A Taste for New Big Cheese

By MIKE DOWNEY

Jan. 10, 1996 12 AM PT

Too bad the Dallas Cowboys don’t have to go to Green Bay, pro football’s only village, for Sunday’s big game. Too bad the blizzard of ’96 didn’t hit Green Bay, freaking out the Cowboys as they tried to hand the football to Emmitt Smith before his frozen fingers snapped off like a Heisman Trophy’s going through airport security.

Good old Green Bay.

Town without pity.

“Can you imagine what it would be like playing all season in Green Bay?” former Dallas quarterback Craig Morton was quoted as saying back in 1972. “No, thanks. If I had to play someplace like that, I believe I would get out and go to work for a living.”

Good old Green Bay.

“When people in Green Bay say they have a nice wardrobe, it means they have 10 bowling shirts,” Greg Koch, a Miami Dolphin offensive tackle who had spent nine seasons with the Packers, told a national magazine in 1986.

Good old Green Bay.

“If there was a contest and there were 97 prizes, the 98th prize would be a trip to Green Bay,” John McKay, the droll ex-coach of USC and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said in a newspaper interview in 1984.

It ain’t easy being Green Bay.

People mock you. They think you spend all your time buying grubs to go ice fishing, eating cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner and wearing underwear that is warmer than their outerwear. This is ridiculous. I know several people from Wisconsin who do not eat cheese for lunch.

OK, so the other things are true. Everybody in Green Bay wears a cap with earflaps, including the bride and groom at wedding ceremonies. Everybody in Green Bay milks cows and makes his or her own yogurt. Everybody in Green Bay wears three pairs of socks, or four if you don’t only count feet.

Never forget, all stereotypes are true. All New Yorkers are rude, all Floridians drive slow, all Texans say “ma’am” and no Phoenix team wins the NBA championship.

I am pulling for Green Bay to go to Super Bowl XXX, unashamedly.

My reasons? Well, from A to Z:

(a) Green Bay is a great place, which has more pro football teams than we do. I wish I wrote for the Green Bay Times.

(b) “The Pack Is Back.” It’s just something I enjoy saying.

(c) Soon as Dallas loses, I am pretty sure Deion Sanders will sign with Green Bay sometime between Sunday and the Super Bowl.

(d) People who knock Green Bay have obviously never been to Green Bay. (Whereas people who knock Dallas have obviously been there.)

(e) Jerry Jones. I believe this is self-explanatory.

(f) Green Bay’s NBA and NHL title prospects stink, almost as much as Dallas’ do.

(g) I like Wisconsin. I beat a speeding ticket there once.

(h) Barry Switzer. See (e) above.

(i) This is the best Green Bay team ever without one player named Fuzzy.

(j) Have I mentioned Jerry Jones?

(k) Arizona. Nice place for Packer fans to thaw.

(l) The Rev. Reggie White. He waited for “word from God” to choose which NFL team he would join, and God spake to Reggie: “Get thee to Dairyland.”

(m) Chance to dispel myth that Vince Lombardi was God.

(n) Brett Favre. My favrit.

(o) Packers KO’d 49ers. You gotta love any team that does that.

(p) I don’t want to go to any more Super Bowls and write stories about Leon Lett doing something stupid.

(q) Jerry and Deion must pay a price for making America watch really, really bad commercials.

(r) Pregnant woman from Wisconsin says she will name her new baby “Jurko,” if player nicknamed “Jurko” Jurkovic helps Packers win. I like the name Jurko and have been called this for years.

(s) Sterling Sharpe, blab, blab, blab, talk, talk, talk, glad you’re not in Green Bay locker room any more, Chatty.

(t) Cowboys-Colts game means inevitable “ride ‘em” jokes. Not funny.

(u) Tony Mandarich of Packers once said, “I did call Green Bay a village, but every village needs a village idiot.” Good point.

(v) Trophy is called Lombardi Trophy. It ain’t called Jones Trophy, so there.

(w) American Airlines has a lot of nerve, always going through Dallas instead of through Green Bay.

(x) Have seen enough of Charles Haley for one lifetime, thank you.

(y) Green Bay has one of my favorite coaches, Fritz Shurmur. If I had a son, I would name him Shurmur, not Jurko.

(z) More exposure for world-famous Packer cheerleaders.