MintBaconDrivel
7 years ago

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Once upon a time, Packers defensive line coach Greg Blache was the only assistant coach/team barber in the NFL. It was the late ’80s, and it didn’t take long for Green Bay’s new defensive line coach to realize that the team’s African-American players were regularly driving 120 miles south to Milwaukee just to get lines and fades unavailable in Titletown. So Blache, who’d made extra cash cutting hair in college at Notre Dame, began plying his second craft at the Packers facility. Occasionally players who neither trusted Blache’s skills nor wanted to make the drive south could turn to a barber from Milwaukee who made semi-regular trips to Green Bay. He was there, Blache remembers, to cut the hair of inmates at the local prison.

“We had black guys on the team, but it was still the whitest community in the NFL,” Blache, now retired, says from his home outside of Green Bay. “If you were black in Green Bay, they just thought you were a Packer.”

In the first version of NFL free agency, players only moved on to a new locale when the teams that drafted them wanted nothing more to do with them, and the Packers were getting the dregs of the dregs. In 1992 a man nicknamed “the Minister of Defense” led an antitrust lawsuit against the league that resulted in true free agency. That was great for players—after their rookie contract was over, they could now offer their services to any team in the league, choosing the team and the town in which they wanted to play—but it sent a chill through the scouts and personnel men employed by the most successful NFL franchise of the league’s first seven decades. Thanks to free agency, the task of assembling a competitive roster in small-town Wisconsin was about to get significantly tougher.

“Among players, Green Bay was depicted as some Russian place where you go and no one ever hears from you,” says former NFL tight end Keith Jackson, a first-round draft pick of the Eagles in 1988 who would go on to play for the Dolphins and the Packers.

Then something unprecedented happened. Upon becoming an unrestricted free agent in 1993, a player who had been named to six consecutive All-Pro teams in Philadelphia made a shock decision that would change the course of a franchise and the tenor of a town.

“Before that decision guys would say, ‘if Green Bay drafts me, I don’t want to go.’ It was Siberia,” says Jackson. “But Reggie White saw something different about it.”

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wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member
7 years ago
I always felt Reggie was a bigger reason for GB winning the SB than Brett. Both contributed on field. (Brett probably more so.) Brett contributed more off the field. Both in helping to bring players here but fostering a strong bond between the players. (one of those intangible thingies people are always talking about.)
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nerdmann
7 years ago
It's true. If you saw a black dude in Green Bay, you'd go ask him for his autograph. I met Mark Lee that way. My brother almost biffed his mercedes when he punted a football in the street. He shanked it, it bounced on one side of the mercedes, then over it onto the other side. 🤣

Dude came out and moved it into the garage.

Reggie told them that if you're black in Green Bay, you're a celebrity!
“Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing. You don't do things right once in a while…you do them right all the time.”
Zero2Cool
7 years ago

It's true. If you saw a black dude in Green Bay, you'd go ask him for his autograph. I met Mark Lee that way. My brother almost biffed his mercedes when he punted a football in the street. He shanked it, it bounced on one side of the mercedes, then over it onto the other side. 🤣

Dude came out and moved it into the garage.

Reggie told them that if you're black in Green Bay, you're a celebrity!

Originally Posted by: nerdmann 



Mark Lee is WHITE! And born in Viroqua, Wisconsin. :-)

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Zero2Cool (5h) : Chase Young to sign $13M contract with Saints
Zero2Cool (5h) : Yosh to Panthers what noooo. Wait he didn't do crap
wpr (18-Mar) : I say that he is technically HER BIL as he married her sister. I checked it out, he's considered my BIL as well. Sad.
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : wpr, I assume its your BIL via marriage to your wife? If so, I can figure out where the smarts in the family went ;)
wpr (18-Mar) : Mucky my B-I-L is Bare Stupid. I could write a book.
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : As a teenager in Rockford IL I would get heckled by adults in public for wearing GB gear
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : if you think the online ones are bad, try *living amongst* them
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : Never doubt wprs loyalty. Poor guy is surrounded by Bears fans in Northern IL
wpr (17-Mar) : pass Martha. Thanks for the invite though.
Martha Careful (17-Mar) : blog * as the same ugly Illinois colors were adopted by the Baer
Martha Careful (17-Mar) : WPR, perhaps you should be joining the Bears fans blog has the same ugly Illinois colors were adopted by the Bears
Mucky Tundra (17-Mar) : Ah a fellow U of Illinois hater. I can respect that though I imagine it's for different reasons
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : BTW. I didn't catch the game. I just hate Illinois.
Mucky Tundra (17-Mar) : They're your Big Ten Chumps and you will like it!
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : No, not for the record. Referee's handled that BS. Orange team was trash ass
Mucky Tundra (17-Mar) : *Your* Big Ten Chumps for the record
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : No, not Big Ten Champs. IL is big ten CHUMPS
wpr (17-Mar) : Big Ten Champs
wpr (17-Mar) : !!!
wpr (17-Mar) : INI
wpr (17-Mar) : ILL
Martha Careful (17-Mar) : Wisconsin with an outstanding on in the men’s Big Ten basketball tournament. Let’s hope it continues in the NCAAs
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : Almost like taking QB in 2020 even if you don't need one is good move.
Mucky Tundra (16-Mar) : 2021 QB Draft class looking like a real clunker
Mucky Tundra (16-Mar) : A conditional 6th rounder? I remember Bears fans arguing they'd get a day 2 pick at worst lol
dfosterf (16-Mar) : So I got the no extension part right and the have to wait on the CW physical wrong
Zero2Cool (16-Mar) : Bears are trading Justin Fields for a 2025 6th-round pick that goes to a 4th-round pick based on playtime, per sources.
Zero2Cool (16-Mar) : Former Packer Jarrett Bush opens Wisconsin’s first blow dry bar in Green Bay
dfosterf (16-Mar) : If the Bears are not doing a deal with Washington, they also cannot trade Fields until Williams physical with them. All hail Caleb Williams!
dfosterf (16-Mar) : The talent is undeniable, but the (advertised) haul is obscene.
dfosterf (16-Mar) : If the Bears are cutting a deal with the Commanders, in either scenario, cannot happen until williams passes a Commanders physical
dfosterf (16-Mar) : My guess is no to the Fields extension, but yes to the trade back with the Commanders.
dhazer (15-Mar) : I think the Bears do a Love extension and they will trade out of the 1st pick and take the haul
Martha Careful (15-Mar) : that might make sense
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Justin Fields to Steelers?
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Kenny Pickett. Eagles. Done.
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : They can claim best two WR tandem.
Mucky Tundra (15-Mar) : Aaron Donald retiring
dhazer (15-Mar) : Campbell signing with 49ers
dhazer (15-Mar) : I love how the Bear Fans are now claiming they have the best skill players in the NFC North lol
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Vikings made a move to get a 2nd first round pick
Mucky Tundra (15-Mar) : That's a not a bad deal for the Bears
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Bears have traded for WR Keenan Allen sending Chargers a fourth rounder.
Martha Careful (15-Mar) : *signs
Martha Careful (14-Mar) : MLB Devon White science with the Eagles
Mucky Tundra (14-Mar) : But that was before FA started
Mucky Tundra (14-Mar) : Dhaze, I thought Kurls would be their #1 target when I read that he was an Amos comp (jack of all trades guy)
dhazer (14-Mar) : I would like to see the Packers target 2 more FA still available Kamren Curl Safety and Chase Young edge
Martha Careful (14-Mar) : wow...didn't see that coming
Zero2Cool (14-Mar) : AJ Dillon re-signing with Packers.
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