What would you do to see your first Green Bay Packers game in person?
Would you walk 500 miles, a la The Proclaimers, to be there at Lambeau Field? Would you endure watching a Packers offense led by a quarterback who (horrors!) wasn’t a future Hall of Famer? Would you suffer through subzero temperatures, frigid seats and driving snow, frozen-solid beers and ice-cold toes to sit in hard, metal bleachers and cheer on the Green and Gold?
OK, but would you dive into an actual sewer just to see a game?
Well, one Packers fan did that last weekend.
Raise your hand if you’re surprised.
According to the description for a gloriously appalling YouTube video published on Sunday, a group of friends was making its way into the stadium for the Packers' game against the Cowboys when suddenly a crappy mishap befell them. One member of the no-doubt-well-lubricated gang – naturally the guy who’d never been to Lambeau before – was standing on top of a sewer and decided to pretend to drop his precious ticket into the cesspool.
Surprise! Something bad happens – though neither he nor the congregated crowd watching seem to be really all that down in the dumps about it. According to the video description, a police officer standing nearby remarked, "275 Packers games, and I’ve never seen something like this," which made him the clear winner of the whole thing.
While every Packers fan claims to be an avid, devoted, passionate diehard, only one can say he literally had been through thick and thin – wading into heavy garbage and waste water – to be there for his team that day.
Chicagoans are responsible for originating the nickname Cheeseheads, as their attempt to apply the term pejoratively was co-opted by Wisconsinites and re-appropriated as an embraced identity. But if Bears supporters want to call any Packers fan a "sh*thead," there’s now at least one that accurately fits the bill.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
