Being from Central Mississippi my father was a huge Ole Miss fan, Archie Manning fan, and therefore a Saints fan. We live a little over 2 hours from New Orleans, so my first taste of football was the Saints. My father was a semi-season ticket holder(4 regular season and 1 preseason), and he'd take me and my brother to a game or so a year.
In 1982, the Saints traded Archie Manning to the Oilers, so 10 year old me was done with the Saints and have been ever since. I tried the Oilers, but I couldn't get into them. They were as bad as the Saints had been, and I wanted a winner like my friends who were Cowboys and Steelers fans. So, I jumped on the Raiders wagon.
What does any of this have to do with the Packers? Well, I need a NFC team, and my father seemed to hate all of them, but he respected the Packers. So, I started in on the Pack. They weren't bad from 82-85 with Lynn ****ey, James Lofton, John Jefferson, Paul Coffman, etc, but they weren't real great either. Of course it got real bad in the mid to later 80's then came Majik.
We didn't get to see the Packers much here in MS unless they were on Monday Night Football, which they hardly were in the mid-late 80's, or playing the Saints. Finally, in 1989, I got to watch more than a game or two because the Packers were finally a playoff contender. That combined of the drafting of Tony Bennett from Ole Miss in the first round of 1990 draft had me firmly hooked. I had just graduated from high school and bought me a Packers t-shirt for the first time. 1990 and 1991 were not good(can anyone say Anthony Dilwig?), but good times were a coming.
Even though most Packers fans probably weren't, I was fired up when the Pack gave up a first round pick for Brett Favre. I'd known about Favre and his rocket arm for a while. He was a senior in high school when I was a freshman. We didn't play his school, but I remembered his father coaching them and running the wing T. I remember as a Sophomore in high school when he went from 7th on the depth chart at USM to starting. I kept up and followed him through college(went to a game or two on an high school recruiting trip just to watch him). My father always said that kid is going to something special in the NFL.
I've seen the Packers play in New Orleans, and I plan to go again this year, but going to Lambeau is on my bucket list. To sum it up I've been a Packers fan for close to 40 years, brought my firstborn son home in baby Packers clothing, and people who haven't seen me in years always ask "I guess you are still a Packers fan?", which I reply "Go Pack Go!".