Well this is a day in some peoples lives that ranks up there with holidays, the wedding day, birth of children and other major life altering events
IT'S THE PACKERS SEASON OPENER!
In this football-obsessed state, this is what people wrap their lives around for the next 17 weeks and over the last generation or so for good reason, the team has been at least average since ‘92.
The blessings bestowed upon yours truly have allowed me to get paid to go to Lambeau Field and watch the Packers win or lose games. Then after getting a good meal and enjoying a great seat in this press box, I go into the locker room and talk to your favorite players on the Green and Gold, as well as the best players in the NFL.
I want to tell I never take that for granted because its a great job to hear it with your ears, ask it from your mouth and see with your own eyes. As much fun as the gig is, it does have its downs that I will not complain about to you. But I want to tell Packers fans that as I grow older I find my love for the experience just as strong as the first time I went to cover a pre-season game in 1997.
I still get a buzz when I go out of that tunnel at the end of the game on to that historic grass-mud-dirt. I still cannot forget the high of being on the field when the Packers got a miracle from the Arizona Cardinals to back door into the post season, and the low of going into the locker room after that loss to Vikings in the playoffs.
The older you get the more you take some things for granted or appreciate others more, I'm no different than the next guy, but this part of my job is something I have come to enjoy in moderation. I don't go to every home game, but I get up to enough games to get a feel, and I don't always understand Green Bay Packers fans convictions and loyalties ... I do respect them though.
I get the chance to go through that Packers game day experience annually, and hope if you are a Packers fan at some point in your life you get to enjoy it too!
Steve Haywood is the host of That Being Said, which airs weeknights at 6 p.m. on Milwaukees ESPN Radio 1510 Days / 1290 Nights. A lifelong Milwaukee resident, Steve has been working on the radio since 1996 and also is executive producer of Sports Perspectives on MATA Community Media.
After graduating from Milwaukee Tech High School in 1985, Haywood attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he graduated in 1991.
He has covered a number of major events, including the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 2002 and the NBA All-Star Game in 2003.
Haywood, 39, is married with two kids, a dumb cat and a dog described as a real curmudgeon.
