Some former Packers liked Green Bay so much, they made it home
2005
Sean Schultz - Green Bay Press Gazette
Former Green Bay Packers linebacker Bryce Paup never left titletown. Neither did ex-players Eric Torkelson, Brian Noble, Larry McCarren, Dexter McNabb, Harry Sydney, Gary Knafelc, Tony Canadeo, Johnnie Gray, Jim Temp, Paul Rudzinski, Fuzzy Thurston and Ray Nitschke.
Their reasons for staying? Pretty much the same reasons most people decide to make the Green Bay area home.
Paup, who played for the team from 1990 to 1994, rattled off a good list: "Good Midwest values; good people; the work ethic; not a lot of rifraff; the stuff big cities have."
Green Bay is also fairly close to Chicago and the Twin Cities and the great outdoors, where snow-mobiling, fishing and hunting are a draw.
Paup played for the Buffalo Bills for three years after the Packers, then for the Jacksonville Jaguars for two years and the Minnesota Vikings for a final year before he retired. But even when he played for other teams, he brought his family back to Green Bay in the off-season, first to a duplex and then to the home they've renovated in the town of Ledgeview.
Since retirement, he started the Good Samaritan Charity in partnership with the Freedom House, a Green Bay family shelter. He also has worked in construction and run football camps. Other jobs include serving as assistant coach for De Pere High School's football team last season (he'll be ther again this fall), interim defensive line coach this spring at the University of Northern Iowa and a training camp coach for the Washington Redskins later this month. But always, this Iowa-born transplant comes home to Green Bay.
"It's hard to beat this area," Paup said. "Other guys I played with want to move back here. There's always a pull to come back."
Greg Rabas, head coach at De Pere, is happy to have Paup on his team. He's not surprised the family decided to make Green Bay home.
"With the way the community supports the Packers and the players, it's a natural fit for some of them to stay," Rabas said. "It's a good place to raise a family."
Staying in Green Bay also keeps former Packers personnel close to their old team, if not on its field. They're nearby for alumni events such as Saturday's annual Packers Hall of Fame Induction Banquet.
Lee Remmel, Packers historian and longtime executive director of public relations, understands why former players stay. He did the same thing.
"I came here a long, long time ago and found Green Bay a very warm place to be. I never had a reason to change my mind about that," he said. He cited players as far back as the 1920's who came for the team and stayed for the town, among them Lavvie Dilweg, Joel Laws, John "Red" Cochran, F.L. "Jug" Earp, Verne Lewellen, Mike Michalske, Ted Fritsch, Tony Canadeo and Charley Brock. Even Bart Starr, Remmel noted, "stayed for 30 years."
The Green Bay Press-Gazette caught up with a few more former players to ask them about their lives here.
Harry Sydney Came to Green Bay as a Packers fullback in 1992, left for California in 1993 and returned in 1994, coaching until 1999. "I never left," he said. "I've lived in Colorado, California, Tennessee, Kansas and North Carolina and this is the best place, I thought, to raise a family." He's been doing that ever since and, with second wife Madonna, shares four daughters and four sons ages 12 to 24.
Sydney admits there were times during his football days when he made mistakes. He said he wasn't always focused on his children the way he should have been. "I was chasing my dreams and not chasing theirs," he said. "I've been to four Super Bowls, winning three. I got caught choosing stuff instead of substance."
His new game capitilizes on the mistakes he made and helps others avoid the same pitfalls. He runs My Brother's Keeper, a mentoring program that has aided 350 men and boys in the past 19 months.
"When I was coaching football, I was working with million dollar babies," Sydney said. "Now I'm just coaching different things, more important things." Sydney said that "when you're young, you don't know what the American Dream is."
Now he knows, and he lives that dream right here in Green Bay. "It's a good job, a nice home, a lovely family and for me, it's sports. It's peace of mind knowing if you don't lock your doors at night, you don't have to freak out," he said.
