN

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/23/1/

A versatile backup in the secondary and a valuable special teamer, Roderick Mullen would block for Desmond Howard on a punt return immediately after shutting down a wide receiver on third-and-long.

"I had to be in outstanding shape," Mullen said. "I couldn't do all of those positions if I wasn't well-conditioned."

Mullen's job still revolves around fitness. He currently serves as the general manager of a Dallas-area Bally Total Fitness. In that role, Mullen, 33, manages the gym's profitability by setting budgets, establishing company goals, determining salaries and overseeing retail revenue. Mullen twice has won the "Elite Performer" award for his area. He not only excels at his job, but he also enjoys it.

"It's very nice, man," Mullen said. "I really like doing what I'm doing."

A workout warrior during his playing days, Mullen said his conditioning enabled him to play cornerback and safety in base, nickel and dime packages in addition to special teams. Mullen filled all those roles in 1996 before straining the medial collateral ligament in his right knee in the 13th game. He returned to action for the playoffs.

Mullen continues to pride himself on his conditioning. He works out every day, exercising his back on Monday, his shoulders on Tuesday, his legs on Thursday and his chest on Friday while Wednesday serves as his cardio day. His endurance does not quite equal that of his playing days, but his strength compares favorably. He recently bench-pressed 225 pounds 19 times.

"I still do a lot of different things that I was doing when I was training for football to keep me somewhat up-to-par cardiovascularly," Mullen said. "From a strength standpoint, I would say I'm right up there."

Mullen's Packers contacts helped pave the way for his post-NFL career. After Mullen spent 2000 and 2001 investing in a few Las Vegas properties, including two Subway restaurants, he hooked up with Larry Brooks, Jr., the son of the 1996 Packers defensive line coach. Brooks served as the Dallas-area Bally vice president and helped Mullen land a job as a manager-in-training there in 2002.

Brooks does not remain his only connection to his Packer days, which lasted from 1996 to 1998. Mullen frequently hangs out with Santana Dotson and attends his annual Santana Dotson Foundation dinner in Houston to raise money for teenagers' college education.

"I'm still best friends with Santana Dotson," Mullen said.

Mullen subscribes to DirecTV's Sunday NFL Ticket and still follows the NFL closely. Although he ended his career by spending 1999 with the Carolina Panthers and the 2000 training camp with the Minnesota Vikings, Mullen still roots for the Packers. Mullen has not been to a Packers game since his days as a Panthers defensive back, but he watches them every Sunday with the meticulous eye of a coach.

"I typically have to watch the game at home," Mullen said. "I have TiVo and I want to re-wind the game and find out the reason for the successes and failures of different plays."

Who can blame him for possessing such an attachment to the Green and Gold? Earning a 1996 Super Bowl title with the Packers launched his devotion to the team and provided memories to last a lifetime.

"(I was) able to hoist that trophy," Mullen said, "and know that I was going to go down in history with some Hall of Famers on that team like Reggie (White) and Brett (Favre)."

[HarveyWallbangers]

CRAIG NEWSOME

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/24/1/

Saying Craig Newsome is quiet is like saying the Green Bay Packers were a good team in 1996.

Talk about severe understatements.

Newsome was probably the most laid back, quiet, and perhaps shyest player on the Packers' Super Bowl XXXI team.

But, fortunately for the Packers, Newsome's game spoke volumes.

The 6-foot, 190-pound cornerback got thrown into the fold as a rookie in 1995 and became a mainstay on the Packers' defense for four years until a torn ACL slowed him down and eventually led to him being traded to San Francisco.

He may not have been overly fast or remarkably big for a corner, but Newsome, 34, had such a confident determination that he was never over his head despite playing an instrumental role in the team's success as a 23-year-old. And all this came after playing only years of Division I football at Arizona State, after spending his first two seasons at San Bernardino Valley (Calif.) Junior College.

Needless to say, Newsome didn't have much time to adjust to the NFL game, but then again, he handled himself just fine. In his rookie season, Newsome started all 16 regular season games at left cornerback as well as the three postseason games and finished fourth on the team in tackles with 85.

According to Newsome, playing for a Super Bowl team the following season wasn't all that daunting after gaining valuable experience the year before.

"I was never intimidated," Newsome said. "I wasn't intimidated because I played my rookie year when I first got drafted. I got that out of my system then."

He did, however, admit that all of this success may have spoiled him.

"I was surprised because it came so fast," Newsome said. "Like the Super Bowl, there's guys that played in the league for years and never reached that mark. For me, to only play two years and to get there, I was like, 'Wow, this is easy.'

"Which it isn't," he added with a laugh.

Newsome now lives in Riverside, Calif., and coaches football at a local junior college. When asked if he still finds the time to watch the Packers despite being nearly 2,000 miles away, Newsome acts surprised by the question.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah," Newsome exclaimed. "That's a must. I'm a huge fan. Not a big fan, a huge fan."

And there's no question he still has fond memories of his days spent in Green Bay. Yet, Newsome admits that he doesn't keep in touch with any of his old teammates because "guys move so much it's hard to keep in contact with them. And I'm kind of hard to keep in contact with, too."

Though he hasn't been to Green Bay since his playing days, Newsome said he would like to make it back someday to watch his favorite team in action. He asks questions about current players and leaves the impression that he really does care about the team he once played so well for.

Newsome reminisces about several old teammates as well, including Reggie White and Doug Evans, and marvels at one particular friend that he learned a great deal from, the late Wayne Simmons.

"Wayne was a hell of a teammate," Newsome said. "The dude was tough, man, I'm telling you. Anybody on that team I would go to war with, it was Wayne. Honestly, Wayne was tough. And when I say tough, the dude would knock your head off."

Speaking of toughness, if there was one word to describe Newsome -- well, besides quiet -- it would probably be tough.

Coupled with Evans, the Packers had one of the best cornerback tandems in the NFL, something Newsome thinks is a lost art in today's game.

"That year was the year of the two physical, big, shutdown corners," Newsome said. "You just don't see that no more."

Newsome said he didn't have much choice to play any other way under defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur.

"He was an old coach, but he had that fire in him," Newsome explained. "He had that fire in him that if you didn't play well, your butt was on the bench. So you had to play hard, you know, which paid off for us that year."

Coming from Newsome, it's another quiet statement that speaks volumes.

[HarveyWallbangers]

DOUG PEDERSON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/25/1/

His name is Doug Pederson, but he acted liked Drew Bledsoe during the last two weeks of January in 1997.

To prepare the Packers' defense for whom they would face in Super Bowl XXXI, Pederson, the scout team quarterback, simulated the New England Patriots quarterback's long stride and long release during practice.

"I took pride in getting our defense ready," Pederson said, "giving them the look, the picture of the other team and the quarterback and some of the mannerisms and some of things the other quarterback would do."

The preparation worked. The Packers' defense took advantage of the strong-armed but slow-footed Bledsoe, sacking him five times and forcing him into four interceptions during their 35-21 Super Bowl win.

The work on the scout team not only helped the Packers' defense but also Pederson, a six-year veteran. In 1996 he served as the third or inactive quarterback for 14 games, receiving mop-up duty against the Denver Broncos in Week 15. But by going against a defense led by stars like LeRoy Butler, Reggie White and Sean Jones and featuring the intricate scheme of defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur, Pederson improved his ability to read defenses, reset and throw before hitting his third and fourth passing options.

"It was a great, great defense," Pederson said. "Going against those guys in practice was really a lot of fun for me because it allowed me to grow up as a quarterback and do some things that I was able to carry on for the rest of my career."

Pederson also had the advantage of playing behind two illustrious quarterbacks, starter Brett Favre and No. 2 quarterback Jim McMahon. From McMahon, Pederson ascertained how to keep both players and coaches calm during the tensest game situations. He soaked up the information from the established veterans like a sponge.

"I was the greenest one of the bunch," he said. "It was an ideal situation for me."

For the rest of his career, Pederson used the lessons he learned from Favre and McMahon and from competing against a Shurmur-coached defense. After the 1998 season, he left Green Bay to become the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles and head coach Andy Reid, his former Packers quarterbacks coach. The next year Pederson quarterbacked the expansion Cleveland Browns. He returned to the Packers in 2001 to back up Favre, playing the last four years of his 12-year career in Green Bay.

The former Louisiana Monroe graduate retired in March of 2005 and accepted a job as head football coach at Calvary Baptist Academy in Shreveport, La., which has 900 students in the K-12 school.

"I thoroughly love it," Pederson said. "I get a chance to share my faith with these guys and teach them things on and off the field."

Calvary Baptist went 5-6 and made the first round of the playoffs in its first year under Pederson. That season served as an impressive debut, considering the number of freshmen and sophomores he coached.

"We were not blessed with a lot of seniors and a lot of depth," Pederson said. "We're going to be a better team this year."

Pederson said his students were taken back at first by his status as a former NFL quarterback. Over time, however, they began to view him as a regular coach. His NFL ties also have benefits. He plans on having players like former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly and former Packers teammates Craig Nall and Favre speak to his students at football camps.

Pederson remains close with several Packers players, including Favre, William Henderson and Aaron Kampman. In his first year removed from the NFL, he attended two games at Lambeau Field -- the Packers' loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football and their win against the Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football. He hung out with his former teammates in the locker room afterwards.

Pederson owns a permanent symbol of his success with the Packers. On occasion he wears that Super Bowl ring in front of his players as a motivational tool.

"It's just another way to get my message across," Pederson said. "I'll let them look at it and show them that through hard work and perseverance and everything else you can get that ring."

[HarveyWallbangers]

MARK PRIOR

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/26/1/

When Mike Prior arrived in Green Bay in 1993 as an unrestricted free agent, he had a good idea of what he was getting into.

Prior had spent one season in Tampa Bay and the next six seasons in Indianapolis, and he knew the city of Green Bay was entirely different from where he had been.

Prior recently looked back on his first game in Green Bay, which came as a Buccaneer in his rookie season of 1985.

"We went up there and it was the Snow Bowl game," Prior recalled. "We had that snowstorm and it was crazy. We saw all those people in orange and then it turned out they were hunters and we thought they were coming for us. They didn't pack the house that day but I think that's because they probably couldn't get there.

"It was pretty amusing that day. The fans were really heckling us, 'How do you like this cold stuff?' I grew up in Chicago so it was kind of neat. Probably about 70 percent of the team had never seen snow before."

Eight years later, the 6-foot, 208-pound Prior would experience life in Green Bay once again, only this time it was as a member of the Packers' organization. Prior still gushes over his time spent here.

"Going from Tampa to Indy at that time and then to Green Bay was a totally different atmosphere," Prior explained. "Having 90 thousand people in the town was crazy. It was football fever. They loved their Packers up there, it didn't matter what kind of record they had.

"The fans were incredible. They packed the house. They were a different breed of fans, watching you outdoors in the harsh conditions. And they recognized the players right off the bat. They knew facts and data and they knew your whole bio I think when you showed up in town. And they would rattle it off.

"I was impressed. It was like, 'Oh my gosh.'"

Prior retired from football at the end of the '98 season and is living in Carmel, Ind., with his wife Diane and their three daughters, Nikki, 20, Bri, 17, and Paige, 15. Last August, Prior was hired by the Colts to serve as the team's Youth Football Commissioner. His duties including running the Big Blue Football Camps, and he visits grade schools to promote youth football.

Prior also worked for the Colts' post-game radio show last season on WFBQ 95 in Indianapolis, and he coaches freshmen football at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis.

The 42-year-old can't believe where the time has gone.

"This is going to be my eighth year out of football," Prior said. "I can't believe it will be 10 years since we won that Super Bowl. I am back in the real world again. I guess you could say I am in a normal job and trying to enjoy quality time at home with my family. I'm also enjoying watching the kids grow up."

Prior's personal journey is also a special one. He was cut by Tampa Bay following his rookie season and when he signed on with the Colts, they also cut him. He re-signed in 1987 to be a replacement player and he stuck around from there.

Though he played several seasons in the NFL, Prior often thinks back to his Packer days and appreciates the hard work that was constantly on display.

"When we won Super Bowl XXXI, Reggie (White), and even Brett (Favre), they were the leaders of the team but they thought they had to pick up their game also," Prior said. "It takes everybody to pick up their game and work for the same goals and that's basically what that team was about.

"It was like, 'Hey, show up on time and when you come to work, be ready to work. Let's not be goofing around.' And we enjoyed each other to a healthy extent. It wasn't 100 percent everybody-loving-everybody every minute, but that's part of the game and a working environment. But when we stepped on the field, everybody was united."

He served mainly as a backup in the Packers' defensive backfield, but Prior was a mainstay in the nickel and dime packages. And he was named one of the team's two special teams captains in the '96 postseason. (There were two captains on special teams, two on offense and two on defense in the playoffs.) Prior even had an interception in the Super Bowl.

Despite his busy schedule these days, Prior and his family still get back to Green Bay to visit friends and he still keeps in touch with Lindsey Knapp, Bill Schroeder, and Adam Timmerman.

Ever since he played at Lambeau Field in '85, Prior knew Green Bay was a unique place to be. Little did he know that 11 years later, Green Bay would have a special ring to it, and he'd be a part of it.

[HarveyWallbangers]

ANDRE RISON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/27/2/

"Bad Moon Rison."

Even if you had no idea about the man, the nickname alone might cause you to have a few preconceived notions about him.

The "Bad Moon Rison" term had been attached to Andre Rison throughout most of his NFL career and often times led people to view the 6-foot-1, 195-pound wide receiver in a negative light regardless of whether they knew him or not.

So, when 1996 rolled around and the Packers were in need of a wide receiver, many people raised their eyebrows when Rison was claimed off waivers from Jacksonville.

The Packers had a 6-1 record at the time Robert Brooks suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and patellar tendon in his right knee, but they went 2-2 without his services. Sitting at 8-3 and at a crossroads in the season, Green Bay was entering the stretch run without one of its top playmakers.

And that's when Rison entered the scene.

Rison came in and helped make up for the loss of Brooks by starting in seven games and giving the Packers another vertical dimension in the passing game. Still, some thought that he'd be a bad influence on a team with such strong chemistry. Others said Rison wasn't going to be satisfied without being the focal point of the offense.

So, was this a bad move for the Green and Gold?

Well, considering the Packers were 8-0 with Rison in the lineup and became Super Bowl XXXI champions, it'd be difficult to argue against the addition of "Bad Moon."

Actually, he wasn't really "Bad Moon" anymore according to several teammates.

Defensive tackle Bob Kuberski said the Packers had nothing to worry about when it came to Rison's attitude or personality.

"Everything was fine," Kuberski explained. "Everybody made a big fuss about it, but he came into the team, and was assimilated into the team. And I think he came in and said, 'Ok, I see what these guys are doing, and I'll do the same thing.'

"You know, he was great."

Keith Jackson, who also played an instrumental role in the Packers' success, echoed those sentiments.

"You had heard all of this stuff about him," Jackson recalled. "Bad Moon Rison, how he used to do this and how is he going to conform. But I learned a life lesson. I learned if you really are unwavering in a commitment to one another, a person on the outside will come in and they will become a part of the group instead of pull someone out of the group.

"And Andre Rison came in and he was the perfect gentleman. He did everything that the coaches asked him to do. That was a huge play in the Super Bowl that he made to help us secure that game."

The play Jackson is referring to is arguably one of the biggest in team history and it came on only the Packers' second offensive play from scrimmage. Brett Favre saw a favorable matchup at the line of scrimmage, and he made eye contact with Jackson, Rison, and Antonio Freeman to make sure everybody was on the same page.

Seconds later, Favre found Rison wide open and the star receiver made an over-the- shoulder grab for a 54-yard touchdown. The play set the tone for the game and Rison finished with two catches for 77 yards.

Ten years later, Rison, 39, fondly recalls the role he played in the Super Bowl.

"It was great making the plays for my team," Rison said. "We got off on the right foot against a great team.

"It was a check off to me. Antonio would have been outside and I would have been inside. But I was outside, and Free went inside from the outset. Brett relayed the signal and then we hit it."

According to Rison, both he and Favre knew they had the ability to connect on big plays against New England.

"I knew I could beat those defensive backs anytime I wanted to," Rison said. "I played them twice already with Jacksonville. And one touchdown, Brett missed me on. I was even more open than the one I scored on. That one would have been an 80-yarder. He threw it behind me."

It's clear that Rison's contributions to the Packers paid off. He did everything that was asked of him and then some. Then again, that's what he expected to bring to the table.

"I was always a perfect gentleman," Rison claimed. "Writers write what they write. Teammates don't write the articles. That was a great case of that right there."

Regardless of what his critics thought, Rison was pleased to prove people wrong and help the Packers win a Super Bowl.

"I just thank the Lord that I had an opportunity to play with a playoff team and we won a world championship in Green Bay," Rison said. "We brought the Vince Lombardi Trophy home to Vince Lombardi."

Rison, who currently resides in Miami, played eight games with the Packers and then signed with Kansas City in 1997. After three years there, he moved on to Oakland for one season. Still feeling the itch to play, Rison spent parts of two seasons in the Canadian Football League, helping the Toronto Argonauts win a Grey Cup in 2004.

Reflecting on his brief period in Green Bay, Rison said he "enjoyed the crowd and sharing in the world championship," as well as reuniting with Favre, with whom Rison spent a season in Atlanta.

"It was a great situation," Rison explained. "We had former players that played with different teams and both were at the top of their game.

"I wish we could have played a few more years together, but unfortunately we didn't. I feel if they would have kept that combination together, then Green Bay would have won another one."

Rison said he's trying to get a shot again in the NFL, but if he doesn't, the spectacular touchdown he scored in the Super Bowl will forever live on in the storied Packers' history books.

"Coming from Brett Favre, one of the best quarterbacks to play, the first pass of the game, the first drive of the game, it doesn't get no better than that," Rison said.

"It doesn't get no better than that."

"Bad Moon Rison?"

Doesn't seem right anymore. How about Rison to the Occasion?

[HarveyWallbangers]

Marco Rivera

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/08/29/1/

Marco Rivera didn't know what to expect when he was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the sixth round of the 1996 NFL Draft.

He was fresh off the Penn State campus and being the 208th overall pick doesn't exactly translate to job security in professional football.

Rivera was in no position to make assumptions on where he stood with the Packers, and for that matter, he didn't know all that much about his new team, either. Fortunately for the 6-foot-4, 295-pound guard, someone close to him did.

"One of my buddies called me up and said, 'Hey man, the Green Bay Packers are going to win the Super Bowl this year, you lucked out,'" Rivera recalled. "And I'm like, 'Really?'

"The next thing I was thinking was 'Man, that's going to be a hard team to crack the lineup because you know if they're going to go to the Super Bowl, they're pretty much all loaded.' So, when I got there I didn't know what to expect."

It didn't take long before Rivera learned exactly what he was walking into, however.

"I go in the locker room and I see Brett Favre, and I don't say anything. The next guy I see is Reggie White. And I was like 'wow.' These are the guys I've been watching the last couple years. This is awesome."

Though Rivera enjoyed the thought of playing on a team filled with great players, reality sunk in shortly after the draft.

Sure, looking back on it now, Rivera can laugh. But one of his first on-field experiences as a rookie didn't offer much in the comedy department.

"The one memory that I had was when we first put the pads on in the first mini-camp in April," Rivera said with a chuckle. "I think (offensive line coach) Tom Lovat did it on purpose. He put me up one-on-one against Gilbert Brown. So I'm thinking, 'How am I going to stop this guy from getting to the bag?' And before I knew it, I was on my back, he was on top of the bag, and everybody was laughing.

"And I just was like, 'Man, this is a different game,' and I'll never forget that. Actually it was my second time, because the first one I went offsides and the second one I went up against Gilbert Brown, and he just picked me up and put me right back on that bag and I'm like, 'Wow, man, I've got a long way to go.'"

Perhaps Rivera didn't have as long to go as he previously thought. Considered a long shot to make the team, he was a surprise success story in training camp, which earned him a roster spot.

According to Rivera, he just tried to keep his nose to the grindstone while hoping for the best.

"I was a young guy, quiet, didn't talk much, and I was just trying to impress the coaches, do everything they wanted me to do," Rivera explained. "I was always in the weight room lifting. It was just putting my time in."

Clearly, his diligent work paid off as Rivera played nine seasons with the Packers, including three years as a Pro Bowler. Last season, as an unrestricted free agent, he joined the Dallas Cowboys and now at 34 years old, it's Rivera's turn as a wily veteran to take notice of the team's youngsters.

"Even now, I look at the young guys coming in and when I see guys do that (working out, putting time in), I know that this guy's committed and he wants to be a player because he's doing everything to get himself ready, he's doing everything he can to get the team ready to play," Rivera said.

"He's not showboating, he doesn't talk, he doesn't loudmouth. He's just quiet, getting everyone better, that's what it's all about. There's young guys that do that and there's other guys who'll come in and think they got the world by the horns. Young guys have to understand you have to put your time in if you want playing time. And when you do get your playing time, you've got to make it worthwhile."

Rivera didn't have much of an opportunity to play as a rookie. After all, the Packers were fairly set along the offensive line, particularly the interior line.

Instead of sulk or complain, however, Rivera soaked up the atmosphere, not that he didn't think about what it would have been like to play.

"At the time, I was happy to help the guys out," Rivera explained. "In the back of my mind, I was like 'Man, I'd love to be playing.' But I knew it wasn't my time, it wasn't my turn to play. And so I just did my best and did everything Tom Lovat wanted me to do and got better by practicing against other guys.

"My job on that team was to get the starters ready. So I went in every week trying to give the defensive guys the best picture possible to get ready to play the game. You know, basically that was my job and in turn, I was getting better. I was practicing against Gilbert Brown and Reggie White. You can't help but get better because those guys were so good. And that's how I gave back to the team, to get them ready to play on Sunday."

As a young man, Rivera said it was a learning experience unlike any other in terms of seeing how so many great players went about their daily work in the NFL.

Now when Rivera reflects on the Super Bowl XXXI team, he can't help but gush over the players that surrounded him in the locker room.

"I'm glad that I was part of that team because man, guys were so good," Rivera marveled. "I played with Reggie White, Santana Dotson, Gilbert Brown, Sean Jones, Brett Favre, Chewy (Mark Chmura), Frank (Winters), it was just a ton of guys. Robert Brooks. We had Edgar Bennett, William Henderson, we had them all. We had them all. Eugene Robinson. It was just fun times. It was a fantastic team and it was a great team to be a part of."

Rivera and his wife Michelle have three sons, Dante 6, Roman, 4, and Nico, 1, and though he may be considered grizzled by NFL standards, Rivera admits he would like to play three, four, or maybe even five years depending on how his body feels.

That's understandable, especially since he's enjoyed plenty of success and played with some great players along the way, including Favre and White in Green Bay.

"It was phenomenal," Rivera said. "Phenomenal. I got to play with two of the best players in the history of the game. Not just average players, you're talking about a three time MVP in Brett Favre. You're talking about Reggie White, everybody knows who Reggie White was. I mean, I was part of their team."

It also shouldn't come as a surprise that Rivera mentioned the Super Bowl win as one of his most memorable moments in Green Bay.

"When we won that Super Bowl and I saw how the town reacted and how the organization reacted...I mean, gosh, the trophy is named the Lombardi Trophy. It doesn't get any better than that," Rivera said. "And the trophy came home in my book.

"When you look at that, to me, pro football comes down to Lambeau Field, and it comes down to the Green Bay Packers. That's what it's all about. If you want to get to the heart of pro football the way it's supposed to be experienced, you go to Lambeau Field."

And just because Rivera no longer calls Green Bay home, that doesn't mean he doesn't often think about or correspond with the men who do.

In his first season away from the team, he still managed to keep tabs on some old friends.

"Brett's still my buddy, Mike Flanagan, Mark Tauscher, the whole offensive line," Rivera acknowledged. "I read the papers, see how the guys were doing, see if they were holding up, call them on the phone. I called Mark Tauscher and told him he looks fat every time on the phone.

"Monday night games were the best because I could sit home and watch the game. As cool as Mark Tauscher was, he was just a big fat guy on the TV. Then, I called him after the game and I'd say, 'Man, don't wear that white jersey, it makes you look horrible.' But we're like that. That's how we were when we were there so, that's how we still are."

It's been 10 years since Rivera was drafted, and those days of not knowing what to expect of the Green Bay Packers are long gone. He may be gone, too, but Rivera won't soon forget his time spent in Green Bay.

"The Green Bay Packers are such a storied franchise and I'm part of that," Rivera said. "I will always be part of that and to me, that's special. To me, nobody can ever take that away from me. Just to say that I played for the Green Bay Packers, the same Packers that Lombardi coached, Bart Starr played for, Nitschke played for, and all those guys from back in the '60s and '70s.

"Reggie White, Brett Favre, those were all Packers. Marco Rivera was a Packer. That right there, that's what football is all about. If you want to ask any professional player how do you want to play and how do you want to end up, it doesn't get any better than that."

It's almost difficult to believe those days of Rivera not knowing what to expect of the Green Bay Packers existed at all.

[HarveyWallbangers]

EUGENE ROBINSON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/05/4/

Shortly after joining the Packers in 1996, safety Eugene Robinson sat down at a Washington Street sports bar in Green Bay. After a television announced the Packers had traded George Teague -- the man Robinson would replace -- for a draft choice, a fan sitting beside the new safety cursed the roster move.

Robinson then revealed his identity.

"Are you any good?" the fan asked.

Robinson's play in 1996 answered that question with an emphatic yes. He tied for second in the NFC with six interceptions and finished fourth on the Packers with 82 tackles. During Super Bowl XXXI, he led the team with nine total tackles. His coverage ability complemented an already talented secondary, allowing strong safety LeRoy Butler to shoot the gaps on blitzes while providing over-the-top help to young cornerbacks Doug Evans, Craig Newsome and Tyrone Williams.

"It worked out pretty well," Robinson said. "We had an absolute crew. It was easy to make plays in that scenario."

A 12-year veteran at the time, he also served as an emotional and spiritual leader for the defense. In the third quarter of the Super Bowl, an exhausted Reggie White breathed deeply.

"Geno," White told Robinson, "I'm tired. I feel like I just can't get off. I feel like I'm trying too hard."

Robinson then huddled on the sideline with White, leading the Minister of Defense in prayer. The veteran safety recited Isaiah 40:31: Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

White became rejuvenated. He collected two sacks with less than three minutes to go in the third quarter and racked up his third sack to seal the game with less than two minutes left in the fourth.

Robinson, 42, continues to motivate athletes, but he provides those lessons to a much younger set. Since 2001 he has coached at Charlotte (N.C.) Christian High School. The 1,000-student, K-12 school integrates biblical principles into its academic program. Robinson serves as the varsity football offensive coordinator, assistant wrestling coach (of the 2006 conference champions) and assistant track coach for the Knights. He wrestled and played football collegiately at Colgate. Robinson lettered in baseball instead of track but applied lessons he learned in the NFL to his running instruction.

Although he finds improving the skills of young men rewarding, he accepted the jobs coaching the Knights to spend more time with his children.

"It allowed me to be closer to them," Robinson said.

Brandon, 16, is a sophomore at the school while Brittany, 18, a former Knight, now attends Clemson. Eugene has coached Brandon since his early days in youth sports, and Brandon asked him to accept the high school coaching jobs.

Eugene remains actively involved on the professional sports level as well, working as the color commentator on the Carolina Panthers' radio broadcasts since 2002.

"I like being able to tell you the technical aspects and make it fun," Robinson said.

Robinson now allies himself more with the Panthers - with whom he played the last year of his career - than the teams he previously played for, including the Packers, Seattle Seahawks or Atlanta Falcons.

"I live vicariously through the Panthers now," Robinson said.

That connection to the Panthers is understandable. He receives his paycheck from them, interviews their players in the locker room and travels to road games on the team charter airplane. But whenever the Packers play the Panthers (like they did on Oct. 3, 2005), Robinson makes an effort to hang out with his former teammates like William Henderson and Brett Favre on the playing field before the game.

"I go down and see these old guys," he said. "That's fun."

Robinson made those friendly connections because of a shrewd move by former General Manager Ron Wolf. On June 27, 1996, Wolf sent defensive end Matt LaBounty to the Seahawks in exchange for Robinson's services. Robinson, already friends with White from playing against him and attending various Christian events together, was excited by the Packers' potential. But the team's skill exceeded his expectations.

"I knew they had a solid crew," Robinson said. "When I got there, boy, was I pleasantly surprised that they were even better than what I thought."

They turned out to be the best team in the NFL.

[HarveyWallbangers]

KEN RUETTGERS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/06/1/

"Only the strong survive."

That just might be one of the most overused, overstated clichés in all of sports. But in the case of Ken Ruettgers, that phrase was accurate for the majority of his career.

While some may believe that athletes have it made simply because they are being paid handsomely to play the game they love, there's more to it than that. Sure, playing time, where you play and how much money you make all factor into the life of professional athletes. Yet to men like Ruettgers, winning is of the utmost importance.

Considering he was the only player from the 1996 Super Bowl roster to play in the Forrest Gregg and Lindy Infante eras, the 6-foot-6, 286-pound left tackle clearly paid his dues. But just when it appeared that Ruettgers would come full circle and enjoy the Super Bowl season, he suffered through a knee injury and only played in four games.

Though Ruettgers, 43, was on that '96 roster and earned a Super Bowl ring, he was forced to sit through the last five games as well as the playoffs.

"Oh my goodness, it was so painful," Ruettgers explained. "It was so hard to get that close, and to have something happen where I couldn't physically make it."

Despite not getting the opportunity to finish out that special season, Ruettgers was still part of something great in Green Bay. He played five years under Mike Holmgren, contributing to a winning situation.

Ruettgers was a force at left tackle, and based on his ability to stick around for three different coaches in 12 years, he was always one of the team's best players when healthy. And now when he reflects on that time, he does so with pride.

"That was a great feeling to be part of the turnaround in Green Bay," Ruettgers said. "It was hard to do. There was a big turnover when Holmgren and (Ron) Wolf came in. By the time we got to the Super Bowl there was a big turnover.

"But you know, 50 percent of NFL players play three years or less. That's just the nature of the NFL."

The nature of the NFL is what led Ruettgers to the life he leads today. He lives in Sisters, Ore., with his wife Sheryl, and their children, Matt, 18, Katherine, 16, and Susan, 14.

After seeing what old teammates and opponents went through after they retired from football, Ruettgers was on a mission to help former professional athletes cope with the transition to a new career outside of sports. This led to a nonprofit organization called Gamesover (www.gamesover.org).
Ruettgers is the executive director and is also working on his Ph.D. in sociology. It's only fitting that his dissertation will focus on retired NFL players.

While he was in Green Bay, Ruettgers got the idea of what life might be like after football.

"In '93, I think Mike Holmgren brought a group called Invest in Yourself in, and it was kind of a preparation for retirement and I thought that was really interesting," Ruettgers said. "He brought them in during training camp and everybody on the training camp roster got some help and I thought 'Man, that is really cool.'"

Though he may have thought about his post-football career, it's not as if Ruettgers really worried about it. In fact, his mindset was just the opposite.

"It was challenging for me to go through transition," Ruettgers admitted. "I didn't think I would have any challenges at all because I had my MBA, I wrote the book, and we were well networked with the community. So, I thought, 'Man, no problem.'

"Guys I played with were ending up bankrupt, divorced, they were unemployed for years and I kept thinking, 'What is going on?' And then (former Packers teammate) Tom Neville ended up getting shot and dying in that police standoff and I wondered what is going on for a guy to lose himself in a situation like that. I thought 'Gosh, is anybody doing anything for these guys once they leave the game?' And nobody really was."

Fortunately for retired athletes, Ruettgers is here to help, especially those who feel they are taking on the "real world" by themselves.

"A lot of it is when these guys leave the game, they are so isolated," Ruttgers said. "They feel like they are the only ones going through it. I try to hook them up with life coaches, and we have a network of businesses around the country that we try to connect them with for educational counseling.

"But the greatest challenge that I found is not getting them jobs or getting them back into school, it's just working through the challenges of transitions they face. Types of relations, lifestyle changes, relational challenges, loss of structure, uncertainty, and of course the biggest one is when identity becomes an issue."

Obviously football was, and probably always will be, a huge part of Ruettgers life, and many of his clients come from that arena, However, that doesn't mean he helps only retired football players.

"I speak to a couple hundred active professional athletes a year," Ruettgers said. "Probably 100 of those are football players. I was recently down in Brazil talking to retired World Cup players. You know, golfers, gymnasts, cowboys. I haven't talked to any motorists yet, but hockey, baseball, basketball players are common."

According to Ruettgers, his line of work is very rewarding, especially when he helps somebody turn a bad situation into a good one.

"Recently I was working with a football player who had been separated from his wife and he was unreachable," Ruettgers explained. "But I kept working with him and talking with him, and eventually he and his wife are back together. I also worked with one guy who had been going from job to job and now he wants to become a doctor. He's going to med school."

Like any exciting job, Ruettgers said the stories and situations he deals with vary.

"I just recently got a call from a guy I played against," Ruettgers explained. "My last year or two he was a rookie. He played nine (years) and now he's been out for four, and he's broke. So, I just started working with him.

"It's active guys, retired guys, I just try to encourage them on the phone and talk to them about typical challenges guys face. Occasionally, my wife will talk to their wife on the phone."

Another perk to the job is the travel requirements that Ruettgers must meet. In fact, it sometimes leads him back to where it all started. Typically, Ruettgers attends training camp and made it to one Green Bay game last season. He said he's taking his son Matt, who graduates from high school this year, to Lambeau Field next fall.

It's only fitting that Ruettgers can show his son where it all started. After all, he endured some down times earlier in his career with the Packers, but in the end, everything has worked out very well.

But then again, if you really do believe that only the strong survive, then you had to know Ruettgers would be here all along.

[HarveyWallbangers]

WAYNE SIMMONS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/07/3/

In late September of 1996, the Green Bay Packers visited the Minnesota Vikings' Metrodome. Vikings running back Amp Lee ran toward the flat, and Packers outside linebacker Wayne Simmons grabbed Lee by the shoulder pads and swung him around like a helicopter's propeller before slamming him to the turf.

"It was unreal," linebacker George Koonce said. "It was so devastating what he did."

Like he did all season long, Simmons forced running backs to think twice before crossing his area. He recorded 67 total tackles, 21/2 sacks and two forced fumbles in 1996, but his true impact could not be discerned in statistics. Defensive end Reggie White and safety Eugene Robinson may have served as the defense's spiritual leaders, but Simmons added the intimidating presence.

"He brought that meanness and toughness to the Green Bay Packers' defense," Koonce said. "I never played with an individual that played the game with the mean streak that Wayne Simmons played with."

Simmons, who collected 250 total tackles during his 41/2 years with the Packers, demonstrated that mean streak during his tackle of Lee. He did not receive a penalty or personal foul for the play, but running back Edgar Bennett, a friend of Lee's from their days at Florida State, objected to it. Bennett approached him on the sidelines.

"Wayne, you didn't have to do him like that," Bennett said. "That was my college roommate."

Simmons replied: "Whenever I'm out there on the field, that's the way I play."

The 1993 first-round draft pick may have played harder and faster than most, but he also drove his car at excessive speeds during the tragic morning of Aug. 23, 2002.

At 2:45 a.m. that day, Simmons, driving by himself, sped his green Mercedes-Benz through traffic on Interstate 70 in Independence, Mo., and then veered off the highway. His Mercedes rolled over several times before landing in a ditch and catching fire.

Witnesses attempted to remove Simmons from the burning vehicle but could not unfasten his seat belt. Firefighters then arrived to put out the fire, and he was taken to Independence Regional Health Center. Doctors there pronounced the 32-year-old Simmons dead.

"To have his life cut that short was really very tragic," Packers CEO Bob Harlan said. "It certainly was a waste of what could have been."

Simmons passed away just outside of Kansas City where he started 18 games between 1997 and 1998 for the Chiefs. The Buffalo Bills claimed him off waivers in 1998 before releasing him in February of 1999.

Simmons joined the Chiefs after the Packers traded him in October of 1997, and the former Clemson star made Kansas City his post-NFL home. Simmons, whose mother operated a small restaurant called "Dot's Diner" in Hardeeville, S.C., ran a midtown restaurant and nightclub called 50/50.

On the field Simmons not only took down opposing ballcarriers like Lee, but also had a knack for playing the passing lanes and smothering receivers. In 1996, he had one interception and five passes defended.

"He would absolutely shut down a tight end," Robinson said. "(He was) one of the most underrated players that we had on that team."

The Packers last won the Super Bowl just 10 years ago, but two defensive starters -- Simmons and Reggie White -- from that team already have passed away.

"It's a terrible thing to have to ponder," Harlan said. "Both Wayne and Reggie were a big part of the Packers' family. They were huge losses for this franchise."

[HarveyWallbangers]

AARON TAYLOR

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/08/1/

As the confetti fell at the end of the Green Bay Packers' 35-21 win in Super Bowl XXXI, guard Aaron Taylor knew he had reached the pinnacle of his athletic career.

"That's when the realization hit me," he said. "We had won, and we had done what we set out to do."

In January, Taylor, 34, viewed championship confetti cannons from a different vantage point. From June of 2004 through the 2005 season, he served as a college football studio analyst at ABC Sports. As part of his job, he dissected one of the best college football games of all time -- Texas' 41-38 ebb-and-flow Rose Bowl victory over USC.

"As football fans, those are the kind of games we all enjoy watching," Taylor said. "It was a very unique spectacle ... It was great just to be a small part of it."

Landing the ABC studio job was just as serendipitous. After teaching English to teenagers in Chile and Peru for five months, Taylor served as a studio analyst for College Sports TV in 2003. He admits he accepted the job more so that he could afford to live in New York City rather than to analyze football. In an industry where people step on each other to secure an on-air gig, the TV stations chased Taylor rather than the other way around. He does not even own an audition tape, a staple for any aspiring broadcaster.

"I don't even know how I got this job at ABC," he said. "Everything I was doing was geared toward teaching."

CSTV sent a 10-second clip of one of his studio snippets to the Sports Emmys. To this day Taylor does not even know which clip, but the footage impressed ABC.

Although Taylor liked working at ABC, he resigned in early April of 2006 from what many would consider a dream job. He left on amicable terms; Taylor simply wanted to follow his heart, return to the West Coast and explore his true passions in life.

"It was a decision for personal reasons," he said. "As tempting as television was and as fun as it was and as much as I enjoyed doing it, it wasn't as complete a picture as I would (like to) have it."

Taylor has not chosen his next occupation. One idea includes creating an organization to help college athletes adjust to the professional ranks. In the meantime, he will substitute teach at Pioneer Elementary School in Escondido, Calif., a suburb of San Diego. A full-time version of that vocation occupied him before he accepted his ABC job, and Taylor could return to a similar line of work.

"If I had to guess, it's going to involve some form of teaching, some form of mentoring children," he said. "I don't know, but I have a feeling it will be dealing with kids and education and some sort of travel or hopefully all of the above."

Education, travel and helping others have served as a major part of his life since retiring from the NFL. Taylor has "run with the bulls" in Spain, taught English in Peru and Chile and traveled through 13 countries in Europe. In January of 2005, 39 days after a tsunami ravaged Sri Lanka, he delivered goods and built a community center and more than 40 temporary homes for the Sri Lankans.

"I'm just continuing to look for ways to influence life and make a difference in the world," Taylor said. "I'm just getting started."

His post-tsunami work is not Taylor's only humanitarian effort. In the spring of 2005, he set up a health and education endowment called the Aaron Taylor Impact Fund, which acts as an intermediary between philanthropists and beneficiaries. Taylor actively raises funds and secures corporate sponsorships, including a $35,000 donation by NFL charities. Despite his role overseeing the fund, Taylor still has time to travel.

He recently journeyed to the Baja Life Camp retreat in Mexico where he practiced functional stretching, body alignment and an organic, raw food diet to remove body toxins. Although a February trip to Brazil challenged his eating restrictions, Taylor has felt the benefits of eating non-cooked, preservative-free foods.

"I definitely noticed a difference," he said. "That kind of woke me up."

The stretching routine at Baja also proved helpful for a player whose early playing career was marred by injury. Before his rookie season began, he tore the patellar tendon in right knee. In his second season he suffered the same injury to his left knee during the first round of the playoffs. After another offseason of rigorous rehabilitation, his third year proved to be a charm. Taylor started all 16 games and capped it by winning the Super Bowl.

"For me it was extra special because of everything I had to overcome," Taylor said.

Taylor last traveled to Green Bay, the city where his redemptive season took place, a year-and-a-half ago. Taylor remains good friends with Packers college scout Lenny McGill and several others in the area and would like to make it back soon.

He might first, however, have to become more flexible with his organic diet to allow for some beer and bratwurst.

[HarveyWallbangers]

JEFF THOMASON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/09/1/

Jeff Thomason was a third-string tight end in Green Bay for the majority of his career, including the 1996 season when the Packers brought the Lombardi Trophy home.

But while it may have been difficult to find time on the field behind Mark Chmura and Keith Jackson, that doesn't mean Thomason didn't get the full-fledged effect of what life was like as a Green Bay Packer.

"It's just a neat place to play because everyone takes you in and adores you in a sense," Thomason, 37, marveled. "And they support you in such an incredible way. It's like no other place I ever played in."

The 6-foot-5, 250-pound Thomason spent 10 seasons in the NFL, five of them in Green Bay. His role in the '96 season was primarily on special teams, but he provided valuable depth at the tight end position when Chmura went down for three games in the regular season.

Now as he reflects on his time with the Packers, Thomason insists that although you can win a Super Bowl somewhere else, it just wouldn't be the same.

"You just could not have, as a player, picked a better place to win a Super Bowl," he said. "That town has got so much pride and love for their Packers. It was just so neat to be a part of that thing."

Thomason also got the opportunity to play in Super Bowl XXXIX with the Philadelphia Eagles, filling in for injured started Chad Lewis. It was the only game Thomason played that season, as he found a new line of work in New Jersey with a construction company called Toll Brothers.

Thomason, who oversees different communities as a developer, transferred to just outside of Denver last year. He's married to Blake and the couple has two daughters, Taylor and Lily, and a little boy named Beau.

Though he's been out of the NFL for a couple of seasons, Thomason hasn't stopped being an athlete. He competes in a couple of triathlons each year, and says that he works out in the morning every day for about an hour, either biking, running or swimming.

Someday, Thomason would like to compete in the Ironman competition, but right now the time constraints have put that goal on the backburner.

Speaking of goals, Thomason said he would like to get back to Lambeau Field soon, especially since he hasn't been there since the 2000 season with the Eagles.

"I plan on getting back there with my family and to show my kids," Thomason said. "It was such a great memory of my life, and to see the fans and the town, it would be a real thrill."

Thomason's desire to get back to Green Bay shouldn't come as a surprise because he admits that the atmosphere there is one of the things he remembers the most from the Packers' Super Bowl run.

"One of my greatest memories is when we won the NFC Championship game in Green Bay," Thomason explained. "I think there was like two or three minutes left in the game and everyone on the sidelines was just hugging each other and going crazy. The fans and the town were so supportive and I think it was about negative-three degrees. It was just freezing.

"The Super Bowl itself was incredible. Everything about it was awesome, but that one moment to be in that town and the city and be a part of that team, I mean it was something that I look back on and get chills. Everybody walking around and putting their NFC Championship hats on, it was such a neat place to be. I'm so happy I got to share that with those guys."

For Thomason, the team's arrival in Green Bay after being crowned Super Bowl champions is also something he will never forget.

"One of the things that was so incredible was when we had the parade the day after the Super Bowl," Thomason explained. "It was 10 degrees, there were no windows on the buses, and we're cruising around and we couldn't even move the buses because there were people everywhere on the street and people without their shirts on.

"And we got to the stadium about four hours late and not a single soul had left. They waited for us in a packed stadium."

Thomason said he still keeps in touch with Bob Kuberski and Doug Pederson, though he'd "love to see everybody again." After all, it was the relationships that his teammates had with one another that made the super season possible.

"It was such a tight group of guys," Thomason explained. "All of us got along so well. There were so many great memories hanging out in the locker room playing backgammon or making fun of each other. It was just such a fun group of guys to be around. Everyone seemed to mesh well together."

He may not wear his '96 Super Bowl ring very often, but Thomason said it symbolizes everything that was great about that team.

"I was wearing it when I was doing my interviews and doing that kind of thing for a while," Thomason said. "It's neat to go back to. It's not the ring itself, it's just the memories I have around it with the people I experienced it with that year. I could sit there and tell stories with so many guys about that year. It was so fun to share that with so many people."

And when he says "so many people," it's clear that Thomason wasn't only referring to his teammates, but also to the Packer Backers that made up so many of his special memories in Green Bay.

[muzz]

OK enough enough!! lmao

Your Guys beat my Guys!! OK I Give!!

I sulked, I was mad.............
Desmond Howard, I want that ball back bitch!!!
NOOOOOOOO B4 ya get into the EZ!!

DH, you definitely don't play fair!!

Great win guys, I still remember the misery............

:D

[HarveyWallbangers]

ADAM TIMMERMAN

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/11/1/

Adam Timmerman has always known the meaning of hard work. It's what he learned on his family's dairy farm in Cherokee, Iowa.

In fact, it was Timmerman's work ethic that always made an NFL career possible.

Not that he thought he'd ever have one.

After all, farm kids don't often dream of making it big in professional sports, and if they do, it's awfully difficult to act on those fantasies because of all the work that has be done on the farm.

For Timmerman, who grew up in the northwest corner of Iowa, sports were just a release from the daily working grind he was used to, as he played football, basketball, and track in high school. Though he excelled in all three, he certainly had no idea that one day he'd make a livelihood in professional football.

"I think it's like a lot of kids, it's just a dream where you think, 'Oh, it's just a dream, it's not ever going to come true,'" Timmerman, 34, said of playing in the NFL. "For me, growing up on a farm, sports were a chance to get away and be with your friends.

"We didn't watch a lot of sports on TV, we just had other things going on with the farm that seemed more important. It wasn't a huge part of our life. It was kind of weird how the whole thing unfolded."

He's right. The path Timmerman took to the professional ranks wasn't a conventional one. The 6-foot-4, 295-pound guard played his college ball at Division II South Dakota State, hardly a power in the national spotlight. But he still managed to grab individual attention by earning All-American awards as a junior and senior as well as the Jim Langer Award, for offensive lineman of the year, in his final season.

Despite the accolades, Timmerman slipped to the seventh round of the 1995 NFL Draft and the Packers grabbed him with the 230th overall pick. Not only did Timmerman see action in 13 regular season games that season, he also filled in for Packers' starter Aaron Taylor for part of a playoff game while starting two others.

Timmerman more than held his own early on, and he hasn't looked back in his career since. He has been a starter since those early days in Green Bay, and in '96, he helped the Packers earn a Super Bowl XXXI win over the New England Patriots.

According to Timmerman, the media claimed that neither he nor the group of rookies he entered the league with were supposed to help the Packers short-term, or over the long haul.

"I'll never forget the guys that came in with my draft class," Timmerman said. "Guys like me and Antonio (Freeman), William Henderson, Brian Williams, Travis Jervey. Those were guys that I came in with, and I remember the article in the paper after we were drafted saying we were maybe the worst draft class the Packers ever had.

"And it turned out to be maybe five or six starters that came out of that class. We kind of took that personally, it kind of motivated us coming into our rookie season and it bonded us together."

He may not have gotten the media's respect, but Timmerman said he'd never forget the attention he got from day one from the fans.

"I'm a seventh-round draft choice and they would know my name," Timmerman said in awe. "And I'm like, 'Man, on most rosters no one would know who the seventh-round pick was.'

"Basically it was everywhere, you were surrounded by it. So I was always impressed with that. It really did add to the excitement for me. Being from a smaller college, I didn't really know what NFL football was all about. But I was very fortunate, very blessed to be in Green Bay with that kind of atmosphere."

According to Timmerman, his late father Larry was a huge Packer fan well before Adam became a member of the team. Playing for his dad's favorite team was a bonus for Timmerman.

"That was pretty cool," Timmerman recalled. "I don't think he ever imagined that his son would ever grow up and play for the Packers. He knew the Packers back in the heyday when they were winning championships, but I think for him, it was kind of a long way off. I think it was kind of almost not real for him."

Timmerman exited Green Bay after the 1998 season and signed with the St. Louis Rams. Between the two organizations, he has started in four Super Bowls, and has won one with each team.

So, while St. Louis has been great to Timmerman, did he ever want to leave Green Bay? He doesn't hesitate in his answer.

"I would have loved to stay there," Timmerman explained. "My wife and I talk about it and we loved our time there. I definitely didn't want to leave at the time."

Since Timmerman departed, he has had many significant experiences. Besides the Super Bowl appearances, and the extreme commitment to football, Timmerman and his wife Jana have stayed busy with family life, too. They have three children, Mason, 7, Alexa 5, and Jada, an infant.

Unfortunately for Timmerman, his family suffered a loss in May 1998 when his father Larry passed away after an ATV accident. Adam said he still misses his dad a great deal, but it makes him treasure the days on the farm even more.

"A bunch of my friends from college came (to the funeral) and they said, 'Hey, you've spent more time already with your dad then I ever will and he's still alive,'" Timmerman recalled. "My dad and my brother and I, we all worked together all the time, and that's what we did. It was fun, it wasn't like a drag."

Timmerman still returns to his roots every offseason, too.

"I try to go back every spring to help my brother out when he gets busy," Timmerman explained. "I try to keep up as much as I can, but it gets a little bit tricky now that we have the kids. When we were in Green Bay we used to go back for three or four weeks, but once we started having kids, especially with Mason in school, it's getting harder to help out."

Between spending time with his family, working on the farm, and playing football, Timmerman has been plenty busy. But there's still one other aspect of his life that can't go unnoticed: his faith.

According to Timmerman, it's something he's always had, but it developed further in Green Bay because of men like Ken Ruettgers and Reggie White, among others.

"He (Reggie) was a great guy to be around, especially with me being young in my faith," Timmerman explained. "He was a good guy to look up to, and we had a good group of guys.

"We had some quality people to be around and for me to grow up with at that time. So I really felt fortunate and blessed to be around those guys and have them to kind of really disciple me and bring me along so I could become more mature myself."

With all the temptations surrounding young people with money and fame, one might believe that Timmerman would have a difficult time fitting in with teammates in the locker room. Yet, that's never been the case for Timmerman.

"I think a lot of people know where I stand, it's not a confrontation or conflict at all," said Timmerman, who has been one of the team's captains the last couple seasons. "I hope it's not and I would never make it that way. We are called to love one another and not cause problems with one another. And I think for the most part, guys are mostly receptive on the team to it. It's a little bit different now that we're older.

"Some of the guys coming straight from college view life totally differently than I do with three kids, so it's kind of funny because I remember being in that position myself. I see young players coming into the league and having a lot to learn, more about life than football actually."

Timmerman could teach teammates a thing or two not only about life, but football as well, including what it takes to be a leader.

And if there is anybody more dependable, durable, or steady than Timmerman, good luck finding him. He's been selected to two Pro Bowls and while he was in Green Bay, Timmerman helped the Packers' offensive attack achieve greatness. In the '97 season alone, Timmerman never even missed a play.

Timmerman isn't certain exactly when it will happen, but he knows his career is nearing the end.

"I think probably it all depends on my body," Timmerman said. "I just had a knee surgery and 11 years takes a toll on the body. Probably if I play next year, that will be about it.

"It's definitely winding down for me. It's been a great run. I definitely feel fortunate to be on successful Packers teams the four years I was there and to be on successful Rams teams while I've been here. It's been a lot of games and a lot of fun, but I've met a lot of great people along the way."

When it's all said and done, Timmerman will be known as a great player, but an even better man. He no longer lives on the family farm, but you can bet that Timmerman will have more time to get back to the place where it all started.

After all, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy, right?

[HarveyWallbangers]

REGGIE WHITE

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/12/3/

When the late Reggie White signed with the Green Bay Packers in 1993, he did so with a purpose.

No, it wasn't the money. After all, he could have landed a big contract nearly anywhere he desired. He was the most sought-after free agent not only at that time, but perhaps in the history of unrestricted free agency.

It wasn't for the big market of Green Bay. White certainly could have landed several endorsement opportunities in a much bigger city.

And no, White didn't join the Packers because it was perhaps the last place anyone thought he would want to play.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of the greatest players to ever don a Packers' uniform, White signed with Green Bay to win a world championship. And in 1996, that's exactly what he and his teammates did.

White, who as a Philadelphia Eagle had previously competed against Brett Favre in 1992, knew the Packers had an up-and-coming signal caller as well as a team that was on the brink of something special. Despite battering Favre early and often, the Eagles couldn't stop the second-year quarterback from leading the Packers to a 27-24 win, and White was thoroughly impressed with his toughness and desire.

Little did he know at the time, but White would later say that Favre's ability as a quarterback and the fact that he kept getting back up on that November day had a great deal to do with White joining the Packers.

Needless to say, it didn't take the Packers very long to reap the benefits of having No. 92 on their side. And in '96, White's dominance helped the Green and Gold reach heights it hadn't seen in quite some time.

Following the gentle giant's lead, the Packers defense ranked No. 1 in the entire league, a mark it hadn't achieved since 1967. Despite being double-teamed week in and week out, White still managed to lead the club in sacks with 81/2 , and he set a Super Bowl record with three sacks against the New England Patriots.

It was White's ability to take over games and inspire his teammates that gave the Packers the extra push the team needed on more than one occasion. At 6-foot-5 and 304 pounds, White could toss offensive linemen seemingly at the drop of a hat. And he did just that, registering 198 sacks in his 15 seasons in the NFL.

That sack total has since been surpassed by Bruce Smith, but White is Green Bay's all-time leader with the 681/2 he totaled in his six seasons with the organization. He was a 14-time Pro Bowl selection, an 11-time All-Pro, and was named the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year twice.

White was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, this past August, as well as the Packers Hall of Fame in July.

The list goes on and on, but perhaps what separated White from others had little to do with numbers, since his biggest contribution probably couldn't be measured. It's been said time and again, but it can't be overstated that the Minister of Defense had a way of walking into a room and immediately making his presence felt without ever saying a word.

Simply put, he was larger than life.

"There was only one Reggie," linebacker Bernardo Harris marveled. "Nobody was as strong as Reggie, nobody could play like Reggie, but you saw his motor, you saw the abilities he had and you just marvel at the things he did. You were just thankful that he was on your team. When somebody was down or when something had to be fixed, he never shied away from speaking up. He was the type of guy you could learn a lot from on and off the field."

Despite White's legendary status, as well as his imposing stature, he was a gentle man.
Deeply involved in charity work throughout his life, White was very generous with his talents away from the field as well.

According to his teammates, that is what made White such an endearing man.

"It was like having that big brother," said Santana Dotson, a close friend of White's. "I always put him in the category where you had your mom, dad, and then Reggie. And when I say mom, dad, and Reggie, it was somebody you could talk to, get their vantage point and their point of view. You knew they had no ulterior motives.

"I just really remember how approachable he was. That was from day one. Reg was always somebody you could talk to. And if you talked to him, whether it was every month, or every other day, you felt like you just talked to him every day, that's just how genuine he was."

White's helping hand didn't only reach out to veterans like Dotson or Sean Jones, either. Instead of keeping to himself and playing the role of an ego-driven superstar, White wanted to help out everybody he came in contact with.

He would often call meetings and address the team whenever it was necessary. But it was the counseling he did away from the field that made a lasting impact on so many of the men he shared the locker room with.

"I tell you what, it was a very unique situation because you basically had a person who was a preacher playing football," Tyrone Williams said. "You could pretty much go to him for anything. He would give you inspirational hope and inspirational development.

"I got to Green Bay as a young person and he helped me out a ton. He helped a lot of players, too. It was a special situation that just so happened to fall into my lap. I was just very thankful to be around the guy. He was so spiritual it was unbelievable."

He may have been one of the greatest players in the history of the NFL, but according to those who played with him, he was a better teammate.

It's no surprise that White wasn't afraid to speak his mind. Then again, that's what a great leader -- and White was that in every sense of the word -- normally does.

"He got it done on the field," safety Mike Prior said. "He always gave a great effort and he was a vocal leader, too, in the locker room. If things were going well or even if they weren't, he'd let everyone know about it. It was constructive criticism."

It's hardly a secret that White had the ability to make those around him on defense better, but his practice habits affected the whole team.

And when push came to shove, those teammates didn't want to let White down, even if they only competed against each other in practice.

"I practiced against Reggie at Tennessee and in Green Bay," Bruce Wilkerson explained. "When we were in college, I cut my teeth against Reggie. To come to Green Bay and play against him, he was an older guy, I was an older guy, it would be kind of funny because if we got going against each other, Mike Holmgren would call us pumped up Tennessee boys.

"And you know, I hate to lose. But going against Reggie, you're going to lose quite a bit. But it would just elevate the tempo of practice. It was fun. I just considered it a learning experience. If you can go against one of the best guys in the NFL every day in practice and do a decent job, that would make the games easier."

Earl Dotson was in the same boat as Wilkerson.

"He kicked my butt," said Dotson, a right tackle. "He made me a better player. Sunday was like a day off for me after facing him all week."

The Patriots certainly didn't have any vacation time against Green Bay on Jan. 26, 1997. In fact, they had all they could handle with the dominating defensive end.

White, as he so often did in the past, came up with big plays when his team needed him the most. With little time remaining in the third quarter, he sacked quarterback Drew Bledsoe on consecutive plays. This dominance, along with Desmond Howard's 99-yard kickoff return, took the wind out of New England's sails.

He finished the day with another sack and it was just another classic case of how White responded in crunch time. His performance was no surprise to defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur.

"This is the biggest game," the late Shurmur said at the time, "and Reggie has his biggest day. That tells you something about him."

According to Larry Brooks, the defensive line coach, it was this type of effort that the coaching staff knew it could always count on from White.

"He was an All-Pro and one of the guys that had greatness about him," Brooks said. "But you'd never know it as a coach. He'd try to do everything that you ask him, which always sticks out in my mind when you have a great player."

Besides all of his accomplishments on the field, and there certainly was no shortage of those, White was also widely known for his faith in God. An ordained minister, he was very serious about God's work.

In fact, when White decided to sign with the Packers in 1993, he insisted that was what God had told him to do.

According to wide receiver Robert Brooks, who is now a minister himself, White had a lasting impact on his faith as well.

"One thing I know about Reggie was that he was very consistent in his faith. He was very instrumental in me coming to Christ because he was one of the only Christians I knew who lived what he preached about," Brooks explained. "You know, he lived what he was talking about. You always see hypocrites in every area of life where they say one thing and do a different thing. He was one of the people I watched because I was looking for something to believe and someone to trust in.

"I had lost faith in people. And you never want to have your faith in people anyway. But I think what God does in his mercy is he always has one or two people reserved who can always show you the light and say, you know what, there are some true people, there are some people that are authentic and there are some people that are true to what they believe. And Reggie was one of those people. I love to give the testimony that he was very instrumental in me coming to Christ and we had a very, very good friendship."

Brian Williams, who was only in his second season at the time, was convinced from the get-go that White's faith in God was awe-inspiring.

"I don't know if you remember when Reggie hurt his hamstring," Williams said. "But it was supposed to be torn off the bone...I don't know what happened, but it seemed like it was destiny for that team. I don't want to sit here and call it an act of God...but it sure seemed like it."

All General Manager Ron Wolf knew was that White came to Green Bay to win a championship, and he's glad it worked out the way it did.

Wolf said that White, along with Deion Sanders, were the two best players in the history of unrestricted free agency. He was just glad to land White, who helped return the Packers to glory.

Many critics claimed it couldn't be done, but the legendary defensive end kept the faith in taking the Packers to the promised land.

"I can remember Reggie White when he came here. He said if we won the Super Bowl here, it would be like winning a Super Bowl in no other place in the league," Brooks recalled. "And he was totally right."

Then again, prophets usually are.

[HarveyWallbangers]

BRUCE WILKERSON

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/13/2/

It's not that often when a player gets a "do-over" on the field, and it happens even less in the offseason. But Bruce Wilkerson was fortunate enough to get that second chance in 1996.

Wilkerson had an opportunity to join the Packers the year before as an unrestricted free agent, but instead elected to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars. All it took was a little down time for Wilkerson to ponder his future.

"I signed with Jacksonville and during the playoffs that year, I'm sitting at home," Wilkerson, 41, recalled. "We won four football games and lost a lot of close ones. So, I'm sitting at home and the Packers are playing the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship game and Ken Ruettgers was hurt.

"I'm sitting there saying, 'This team is a tackle away from playing in the Super Bowl.' So I mean, that gave me the notion the following year that there was a chance this team was special and could do great things."

The 6-foot-5, 305-pound tackle was released by the Jaguars in April 1996 and this time around, he knew exactly where he wanted to go. He called General Manager Ron Wolf and told him he wasn't going to sign with anybody other than Green Bay.

A year earlier, it was Wolf who recruited Wilkerson to Green Bay. But the G.M. wasn't going to try and fool the man who had previously spent his whole professional career playing in warm weather. There was no getting around the frigid Green Bay winters.

"Ron Wolf showed me the temperatures," Wilkerson explained. "He had a board that had the temperatures of every game the year before. He didn't tell me that we were Super Bowl contenders or blah, blah, blah. He said, 'These are our temperatures.'"

This time around, the weather was a non-factor because Wilkerson knew what he was getting into.

"I remember playing with the Raiders and going to Green Bay the day after Christmas, December 26, 1993," Wilkerson recalled. "It was the coldest I had ever been in my life. I played with the Raiders and we played Buffalo, but that day in Green Bay was the coldest I had ever been."

Wilkerson's memory served him right as game-time temperatures that day got down to 1 degree at kickoff. But despite initially signing with Jacksonville due in part to the warmer weather, Wilkerson learned that Green Bay's temps weren't so bad after all.

"If you come in during July and you're up there from when it is warm until it gets cold, it has a totally different effect on your body than it does when you're coming in from somewhere where it's 70 degrees and you're coming in to play and it's 12, not counting the wind chill," Wilkerson explained. "So it totally has a different effect on your body."

Weather wasn't the only difference between Green Bay and the other teams Wilkerson had played on, either.

Playing with the Packers gave Wilkerson a close-up, literally and figuratively, of Green and Gold fans. Initially, this wasn't something Wilkerson was used to.

"Coming from the Raiders, everything in training camp was behind the black fence," Wilkerson said. "Everything was blocked off and all private.

"Then, you come to Green Bay, and everything's wide open. You ride the bicycles, you walk with the fans, you do the whole shebang up until the season and then they put the green fence up. It was cool. It was a shock at first, but it was very cool."

These days Wilkerson, his wife Antoinette, and their two children -- daughter Starkicia, 19, and son Jeremy, 14 -- live in Knoxville, Tenn. Wilkerson keeps busy working as a machinist for an aluminum company and tries to make it to Green Bay for one game in September and one game in October, although he only made it once last season.

Wilkerson was known for riding his Triumph motorcycle while in Green Bay, as well as collecting and restoring John Deere tractors. But he's since switched to a Honda cycle, saying he's "slowed down some," and he no longer has time for his John Deere hobby, either.

"It's time, basically," Wilkerson said. "You've got something that you enjoy, but your time restraints kind of kill you. My son is into golden glove boxing, he's been doing that for about a year. I laugh and joke with it and say that I am almost a soccer mom. I'm trying to take him as much as I can."

With his busy schedule, it's also not easy for Wilkerson to keep in contact with his old teammates these days.

"I'm not a stay-in-contact type of guy," Wilkerson said. "I mean, I probably talked to Aaron Taylor two-and-a-half, three years ago. It's been awhile. I talked to Frankie (Winters) this past football season."

Despite falling out of touch with the guys, Wilkerson still catches himself thinking about that '96 Super Bowl team. He said that although he started the last game of the year and throughout the playoffs, that wasn't necessarily planned when he arrived in Green Bay.

"Basically I was brought in there to be an insurance policy," Wilkerson recalled. "Ruettgers was hurt when I came in and they had John Michels and Gary Brown and they wanted to see them play. At one point, a friend of mine (defensive end Sean Jones) supposedly told Coach Holmgren that we had a guy over on the sideline that happened to be a better man for the job. They had those two guys, but they gave me a try and everything worked out."

This was a far cry from where Wilkerson initially was as a Packer, but he came to the team's rescue by not allowing a sack in the team's first two postseason games. When his number was called, Wilkerson's skills were still sharp in part because of Reggie White.

After all, he was facing White every day in practice, something that reminded him of his college days at the University of Tennessee when they were teammates.

"Reggie was in his younger days when we were in college, and I cut my teeth against Reggie," Wilkerson said. "Going against Reggie and Mike Cofer was one of those things that enabled me to play on Sunday. To come to Green Bay and play against him, he was an older guy, I was an older guy, it would be kind of funny because if we got going against each other, Mike Holmgren would call us pumped up Tennessee boys.

"And you know, I hate to lose. But going against Reggie, you're going to lose quite a bit. But it would just elevate the tempo of practice. It was fun. I just considered it a learning experience. If you can go against one of the best guys in the NFL every day in practice and do a decent job, that would make the games easier."

That sounds fitting, especially since Wilkerson's decision to sign with Green Bay in '96 made life easier for the Packers, too.

[HarveyWallbangers]

GABE WILKINS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/14/2/

Although his mother ably raised him, defensive end Gabe Wilkins lacked a strong male presence in his life when his father died at a young age. Reggie White helped fill that void.

"He was more like a father figure," Wilkins said. "I thanked him in prayers. I appreciated the fact God let a guy like that come into my life because I needed it."

White served as a role model for Wilkins throughout the 1996 season. In that Super Bowl-winning year, Wilkins played in each game and backed up both White and fellow defensive end Sean Jones.

But Wilkins followed them in ways that go beyond the depth chart. He learned how to prepare himself as a professional. He mimicked the dedication of the veteran defensive ends, working out year-round in Lambeau Field and attending every meeting 10 to 15 minutes early.

"Those small things like that ultimately had a lot to do with us making it to the Super Bowl," Wilkins said.

Wilkins soaked in their knowledge, racking up 18 tackles and three sacks that season. And he became a starter after Jones retired before the 1997 season. Wilkins, however, remained a callow player in 1996 -- three years removed from playing at Gardner-Webb University, a 4,000-student NAIA school.

"I didn't have a clue. I was ... green, not having a great understanding of what it took to compete," Wilkins said. " '96 was a real eye opener for me."

Wilkins' eyes focused on something else with less than three minutes left in the third quarter of Super Bowl XXXI. Having just sacked Drew Bledsoe for an 8-yard loss, White needed a rest. Always observing White, Wilkins was studying the Hall of Famer's pass rush angle on the JumboTron replay. Intently focused on White's technique, Wilkins did not hear defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur barking at him to enter the game.

"I was paying attention," Wilkins said. "But I wasn't paying attention to the right thing."

Defensive line coach Larry Brooks finally commanded Wilkins' attention, and he entered the game. He made an impact from then on, collecting one solo tackle and batting down a pass intended for tight end Ben Coates. That culminated a strong performance on the NFL's grandest stage.

"You don't believe that it's as major as it is until you're in the middle of it," Wilkins said.

Now Wilkins' major role consists of raising his four daughters in the 40,000-person town of Spartanburg, S.C. During Wilkins' playing days -- four years with the Packers and two with the San Francisco 49ers -- his wife, Ansley, took care of the kids. He now understands how hard she worked.

"I wasn't there all the time. Playing football takes a lot of your time." Wilkins said. "I didn't appreciate my wife as far as taking care of the kids. I didn't understand how much it took to keep four kids in line."

Now Wilkins, 34, assumes a lot of the child care responsibility and for good reason. Wilkins wants to provide the paternal role he never had. Gabe was reared by his mother, Annie, since the age of seven. At that age he lost his father, James, when a truck driver veered off course and struck him as he walked home one night.

Aside from overseeing his financial portfolio and playing in the occasional golf game, Wilkins completely devotes himself to his four girls: Mia, 5, Chemoya, 10, Alexis, 11, and Gabrielle, 14. His wife works part-time as a coordinator at a state-funded day care center, and he mirrors her job at their home.

"My children come first. Right now that's the only thing at the top of my list," he said. "They get my full attention."

Wilkins, who retired in 2000, eventually may enter the real estate business but does not want to work until after Mia turns 10. He, however, foresees another role if and when his daughters have children.

"Hopefully one day they'll have a son that might want to play," Wilkins said. "And I can teach him how."

Just like White did.

[HarveyWallbangers]

BRIAN WILLIAMS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/15/4/

Brian Williams hadn't been around long, but he knew one thing: If the 1996 season ended with anything less than a Super Bowl victory, the year would be considered a colossal disappointment.

In 1995, when Williams was drafted in the third round out of the University of Southern California, he didn't have the season he hoped for and the Packers lost to the Dallas Cowboys in the postseason for the third consecutive year.

Because the Packers came so close the previous two seasons, they didn't just want to reach Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans. They expected it.

"We knew we could get that far because we just got to the NFC Championship game the year before," Williams, 33, said. "It was kind of like nothing else was going to cut it that season. I think everyone had it in their minds that that was the goal.

"So many of the people who were on the team, especially the ones there from the year before, could really taste it."

Just as it was time for the Packers to get over the hump as a team, it was also time for the 6-foot-1, 235-pound linebacker to show what he could do on the field. After all, the Packers invested the 73rd overall pick on Williams, but he played primarily on special teams in his rookie campaign.

"I guess to me, more than not, it was kind of like a make-or-break season," Williams explained. "They drafted me the year before, and I had a groin injury most of that year and I couldn't show them what I could do."

George Koonce moved from 'Plugger' (right outside linebacker) to the middle in order to create a spot for Williams on the field, and the move paid dividends the whole season. Williams finished with 95 total tackles, second on the team only to Koonce, who tallied 117 stops.

Though Williams said several people played a key role in the defense's success, it was the late Fritz Shurmur, the defensive coordinator, who helped him the most.

"As the season went on, I guess it was really Fritz teaching me and allowing me to do more things on defense," Williams said. "I guess that was me being more consistent and making plays."

It wasn't a secret that Shurmur was an outstanding coordinator who had the ability to teach his players and get the most out of them. What people may not have realized, however, was that Shurmur found a way to utilize Williams, who was the type of linebacker the Packers didn't have in previous seasons.

"The way I played linebacker, I was probably more athletic and able to do more things than probably what they were used to," Williams noted. "Fritz was used to the linebacker coming down and destroying the lineman. But (the athleticism) allowed us to be more creative with the defense and let us change things up a lot."

According to Williams, Shurmur also had an uncanny ability to confuse opposing offenses quite regularly.

"Teams didn't know what we were going to do from game to game," Williams explained. "We were probably the first team in the league around that time that ran a 3-3 defense with three down linemen and three linebackers and five defensive backs. It's like a nickel defense but we would line that up against team's base offenses."

Williams said he will never forget the fiery passion or confidence that Shurmur displayed and how the team eventually began to mirror Shurmur's personality.

"Whatever Fritz put up there, we ran it," Williams said with a laugh. "Fritz brought the attitude that, 'We don't care what offense you put on the field, we're going to put the defense we want to on the field.' Fritz was also a tough guy. That's what he brought to the table and everybody took that personality from him."

Shurmur clearly had a profound effect on Williams' play, but he continued to have unfortunate luck with injuries. In fact, his Packers' career ended on injured reserve in 2000. He played for the Detroit Lions in 2001 and 2002, but then he suffered a shoulder injury in the preseason finale of the 2003 season. Williams spent the year on injured reserve and decided he'd had enough.

Williams acknowledged that over the years the injuries began to take a toll on him.

"I had so much bad luck with injuries in football," Williams said. "Once I got over one, it seemed like another one came. It was a situation where I kept coming back, but then it was like, 'Man, I got one more time that I am going to make this comeback.'

"Then you get healthy again and you get hurt again and you say this is really the last time. I think I said that to myself three times."

And though he may be done with football, Williams still remains very busy these days. He resides in Dallas and is currently working on land development. Recently, Williams put the finishing touches on his first project, a 49-lot subdivision, and admits he's already looking forward to getting started on the next one.

Despite spending much of his time operating his business, Williams stays in shape by playing tennis, something he has done for over a year now. He also follows the Packers very closely, and he still makes time for a few of his old teammates as well.

Williams said he often speaks with Keith McKenzie, and occasionally to Antonio Freeman, Dorsey Levens, and Santana Dotson, and that he will always have a special bond with the guys he played with.

In fact, because everyone expected greatness from that '96 team, Williams admitted he felt added pressure to come through for his teammates.

"I had Reggie White in front of me, I had LeRoy Butler and Eugene Robinson behind me and I just wanted to hold up my end of the bargain," Williams explained. "And really, I think one aspect that was brought up during the time, and Eugene talked about this a lot, was us being accountable to each other on the field.

"It was a total team effort and we knew what was at stake."

Clearly, Williams and the Packers realized those expectations and then some.

[HarveyWallbangers]

TYRONE WILLIAMS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/16/1/

Green Bay is one of the smallest cities in all of professional sports. To some players coming out of college, that's not an exciting prospect. But to others, a small-town atmosphere is ideal.

When the Packers selected Tyrone Williams in the third round of the 1996 NFL Draft, it wasn't really a matter of whether the city of Green Bay was too big or too small.

To him, it just felt right.

Williams was coming from the University of Nebraska where he played in three national championship games, winning two of them. He had two first-team All-Big Eight seasons and usually played his best football in big games. In short, he was a winner.

Plus, Williams was accustomed to the type of football atmosphere that existed in Titletown. So, when he landed in Green Bay in his rookie season, it was a good fit for both parties.

"It wasn't too bad," Williams, 33, said. "The only reason I say that is because I was coming from Nebraska and I kind of knew how a small town works. I know guys who came from USC and at first, they didn't know what to do. But to me, it was so similar to Nebraska it was an easy transition."

Williams played in the nickel and dime packages as a rookie and helped the Packers win Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans. He played seven seasons and became a mainstay on defense in Green Bay, but for how much he enjoyed his time here, Williams didn't fully appreciate it until he left.

"It was so much fun," Williams explained. "You don't really notice it until you go to another team. I mean, once you go to another team...you start to appreciate the old feeling that two or three years ago, this was this way, and that was that way, and it was so great.'

"So, it's crazy. But the memories are going to be there because it's kind of hard to put a team together and be close and be really like a family and have fun. And on top of that it was genuine. It was a special time in my life, I'll never forget it."

Williams sat out all of last year after playing with the Atlanta Falcons and Dallas Cowboys following eight seasons with the Packers. During that time, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound cornerback realized how much the game really meant to him, and he's doing everything he can to make an NFL comeback, including working out at the IMG Academy in Florida.

"My drive is still there and I found that out this year," Williams said. "At first, it was like, 'Man, I'm tired of football.'

"But taking a year off refreshes you so much. You look out there and you see guys like Deion Sanders, Dale Carter, and Terrell Buckley, and it kind of gives you a little inspiration."

While Williams finds motivation in watching some of the older players maintain an NFL career, he often finds inspiration in being around some of the younger guys, too.

"I'm out there with a lot of college kids that are coming out," Williams explained. "Working out with kids like (Heisman Trophy winner) Reggie Bush, it kind of gets you pumped up about playing again. Everybody is over there."

Williams and his wife Shantel have three kids, Michael, Cameron, and Tyra. They reside in Bradenton, Fla., and though Tyrone is working on his NFL comeback, he is also involved in real estate, owning property in Atlanta, Florida, Houston, and Kansas City.

Though many miles removed from Green Bay, Williams said that doesn't change how he or his family feels about the city.

"My kids and wife, everybody loves Green Bay so we keep up on what they're doing," Williams said. "And Green Bay is definitely always going to be a part of me."

At this point, Williams said one of the most significant things to happen to him since he left Green Bay and played in a Super Bowl is renewing the quest to get back to the big game.

"It's a lot of fun once you go there," Williams explained. "If you've never been there, I feel sorry for you because it's definitely something you should experience at least once in your career."

Whether that happens again for him or not remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain: Williams is going to go down as one of the best football players in Nebraska's history.

"Last year they sent me a letter about how they voted me into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame and they are going to retire my jersey," Williams proudly stated. "This fall I'll be going in, and if I'm playing ball I won't be there, but I'll still get inducted so it'll be a good thing, either way."

Williams, who keeps both of his Nebraska championship rings as well as his Super Bowl ring in a safe deposit box, said he's very happy to have been a part of Nebraska and Green Bay Packer history.

"It doesn't get any better than that," Williams said. "I mean, to leave my high school and go to the University of Nebraska and to leave there and go to an organization like Green Bay, I mean, I fulfilled every dream I ever had."

[HarveyWallbangers]

FRANK WINTERS

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/09/19/1/

It's only natural for a center to have a special bond with his quarterback. After all, each snap goes through those two, and they work closely together on a daily basis.

For Frank Winters and Brett Favre, this center-quarterback relationship developed many years ago. Winters signed with the Packers as a Plan B free agent in 1992, the same year Favre was traded to Green Bay.

According to Winters, 42, it was a relationship that lasted 11 years on the gridiron, but will last well beyond that off the field.

"He was a great player on the field and equally great off the field," Winters said. "It's probably a friendship that will last throughout our lifetimes. We still get together in the offseason and play golf and talk about the old times."

Winters said it was Favre's ability to keep the mood light that enabled him to lead the Packers to many great seasons, including a Super Bowl XXXI victory.

"He was a lot of fun," Winters explained. "Fun in the sense that he would take pressure off those around them because he was funny, he was a practical joker. I think that put people at ease in tense times in Green Bay. He'd come in the huddle and say, 'Hey, let's go down and score this touchdown and get out of here.'"

Although he recalls the Super Bowl win as if it just happened yesterday, Winters said he knows that's far from the reality of the situation. In fact, that realization, he says, is the most significant thing that has happened to him since the game itself.

"The only thing I can really recall is that time has really flown by," Winters said. "You can kind of look back like it was yesterday, but it's not, it's 10 years ago. Things have changed a lot. When you look at it, a fourth of my life has gone by in the last 10 years. It's just amazing how fast it's gone by."

Winters currently lives in Overland Park, Kan., with his wife Alita and two daughters, Aubre, 17, and Alexa, 16. He owns two restaurants in Ohio and said that in the three years he's been retired, he is "just kind of enjoying it." Winters served as an assistant football coach last season at Blue Valley North High School, where his daughters attend.

"That was kind of fun, just giving back to the community," Winters said. "I was having a good time with the kids that I see on a regular basis throughout the year so it was kind of fun."

Despite this enjoyment, Winters doesn't know if coaching is part of his future plans, especially in professional football. He admits that the lifestyle of many NFL coaches isn't for him.

"You miss the guys and stuff, but it's just a different game today. I honestly think that coaches make it harder than it really is," Winters explained. "It's gotten to the point where they just beat themselves over the head with it. I think from a player's perspective, it's more of a mental and physical toll it takes on your body, but I think from a coach's perspective it's just a mental thing.

"I think coaches believe if they spend 101 hours in the meeting room a week and the coach they're playing against spends 100, they think they'll win. The game has gotten so complicated right now and I think they just beat themselves over the head."

Winters acknowledges that the game may be a little different now then when he played, but regardless of the coaches' involvement, one thing remains the same.

"You've got to remember, the players got to go out there and play, and if you don't have the players you're not going to win, I don't care what kind of coaches you have," the 6-foot-3, 292-pound former center said.

"You look around the league and sometimes it mind-boggles me because the coaches that are coaching, it seems like a recycled league. They get fired and the next thing you know they get hired by another team the next week. The turnover ratio is unbelievable."

It's not that Winters is an opponent of coaches putting in long hours. Rather, he said he doesn't know if that's the best approach.

"Does it work? I'm not sure," Winters said. "You look at (Bill) Parcells and (Dick) Vermeil, they won Super Bowls. It probably doesn't work for everybody, but you know, if that's how they believe it works, you wish them the best of luck."

Though Winters considers himself a casual fan of the game these days, he still has fond memories of the league in which he spent 16 seasons. And life as a Packer was a good one for the New Jersey-born Winters.

Winters thinks the basis for those good times came from the fact that the team enjoyed being around one another.

"Basically it was just a bunch of good guys that played in that Super Bowl," Winters said. "It was a bunch of guys who did a lot of things together. We were real close as teammates. And to this day, when you see these guys, you still remain close to them.

"It was just a great experience, a whole team effort. We had a bunch of guys who played well. You had your superstars like Brett and Reggie (White), but for the most part, we were a bunch of blue-collar guys who went out there and accomplished great things."

It was with the help of those teammates that Winters made it through one of the tougher times in his life, which happened to be the week of the Super Bowl. It was just two days after the Packers beat the Carolina Panthers in the NFC Championship that his brother, John Winters, passed away with a heart ailment. Frank said football was his outlet, but his family wasn't so fortunate.

"It's always tough when you go through a family tragedy like that," Winters explained. "I think it was tougher on my mom and dad and family members because they had to deal with it after I left and I had to go and get ready for a game. I had my friends' and teammates' support. I had a bunch of people around me supporting me, but for my family, once everyone left, they were there by themselves and maybe a select few individuals."

It wasn't until after the game that the trauma really hit home for Winters.

"With the Super Bowl going on, going through the tragedy, everything was kind of like a blur, until after the season was over with and you sit down and reflect about the good things of winning a Super Bowl and the bad things like losing a brother during that period of time," Winters recalled.

"I think it was tougher after the Super Bowl because you're sitting home by yourself and everybody has gone home to their family and friends and you're just with your family. I think it's a lot tougher during those times."

Speaking of tough, that's one quality Winters never lacked on the field. He played 156 games in 11 seasons for the Packers, but this circumstance required a different kind of toughness. Winters stayed the course because he felt an obligation to his teammates and he had the desire to win the ever-elusive Super Bowl ring. Not that he wears it all that often.

"I think since we won that Super Bowl, I've worn it 15 times, mostly at weddings and functions," Winters said of his ring. "Not to say I don't appreciate it. It's just so big and awkward on your hand. The older you get, the more you'll wear it, and the more you'll appreciate it.

"I'm not really a big jewelry guy, I usually just wear a watch. It's not my style as much as some people. And that's not to say that I don't cherish it and adore it, but I know some guys that wear it every day."

Winters laughs when he thinks about another issue that stems from wearing the hefty piece of jewelry.

"There's nothing worse when you go out and you wear the Super Bowl ring and you have one of these guys who squeeze your hand," Winters said with a laugh. "And you're screaming in pain and you have one of these guys who think it's like a vice grip and they try to squeeze your hand off.

"I had that happen before and I've been almost crying and someone asked me what was wrong, and I was like, 'Nothing, nothing at all.' You know, you just got to live with it."

Sounds like a problem a lot of players would love to have.

[RashanGary]

Did that team have any bad players?

That was 22 really good starters and a about 10 others who would take the jobs of current starters on this team.

How do you fit that many good players under the cap? Some guys must have been getting jipped. :)

[GBRulz]

Yeah....some dude named Jim that played for Da Bears