GREEN BAY -- Soon, our attention will turn back to football, as it should. The lockout will end – NFL owners and players could reach an agreement as soon as this week – and the game will again be top of mind. Free-agent movement and training-camp position battles will dominate the headlines. Sports-talk conversations will focus on debating and second-guessing decisions and breaking down critical game-turning plays.
Since the lockout began on March 11, the headlines have been dominated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith, back-and-forth sniping from both sides and enough legalese to make you thankful you decided against law school. And amid all the lockout noise, you may have missed two smaller stories involving Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy and quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
While what they did didn’t command the same acclaim that leading the Packers to the Super Bowl XLV title in February did, their off-the-field work was even more important to sick kids in Wisconsin.
Rodgers, the Super Bowl MVP who teamed up with Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer two years ago, held his annual fundraising event, “An Evening With Aaron Rodgers,” at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee, with the event raising $230,000 for the MACC Fund’s work to cure childhood cancer and blood disorders. And McCarthy, who led his team to the franchise’s fourth Super Bowl title despite losing 16 players to season-ending injured reserve, played host to the second annual Mike and Jessica McCarthy Golf Tournament at Bishops Bay Country Club in Middleton to benefit the American Family Children’s Hospital at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While final numbers weren’t available, organizers expected the event to raise in excess of $100,000.
“We feel that we’ve got a chance to make an impact,” McCarthy said. “And we’re doing the best that we can.”
Winning a Super Bowl does wonders for one’s Q rating. Rodgers, for instance, has appeared on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman, Ellen DeGeneres’ show Ellen, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live and is up for the Best Male Athlete award at ESPN’s annual awards show, the ESPYs, next week. McCarthy has picked his spots with his newfound celebrity, but both men said they’re excited to use their greater name recognition to help Wisconsin kids.
“That's what this is all about, making a difference," Rodgers said. “When you accomplish what you set out to – winning the Super Bowl, a goal I had since I was a little kid – you start to look at the big picture. How can you make a difference? And for me, the MACC Fund is a tangible way that I can make a difference by lending my support, my name.”
The MACC Fund has contributed $40 million to pediatric cancer and blood disorder research since former Milwaukee Bucks player Jon McGlocklin and announcer Eddie Doucette founded the organization in 1976. Its work benefits research at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin while also supporting the families of children battling cancer.
Rodgers also took part in the third annual Andy North and Friends golf fundraiser at Trappers Turn Golf Club and the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells last month. Hosted by North, the two-time U.S. Open Champion and ESPN golf analyst, the event raised a record $910,000 for the UW Carbone Cancer Center. Rodgers also has several other fundraising events with the MACC Fund on his calendar the rest of the year.
“I’m going to align myself, as I do with the MACC Fund, with things that really share my same vision and heart. So I’m going to be very selective but make the most of those opportunities,” Rodgers said. “Because I have a greater influence, I can make a bigger impact, and I have a bigger voice because of the platform I’ve been given. Finding exactly what those causes are and lending myself to them is something I’m going to continue to do.”
Stories about professional athletes and coaches doing good deeds off the field can sometimes be difficult for reporters. Some are met with a healthy dose of cynicism, thought to be done for the public-relations boost. Others, when done for a players’ own foundation, raise questions about how much money actually reaches the supposed beneficiaries.
Anyone who saw Rodgers with MACC Fund kids Jack Bartosz Emilie Janzen at a Milwaukee Wave professional indoor soccer game in March (and again with Jack at the May event), or saw McCarthy carrying the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl trophy and George Halas NFC Championship trophy from room to room while visiting with kids at the hospital last month can vouch for how much each man was affected by the children they encountered.
"The families of these kids are incredible, what they have to deal with," Rodgers said. "(The MACC Fund) is an organization I enjoy working with and will continue to for a long time."
When Rodgers first got involved with the MACC Fund, he said he was in it “for the long haul.” McCarthy and his wife, Jessica, said they plan on taking the same approach with American Family Children’s Hospital.
“We came down here two years ago on a visit. After walking the halls that day, we knew this is where we wanted to make our connection,” McCarthy said. “It’s something that Jessica and I wanted to do together. I’m fortunate to have a lot of opportunities through the Green Bay Packers to be involved in a number of different charity events, but we wanted something that was specific to our family and something that we could continue to grow with our kids. And hopefully this can be (that) charity.
“This event is something that’s very special to us. Short-term, we want to raise as much money as possible. Long-term, we look for this to be a legacy charity for our family.”
ESPN540Milwaukee wrote: