Cheeselandia!

I am quite pleased with the outcome of today's Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers over the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31-25. I could write volumes, but instead will pen an intro and then cherry-pick one player from each team's offense and defense to illustrate my position. But first...


Preface:
I've attended a couple games in Green Bay, a title game in '07 and an opening day vs. Detroit a year or two later. The fans there are the greatest. In my experience, they treated visiting fans like gold, inviting me and my roommate Fran to tailgates on our walk to Lambeau Field (one guy had chili in a steel cup on the hibachi in his driveway, he implored us to have some and it was GOOOOOOOOOOOOD), people in the stands were passing around flasks, thermoses with hot chocolate (some spiked with Rumplemintz schnapps or Captain Morgan's spiced rum), the stadium staff did everything with smiles... it was civic pride to the max, small-town energy and good-natured humanity like you read about. The night before the '07 title game, Fran and I were lucky enough to attend a private party at which other attendees (and people we briefly met) included then-commissioner Paul Tagliabeu, NFL Films' Steve Sabol, and Packers greats Paul Hornung and Willie Davis. Best of all, we met Ray Nitschke! He asked us where we're from, we looked at each other, one of us said Boston, the other Chicago, and Mr. Nitschke said, in a voice I'd compare to Rodney Dangefield's in Caddyshack, "Oh yeah, Boston by Chicago, you guys are great! All right, then!" The car (nicknamed the Grey Ghost) got stuck in the frozen tundra after the game, but that's a good story for another day - it involves meeting a naked Ronnie Lott in the airport bathroom.

In August '01, my friend and music industry mentor Rick, a promoter/producer, and talent buyer in Green Bay, hosted me for a day and night. The next paragraph extols the virtues of Rick.

Rick is a very successful and great family man who's never stood to gain a lick from me, yet he reached out when I first took the silly plunge into the music biz, taught me as much as I would absorb, helped me out every time it mattered, always made time for me, never asked for anything, handed me some bookings which he could have made as easily himself. RG is forever a friend, a guardian angel, a mentor. In 2001, Rick invited me to spend a day and night with him and his wife, Di.

I got up early and made the 4-hour drive from Chicago to Green Bay. We spent the morning at his office, the evening at his home, and the afternoon at a Packers practice. It was the day before last cuts, so everyone was playing their ass off. Gilbert Brown was busting his ass! Brett Favre's passes were like bullets! Before practice, each player rode a bicycle from the field house to the practice field with a kid walking along and holding onto a handlebar. Standing there, all I heard was players engaging in small-talk with these local kids. Charming? Understatement. Watching practice was crazy, sitting in 3rd row bleachers with the proximity of a high school game, hearing the sounds, the voices, and witnessing the true speed and quickness of the NFL in a way you just can't elsewhere. Later, Rick took me to his cabin where he already had brats soaking in beer, we grilled some dinner, talked some music, Di and their kids were there, we all talked music, it was a brilliant time.

Now, onto the Super Bowl:

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers is a class act, one of the easiest NFL players to like, and I've been a big fan since he stepped in for an injured Brett Favre 3 years ago during a Thursday night game in Dallas (the roof was being re-shingled, satellite dish under a tarp in the yard, I was listening on the radio). Coming out of high school in Chico, CA he had zero scholarship offers, though Illinois offered to let him walk on. He was a stud but was 5'10" and 165 (he would eventually grow to his current 6'2" and 225). So he played at Butte Community College near Chico where he threw 28 touchdowns as a freshman, and then got a ride at nearby Cal-Berkley after a year. Junior and community college transfers normally have to play 2 years before transferring to a 4-year school with a scholarship (probably because they're almost always there courtesy of grades and SAT scores coming in below the insanely low standards of 2.0 and 700), but Rodgers earned a 3.6 and scored 1300 on the SAT, so he was allowed to transfer. He didn't take a redshirt year, led Cal to 7-3 and 10-1 seasons, and entered the draft after his 3rd year of school. In funny news, he's apparently a big pro wrestling fan, and his celebration after a Packers score (running, passing, and I hear he does this on the sideline after a defensive or special teams score) he emulates the motion of putting a championship belt around his waist. I didn't watch the post-game Super Bowl interviews, but I was told when he accepted the MVP and Lombardi trophies, he was wearing a replica WWE belt.

Compare Aaron Rodgers to his Pittsburgh counterpart, Ben Roethlisberger, whose non-football activity of choice seems to be raping young women in white-trash locales like Reno and rural Georgia. His exploits are too infamous for me to bother detailing, but if you're unsure of Big Ben's hillbilly history, just google it and enjoy.

Now let's take a gander at the defensive side.

Packers standout (and one of my favorite pros) Clay Matthews, the long-haired #52. His grandfather, Clay Sr., played offensive line for the 49ers in the '50s, his career interrupted by service in Korea. His uncle Bruce is a Hall of Fame offensive lineman for the Oilers who made 14 Pro Bowls in a 19-year career. His father, Clay Jr., who made 4 Pro Bowls in a 19-year career with the Browns and Falcons, was his high school coach. #52 got little playing time in high school because his dad considered him undersized. As a senior, he started developing,
but it was too late and he got zero Division I scholarship offers. Instead of going to community college or D-2, he enrolled at USC, where his father and uncle played, and walked on to the football team. After 2 years, they gave him a scholarship. As a junior, he mostly played on special teams. As a senior, he tore it up. He was one of 5 NFL-bound linebackers on that USC team but most of his accolades continued to come from his special teams work. He wasn't even technically a starting LB that year. The defensive coordinator created a hybrid position for him where he lined up as a defensive end but played as a 5th LB. (all 4 of the starting LBs on that team were drafted, or all 5 if you include Matthews). He's the only player in USC history to be named Co-Special Teams Player of the Year in three consecutive seasons. 2010 was his 2nd year in the NFL. His younger brother just finished a great career at the University of Oregon.

And then there's the Steelers' James Harrison, #92 in your program and #asshole in your heart. On one small hand, he was the youngest of 14 kids, played his college ball at Kent State and was undrafted. On the other... he was suspended from his high school team for challenging a coach to a fight, ejected from a game for running along the opposing team's sideline and making obscene gestures to their fans, and went to court for firing a BB gun at a coach in the locker room. Stay with me, it gets MUCH better. In March '08, days after the Steelers released wide receiver Cedric Wilson in response to a domestic abuse charge, Harrison was locked up for beating up his girlfriend. He called team owners Art & Dan Rooney and explained that as a devout Catholic (I'll take this opportunity to call bullshit), the argument which led to the assault was based on his girlfriend not wanting to have their son baptized. Ah, that totally explains it! I wonder why Wilson was released within hours of his incident and Harrison - the "devout Catholic" (who has 2 children without being married and likes to smack his bitch up) - was retained. Perhaps it's because Wilson
was a marginal player while Harrison is one of the most dominant defensive players in recent football history. Way to go, Steelers. You stay classy now. The following year, Harrison's pit bull went crazy and bit his son, girlfriend, and massage therapist (she got stitches). The son spent 3 days in the hospital, and #92's agent dismissed the incident as "hardly life-threatening." The dog was slated to be euthanized but the Steelers stepped in, arranged to have the canine placed in a temporary home where he/she underwent "anger management training" - ironically, just as Mr. Harrison did after he beat up his girlfriend the prior year. When the NFL finally began cracking down on illegal, dangerous, head injury-related hits this season, Harrison was the most often (3 times) and most heavily (a cumulative $145g) fined player in the game. The Steelers lost the Super Bowl today. If I was James Harrison's girlfriend, I'd be in a safe house with the kids by now.

To end on a positive note... who's getting laid tonight in Green Bay? EVERYBODY!