Elmer Fabry, who worked on the grounds crew at Green Bay Packers games for 41 years, died Tuesday. He was 91.
A lifelong resident of Green Bay, he started working at new City Stadium when it opened in 1957.
"I can remember when it was just stands," Fabry said in 1997, the year he retired from the sideline at age 80. "I mean I was here when the place was built. It just keeps getting bigger."
In his last season on the grounds crew, Fabry helped set up for games and clean up afterward. His pregame routine involved putting the orange pylons on the corners of the end zones, hauling garbage barrels to the sidelines and helping put down the sideline canvas the players stood on at the time.
Fabry watched plenty of games from the sideline, but sat in the stands during games when he got older.
"I was right there when (quarterback Bart) Starr went over for the sneak," Fabry said in 1997, referring to the 1967 Ice Bowl and pointing to a spot about 30 feet from where Starr scored the winning touchdown in the south end zone.
Fabry, who was retired from the Chicago & North Western Railroad and the Green Bay School District, also bowled well into his 80s.
He is survived by his wife of 69 years, Millie. They eloped to Iowa to marry in 1939. He also is survived by other family members and friends.
Services will be Saturday morning at St. Willebrord Catholic Church, 209 S. Adams St.
-- Jeff Ash, jash@greenbaypressgazette.com Photo: Elmer Fabry, then 80, leads the Lambeau Field crowd in cheers during a game in the 1997 season, his last on the Packers' grounds crew. File/Press-Gazette
The Packers have a problem with Brett Favre, who wants back in.
The Boston Red Sox have a problem with Manny Ramirez, who wants out.
Ramirez offered a possible solution while sitting in the dugout at Fenway Park before Wednesday night's game, according to the Boston Globe.
He held up a sign that read: "I'm going to Green Bay for Brett Favre straight up," and the NESN cable network caught it.
Ramirez said much the same thing to ESPNdeportes.com's Enrique Rojas: "I should go to Green Bay straight up and they should send Brett Favre to Boston. That will end two soap operas at the same time."
Such a deal, of course, could pose a new set of problems for the Packers. What if Al Harris gets upset that Manny's dreadlocks are longer than his?
Late this afternoon, Manny became the Los Angeles Dodgers' problem. They acquired him from the Red Sox in a trade that also involved the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It seems like just yesterday that Carl Ford was being compared favorably to Donald Driver during the Packers' training camp.
In reality, it's been five years since the Packers drafted the skinny wide receiver out of Toledo with one of four seventh-round draft picks. They hoped he could make the team as a return man, but that didn't happen.
Ford tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee during the Packers' last preseason game in 2003 and was put on injured reserve. He was one of the last cuts at the end of training camp in 2004 when coach Mike Sherman needed an extra roster spot to carry two punters.
He tried to make it with the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, then briefly played for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005. His last pro gig was with the Arena League's Chicago Rush last year.
These days, Ford, 27, is playing semipro ball. He's the quarterback for the Iredell Warriors of the Central Carolina Football League.
According to the Statesville Record & Landmark, Ford has "made an impact with his ability to scramble." So far, the Warriors are 3-0 this season.
Timing was everything for Chris Hayes during the 1996 season.
A safety out of Washington State, he was drafted by the New York Jets but was cut twice before the Packers signed him late that year. He played in two regular-season games on special teams and earned a Super Bowl ring.
Though his time with the Packers was short, Hayes remained in the NFL for six more years, returning to the Jets for five seasons and finishing up with the New England Patriots in 2001.
These days, Hayes, 36, is a motivational speaker and author. He's just published a book, "Suits On ... Game On ... Know Your Position!" It's billed as a guide to "the X's and O's of corporate America."
A Web site for the book says Hayes is "engaged in moving young people and businesses in the right direction through the creation of personal objectives and strategies, focused execution and the measurement of performance."
If you still collect football cards, here are a couple of Brett Favre cards you may want to hunt down.
Look on the checklist — remember those? — and you’ll see Brett Favre as No. 34 in Topps’ 2008 NFL card set.
However, a variation of the card has Vince Lombardi looking over Favre’s left shoulder, according to David Lee of Beckett Media. It’s selling for $125 to $355.
Another variation has Favre driving a lawn tractor while wearing his helmet. That card is selling for less than $100.
"We thought it would be cool to pay tribute to Favre as a legendary Packer and the fact that he was retiring — at least we thought he was — as one of the all-time great Packers," Topps spokesman Clay Luraschi told Lee.
"Packers fans see Favre as a legend, hence the Lombardi face card. And Favre is not going into retirement quietly, hence him driving a tractor with his helmet on."
The odds of finding either of these cards: 1 in 12,000 packs.
Favre vs. Rodgers? Favre on other teams? Go to the game
Are you wondering whether the Packers would fare better with Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre at quarterback this season? The folks at EA Sports are, too, according to SportsGamer.com.
Hoping to sell a few more of their Madden NFL 09 video games when they come out Aug. 12, they’ve used it to simulate the Packers’ 2008 season.
With Favre at quarterback, the Packers go 9-7 and lose a divisional playoff game to the Dallas Cowboys. Favre throws for 3,769 yards, 24 touchdowns, 10 interceptions and a 100.7 passer rating.
With Rodgers at quarterback, the Packers go 12-4 and lose a divisional playoff game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in overtime. Rodgers throws for 3,211 yards and 26 TDs. They didn’t say how many picks or list his passer rating.
The folks at EA Sports also wanted to see how Favre might do with each of three teams reportedly interested in acquiring him. Those simulations showed:
With Favre, the Bucs go 12-4, the New York Jets go 11-4-1 and the Minnesota Vikings go 10-6, but all three lose wild-card or divisional playoff games.
With Jeff Garcia instead of Favre, the Bucs go 11-5 and lose in the NFC title game. With Chad Pennington instead of Favre, the Jets go 9-7 and miss the playoffs. With Tarvaris Jackson instead of Favre, the Vikings go 5-11 and miss the playoffs.
Brett Favre is on the NFL Greats roster in Madden NFL 09. To use him on a 2008 team, go to franchise mode and transfer him to the free-agent roster pool, then put him on the roster.
I know, I know. You're still trying to put it out of your mind, even all these years later.
However, it's worth mentioning that John Hadl, 68, who quarterbacked the Packers for 22 games in 1974 and 1975, is having his No. 21 retired at Lawrence High School in his hometown of Lawrence, Kan., next week.
According to a letter to the editor to the Lawrence Journal-World, Hadl wore No. 21 to honor one of his childhood heroes. Charlie Hoag wore No. 21 when he starred at running back for the University of Kansas in the early 1950s. Hadl also played at Kansas.
Richard M. Hassur of Lawrence writes that Hadl wore No. 21 in high school, college and the pros.
However, Hadl wore No. 21 for only one of those two seasons in Green Bay.
When he was acquired in 1974 in a staggeringly lopsided trade engineered by coach Dan Devine, he wore No. 12 and started the last six games of a 6-8 season. The Packers were 3-3 in those games.
Hadl switched back to No. 21 in 1975, when he started all but one game in a 4-10 season under first-year coach Bart Starr.
Hadl, who'd starred for the San Diego Chargers for a decade, was traded to the Packers by the Los Angeles Rams. Devine gave up first-, second- and third-round draft picks in 1975 and 1976 -- six picks in all -- for a guy who'd lost the Rams' starting job to James Harris.
After the 1975 season, Starr traded Hadl, defensive back Ken Ellis and a couple of draft picks for another quarterback who wore two numbers with the Packers. That quarterback was Lynn Dickey, who wore No. 10 from 1976 to 1979, then No. 12 from 1980 to 1985.
It seems like just yesterday that he was the Packers' running backs coach, but Sylvester Croom is beginning his fifth season as football coach at Mississippi State University.
Croom hasn't forgotten Green Bay, though. He spent part of his vacation in the area, according to the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger.
Mostly, it involved golf ... or trying to play golf.
Croom, who hadn't played in a while, told this story on himself. He admitted to losing about 18 balls in his first few rounds at Thornberry Creek Country Club. He said five or six of those lost balls came on the same shot when he kept trying to drive over the water.
Despite those struggles, it was a pleasant time for Croom.
"The best thing about this year is that I was able to really enjoy vacation for the first time since I've been at State," he said.
Of course, a raise to $1.7 million and a contract extension through 2011 doesn't hurt, either.
Just in case you're wondering how former Packers coach Mike Sherman is doing as coach at Texas A&M University, we picked up a few tidbits from his appearance at the Big 12 Conference football media day in Kansas City on Monday:
-- The Aggies' players like Sherman's old-school approach, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
-- They also like his NFL credibility, according to the Kansas City Star.
-- Here's the best story, though: Sherman has learned text messaging so he can keep in touch with his assistants. As you might expect, he's a stickler for precision. Sherman doesn't do shorthand. He spells everything out.
Brett Favre may not be able to decide whether he wants to wear his No. 4 Packers jersey, but shoppers haven't had any trouble deciding.
Favre's No. 4 jersey was the top seller at NFLshop.com in April, May and June, according to SportsBusiness Daily.
The rest of the top 10, in order: Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, Patriots QB Tom Brady, Giants QB Eli Manning, Colts QB Peyton Manning, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, Chargers RB LaDainian Tomlinson, Raiders RB Darren McFadden, Cowboys RB Marion Barber III and Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger.
Last month, we wrote about a Canadian man planning what he called a "cultural exchange" among Packers fans. John McNutt's idea was to visit Green Bay for a game, then have Packers fans visit Peterborough, Ontario, for a hockey or lacrosse game.
Well, the first part of the "Green Bay or Bust" exchange is taking shape, with just a few seats left for a four-day trip to Lambeau Field to see the Packers play the Atlanta Falcons in early October.
According to the Peterborough Examiner, the group of "good Peterborough citizens" plans to meet with Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt, who rarely misses an opportunity to promote the city. McNutt also says the local paper will be sending a reporter on the trip.
McNutt says he'd like to get in touch with "good citizens" of Green Bay who might be interested in visiting Peterborough. He says it's "the home of the well-known Peterborough Petes hockey club and the Peterborough Lakers, who are national champions in lacrosse."
If you'd like to get in touch with McNutt, e-mail him at johnemcnutt@sympatico.ca.
We also heard from Ron Cambridge, another Packers fan who's making the 700-mile-plus trip from Peterborough to Green Bay.
He says: "To be able to visit Lambeau ... would be like a true hockey fan visiting the old Montreal Forum or a baseball fan visiting Yankee Stadium. This trip is a pilgrimage! Although for many, attending may very well be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, others will return."
Cambridge says he'd be glad to share hockey tickets with Packers fans who visit Peterborough, proudly adding that "the Peterborough Petes have sent more players to the NHL than any other junior team."
Woodson became interested in making wine when he toured a California winery while playing for the Oakland Raiders in 2001. He rented part of a California vineyard and started growing grapes.
Woodson likes red wine, so he and cellar master Rick Ruiz have made a cabernet and a cabernet franc. Theirs is a modest output -- fewer than 1,000 cases a year -- but restaurants in seven states have ordered cases, Ruiz said.
Ruiz has had to handle the publicity because the NFL's alcohol policy bans players from endorsing alcoholic beverages.
"A handful of Ottertail mailboxes were vandalized over the weekend, according to the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office. The vandalism took place along the same street, and in one instance, someone put feces in a woman’s Green Bay Packers box."
So would that be a protest for or against Brett Favre's wish to return?
Baseball's all-star break has arrived, and that means a brief vacation in the Green Bay area for Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker.
First, he's going fishing for a couple of days.
"I'll walleye fish on Monday, smallmouth on Tuesday in Sturgeon Bay," he told the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun.
After that, Baker plans a pilgrimage familiar to many Packers fans. On Wednesday, he said, he'll "drive to Green Bay ... and check out Lambeau Field. Vince Lombardi is one of my favorite coaches and favorite people."
With the Reds sitting four games below .500 and 11.5 games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs in the NL Central, Baker says he has another reason for wanting to visit Lambeau Field.
"I might go there and get some of that old Packer spirit of winning — put in a glass or a cup and bring it back here. I'm psyched," he said.
It didn't take long for the sports blog Deadspin -- and its irreverent gang of commenters -- to get cranked up this afternoon after the latest news on Brett Favre.
A sampling of the comments about Favre's request for his release from the Packers follows. As always, if you follow this link to the post, be aware some of those comments may be in spectacularly bad taste.
-- Maybe Michael Strahan can come out of retirement, too, and fake sack him again.
-- I felt a great disturbance in Green Bay, as if millions of Wisconsinites suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
-- Peter King joke in 3 ... 2 ... 1...
-- I say the Packers let him come back, tell him he is playing in the opener, then bench him ... thus ending the streak, and making Peter King cry.
-- Don't release him. He'd be an outstanding backup QB. Let the attention whore stew in his own juices on the sideline.
-- He should just go to the Rams to make the inevitable "sad final year of Joe Namath's career" comparisons that much easier.
-- This would be really awkward, like when Ray Bourque played for the Avalanche, without the feel-good "he finally played on a championship team" possibility.
-- Remember when Michael Jordan played for the Wizards? That was great.
-- I'll say it again: Tire Iron. Kneecap. STAT.
-- Jerry Glanville was right -- this guy's trouble!
-- Favre is planning on having a press conference in the next few days regarding when he's going to have a press conference about what teams he may be considering going to which he will announce at a future press conference.
-- Brett Favre: The Boy Who Cried (Ron) Wolf.
-- See, Brett Favre's really having fun (hanging Green Bay) out there (to twist in the wind).
Now, Mortensen is going further. He's offering his services to sports radio talk shows, sports bloggers and podcasters as The Favreologist, serving up "speculation, analysis and the abandonment of all perspective regarding Brett Favre."
In today's blog post on the Press-Gazette site, Mortensen says:
"I am toting myself as the world's leading authority on the meaning of Brett Favre and his various actions in a historic, emotional, national, and Northeast Wisconsin-ical context. Favreology is for people that don't know exactly how to read Brett Favre, but are interested nonetheless. ...
"I'm a comic from Green Bay with plenty of thoughts about Brett Favre, the Packers, and the existential angst that Brett's been feeling as he struggles to redefine himself. I can carry a segment or two in this slow news cycle. It might be fun."
Hmmm. Perhaps it's better to hear Nick Mortensen than Chris Mortensen these days.
Charles Barkley is never shy about expressing his views. Now the NBA legend has weighed in on Brett Favre.
Barkley is playing in the American Century Championship in Stateline, Nev., this weekend. It's the same celebrity golf tournament that Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is playing in, and the one Favre was supposed to be in ... before he dropped out.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Jim Moore followed Barkley for a while on Thursday, and he caught this exchange between Barkley and Fox Sports Radio's Chris Myers:
Barkley: "What's up, bro? Is Brett Favre signed yet?"
Myers: "Do you think he should come back?"
Barkley: "I do not. He's a pain in the ass. There are more important things to worry about than him coming back. He's had his day, he's only going to get worse. It's a shame what he's doing to Green Bay."
Sounds like Barkley could teach Favre a few things about being candid.
These items aren't as unusual as Mark Koncar witnessing an explosion, but they're further proof that you never know what you'll find on the Web.
-- There's been a Steve Luke sighting. He played in 90 games for the Packers from 1975 to 1980, wearing No. 46 and starting at strong safety opposite Johnnie Gray.
Luke, 54, is in the news because they're expanding a busy road into Columbus, Ohio, to within 20 feet of the rear deck on his property. He told the Columbus Dispatch he knew that was a possibility when he bought the home on Bluffview Drive nine years ago, but he doesn't sound too worried about it.
-- You really have to be a dedicated fan -- or one of a certain age -- to remember Dan Orlich, who played for the Packers in all 36 games from 1949 to 1951. He was their eighth-round draft choice out of Nevada-Reno in 1949.
Wearing No. 49, the 6-foot-5, 215-pound Orlich played both ways, an end on offense and defense. In 1950, he recovered three fumbles and returned one for a touchdown. On offense, he had five career catches for 48 yards.
After football, the Minnesota native became one of the nation's best trapshooters. He's a member of the National Trapshooting Hall of Fame. He used a gun made by Ljutic Industries, a small company in Washington state.
Orlich's influence was such that Ljutic became "the house that Dan built," according to Nadine Ljutic, 78, who co-founded the company with her husband, Al. However, the company is struggling to survive these days, thus the story on Crosscut, a Web site out of Seattle.
Steve Okoniewski, a former Packers defensive lineman who was an all-America player at the University of Montana in 1970 and 1971, will go into the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame.
He'll be inducted at a banquet in Missoula, Mont., but no date has been set for the event.
“I am deeply honored to be named for this award, knowing how much the University of Montana and the people of Missoula have done for me,” Okoniewski said in a statement issued by the school.
“Somewhat instinctively, I moved to Missoula in 1970, without ever visiting the university. This turned out to be the turning point of my life. I will always have a strong love for the mountains, the streams, the Big Sky, and, of course, the Grizzlies.”
Now 58, he's the principal at Luxemburg-Casco High School near Green Bay.
Okoniewski, a native of Bremerton, Wash., was the Falcons' second-round pick in the 1972 NFL draft, the 41st player chosen. No other Montana player has been drafted higher.
He was released by the Falcons early in his rookie season, then played for the Bills for two seasons before coming to Green Bay. He played in all 28 games for the Packers in 1974 and 1975. He spent the next two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals to finish in a six-year NFL career. After that, he played one season for Winnipeg of the CFL.
Okoniewski has since worked as a teacher and coach, first in Montana and then in the Milwaukee area. He has been at L-C, where he also is an assistant football coach and defensive coordinator, for the past 20 years. He and his wife, Susan, have three daughters.
Think of Bill Maas today, and you might remember a defensive tackle who finished a 10-year NFL career by playing for the Packers in 1993.
Or you might remember that he did the color commentary on Packers preseason games from 2002 to 2005.
But you probably remember more recent stories about Maas that involved arrests and drugs and guns.
It's all true, and Maas talked to the Kansas City Star about it recently.
Now 46, he's fallen on hard times, struggling with physical pain, depression, some speech problems and a considerable loss of short-term memory. All but the pain can be traced to a damaged frontal lobe, which in turn can be traced to his football career.
Maas is realistic about his future. Asked about resuming his broadcast career, Maas said, "To be honest, I don't think it's resurrectable."
Instead, he putters around, working at properties he owns in the Kansas City area.
Former Packers tight end Paul Coffman is one of Maas' old friends. They played together on the Chiefs in 1986 and 1987, and both still live in the area. He says Maas is happier now than in recent years.
Coffman adds this: "He's not going to listen to people. You've gotta love him and pray for him and hope things turn out the best for him. Sometimes life's slaps in the face wake people up."
Travis Cook is a Packers fan who lives in Salina, Kan. He used to live at 116 N. Ohio St. in Salina, in a small house he'd painted Packers green and gold.
Recently, though, Cook figured it was time to move out and move on. Here's why:
"Brett Favre was the best ever," Cook told KSAL-TV. "He retired, so it's time for the house to retire."
Here's where it gets ugly. Cook has sold the house to an Oakland Raiders fan who plans to repaint it in Raiders silver and black.
According to the real estate agent who handled the transaction, Cook got his asking price but had to throw in a paint allowance to close the deal.
When linebacker Ben Taylor played for the Packers during the 2006 season, it turned out to be his last season in the NFL.
After the Packers declined to re-sign the oft-injured Taylor, no other NFL teams were interested in his services. He sat out last season and retired in January.
Taylor, 29, is moving on. He's been hired as linebackers coach at Bridgewater College, according to the Harrisonburg (Va.) Daily News Record. He'll work with the Eagles only during the season.
So why did Taylor decide to take that job?
"My dad went to a small Division III school, and I remember going to those games as a kid," Taylor told the local paper. His father played at Muskingum College in Ohio.
"Division III football appealed to me more than the bigger schools or stuff like that. ... No matter where you are, winning is winning."
Leave it to the folks at Deadspin and their irreverent readers to bring some perspective to the reports that Brett Favre is thinking about playing again.
A sampling of comments left on Wednesday's Deadspin post on Favre (if you click that link, be advised some of the comments are in spectacularly bad taste as usual):
-- If you have the itch, get a shot and clear it up.
-- I had an itch once but amoxicillin cleared it right up.
-- Madden says you gotta hit that with some tough actin' Tinactin.
-- This (stuff's) like the equivalent of idiot chicks at frat parties who start making out with one another when they feel like no one's paying enough attention to them. Only somehow more degrading for everyone involved.
-- It turns out he was just retiring from his Wrangler Jeans backyard football team. Even though it appears they're having such a great time.
-- Has Favre been running around with Madonna, too? That would explain the itch.
-- Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers has retired. And added that he hopes Green Bay enjoys going 4-12 after the old man gets killed on the first blitz of the season.
-- Good grief. This guy's turning into the George Blanda of football.
-- I'm thinking the Edmonton Eskimos might be a good fit -- same colors and just as cold as Green Bay. Maybe even colder.
-- Preparation H may take care of that itch.
-- Meanwhile, Kenny Anderson, Brian Sipe, Jim Zorn, and Danny White all have calls in to Green Bay to back him up.
-- "Okay, Schilling. I'll see your 'potentially career-ending surgery' and raise you a 'coming-out-of-retirement subplot." Attention-whore poker.
-- In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco has the itch to return to power in Spain.
-- I'm guessing Green Bay is sold out of Gold Bond powder. Maybe someone should mail him some -- Mr. Rodgers perhaps?
-- Brian Brohm is just realizing that he's gone from potential first round draft pick to the Packers' second-round draft pick to "never gonna take a single snap in the NFL" in only a few short months.
-- I thought Wranglers were sold 'itch-free'? Maybe they aren't so comfortable in a Mississippi backyard with pretend friends and pretend football.
-- Before it's said and done this guy will have more retirements than the Macho Man Randy Savage.
As we surf the Web for news of Packers past and present, we don't often have sightings like this:
Former Packers tackle Mark Koncar was working at Quality Carriers in North Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday morning when he witnessed an explosion at a nearby business.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, a 30-year-old man was killed when the oil tanker he was repairing blew up, ripping a 6-foot-wide hole in the roof at Mountain States Trailer.
Koncar, 55, said he saw the explosion, then felt it.
The 6-foot-5, 270-pound Koncar played in 53 games for the Packers from 1976 to 1981, most often as their starting left tackle. He missed the 1978 season and all but one game of the 1980 season with injuries. He was Green Bay's first-round draft pick in 1976, the 23rd player chosen.
Koncar grew up in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray and played at Colorado.
Packers linebacker Nick Barnett has rings on his mind. First and foremost, a Super Bowl ring.
He was home in Fontana, Calif., last week to speak at his old high school. The local paper asked him about the Packers' outlook for 2008.
"We've got to get a Super Bowl ring -- that's the bottom line," he told the Fontana Herald. "Our defense is ready, our offense is ready. We're excited. Only time will tell."
First, though, Barnett will go into the new Ring of Honor at his alma mater, Fontana A.B. Miller High School.
Speaking to a group of about 200, he said: "It's been a true blessing to be in the position I am, playing for the Green Bay Packers. I wouldn't be there without the teachers and coaches at A.B. Miller. I'm truly grateful to the city and the school."
Barnett, who graduated in 1999, starred on offense and defense for the Rebels. He was one of seven players to earn college football scholarships that year. He was the state decathlon champion in his senior year. He was pretty good in class, too. He earned high academic honors and took advanced placement classes.
School counselor JoAnn Baeten remembers Barnett this way: "Nick is a perfect example of someone who had Rebel pride on the field and also had it in the classroom and took his studies very seriously. He was the epitome of the student-athlete at Miller."
Brett Favre's father, Irvin, was inducted into the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame last weekend. He won more games than anyone in the history of Hancock High School in Kiln, Miss.
Brett Favre didn't present his father for induction. That honor went to his brother Scott.
That prompted old pal Al Jones of the Gulfport (Miss.) SunHerald to ask Brett -- a first-ballot lock for the Pro Football Hall of Fame -- who'll present him for induction in 2013. Here's what he said:
"Who does it? There are so many people, on and off the field, that have been instrumental in my life. I don't think anyone will be upset if they're not the presenter. I know Dad would have been the one. Whoever it is will be pinch-hitting."
Favre will return to Green Bay later this month to present his longtime center, Frank Winters, for induction into the Packers Hall of Fame. That event is sold out.
If you watched Monday night's Arena League playoff game, you may have heard a familiar name. Craig Heimburger, the center for the Cleveland Gladiators, briefly played for the Packers in 1999.
A guard out of Missouri, he was one of the Packers' fifth-round draft picks that year. That's him at left, going against Billy Lyon during training camp. He played in two games in 1999, then spent most of the 2000 season on the practice squad before being signed by the Bengals late in the season.
Heimburger played for the Bills in 2001, but was cut by the Texans during training camp in 2002.
He then started a construction company in Columbia, Ill., near St. Louis.
Two years ago, he got back into football with the Denver Crush of the Arena League. Here's how that happened:
"I was training a kid who was going to play college baseball," Heimburger told the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat. "I was doing some speed drills with him, and my wife had come along, and she said, 'Craig, it looks like you can still move.' This was after three years of sitting out. It made me start thinking, 'Maybe I can give it one more shot. What will it hurt?'"
Heimburger played for the Austin Wranglers last year. After they folded, he joined the Gladiators. Now, he says, he'll play "as long as my body lets me."
He still dreams of returning to the NFL, though at 31, he's realistic about his chances.
"I've been out of the NFL so long my chances of getting back in are probably minimal. I'll always look for the opportunity. If it comes, I'll take it. If not, I'll stay in this league."
One more Arena League note: Former Packers cornerback Michael Hawkins was signed last week by the AFL's Dallas Desperadoes. Three days later, Dallas was eliminated from the AFL playoffs.
Hawkins was one of the Packers' fifth-round draft picks in 2005. He spent only one season at Oklahoma and played for the Desperadoes for parts of two seasons before the Packers drafted him. He played in 11 games for the Packers in 2005, then was with the Browns in 2006.
In our Out of Bounds blog, Press-Gazette assistant online editor Jeff Ash offers up information about the Packers that's not necessarily related to how the game is played, including away-from-the-field news on current and former Packers, as well as Packers fans.
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