1996 Super Bowl Champions!!!

The Eve

Little cheese-lets were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of Super Bowls danced in their heads.

The Broncos were hung out to dry in the spree.
Not even the Cowboys went 13 & 3.

Poor Dion in his kerchief and Troy in his cap.
Leon Lett sent away on that pesky drug rap.

When what to their wondering eyes should appear,
but the league's MVP and his fans and their beer!

And a little old flanker so lively and hot,
it must be Antonio lined up in the slot.

More rapid than Eagles or Jaguars or Niners,
he's beaten them all, now bring on Caroliners.

Now Edgar, now Dorsey, now Andre, now Beebe.
It's a flag, they're offsides! Throw it deep, it's a freebie!!

To the fans in the stands, to the top of the wall,
now jump away, jump away, jump away all.

They were dressed all in green from their heads to their toes,
except for those goofballs without shirts who obviously froze.

They've got no respect for Green Bay's frozen tundra.
The locals wear fleece and warm woolies down unda.

Fans spring to their feet, to their team give a whistle,
and toast No. 4 with beer by the fistful.

It's been 30 years since the Pack was last first.
Let's hear it for Holmgren, let's hear it for the bratwurst.

Let's remember St. Vince, a right jolly old elf.
Don't forget Brother Bart, MVP once himself.

But the torch has been passed to Chewie and White.
We hear them explain as they trot out of sight.

Press on to New Orleans and Super Bowl fame.
Merry Super Bowl, y'all' and to all a good game.

Bears Fan

A: Paint his weenie green and gold - he won't beat that thing for three years.

God

The next weekend Madden was at Lambeau Field when he noticed the same kind of phone by the Packers' bench. He asked Mike Holmgren if it was a hotline to God, and Mike siad "Yes, and you can use it for a quarter." John asked why it was so much cheaper than the Cowboy's phone. Mike replied, "Local call".

The Ring

A: A thief.

The Packer Fan In Heaven

He then asked the angel if they played football and the angel replied that in heaven, every day is Packer Sunday and the Pack always wins. Being very excited the fan asked if Vince Lombardi was there and as he asked, he saw a man with dark rimmed glasses, a heavy overcoat, and a cap that looked strangely like the one Vince Lombardi wore in the Ice Bowl.

When asked excitedly if that was him, if that was Vincent T. Lombardi, the angel replied, "No, that was God. He just thinks he's Lombardi."

What About Iowa?

A: Because Minnesota would want one too

The River

A: The Wisconsin border.

The Packers aren't going anywhere -- that's a compliment

I don't believe in fairy tales, aliens from outer space or the psychic hot line. But I believe in the Green Bay Packers, whose story begins once upon a time.

By the way we keep score in professional sports, the Packers have no business in today's NFC championship game. They're the ultimate small market, the corner grocery store butting heads against Safeway and Vons.

They play in a Wisconsin city of 98,000 residents and in a stadium that is one of the smallest in the NFL. The winters are long, the summers short. Green Bay's sister city is in Siberia. The No. 1 export is earmuffs.

Yet the Packers thrive, even as Art Modell and Bud Adams flee from Cleveland and Houston mega-markets with football teams that couldn't break .500. Even as Bud Selig, owner of the down-the-road-a-piece Milwaukee Brewers and grand pooh-bah of big-league baseball, rants and raves that he can't compete without a state-of-the-art stadium.

How it must gall Selig that while his team was losing favorite son Paul Molitor to free agency, the Packers were luring Reggie White, one of the best defensive ends ever, to Green Bay with a once-in-a-lifetime contract and sweet talk about the quality of life and cheese in their humble hamlet.

The Packers are all about grit and substance and adhering to tradition, and that's satisfying. Sound management, it turns out, is more vital to success than a deck of luxury suites. Players can find happiness somewhere besides the Sun Belt. Ticket-buying fans are more important to the bottom line than television sets.

As team president Robert Harlan likes to say, the Packers are a warm story in a very cold place.

The Dallas Cowboys, with high-kicking cheerleaders and stars on their jerseys, have anointed themselves America's Team. So have the Atlanta Braves, a marvelous baseball team that doubles as programming for their owner's cable station.

The Packers, in their unfashionable green-and-yellow uniforms, are the true representatives of the red-white-and-blue. They're older than dirt, two years older than the NFL itself.

Four times during their first 32 years, the Packers nearly were scorched from their frozen tundra. Each time, the community came to the rescue with cash. These people love their football. It was $2,500 in 1922, the Packers' second season in the NFL, and $15,000 in 1934, the year a fan fell out of the stands and sued the team. In 1949, the Packers played an intrasquad game on Thanksgiving Day that raised $50,000.

The financially ailing club went public a year later. Shares were sold for $25 each and $118,000 poured into the coffers. Today, the Packers have 1,898 shareholders, a 45-person board of directors and a seven-member executive committee.

Though the Packers expect to make $4 million this season, there will be no dividend. All the profits are plowed back into the team. The franchise has an estimated worth of $160 million. A share, when you can find one, still sells for $25.

The Packers are America's Team for all the above reasons and more:

They play in a stadium named after a legend (Curly Lambeau), not an airline or a bank.

They practice in a facility named after legend (Don Hutson), not a sneaker company.

They play outdoors, not in a dome.

They play on real grass, not artificial turf.

They've got a quarterback (Brett Favre) from a town (Kiln, Miss.) that is 82 times smaller than Green Bay.

They've won more NFL titles (11) than any other franchise.

They've had 19 Hall of Famers, among them, Vince Lombardi, Ray Nitschke, Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung, Willie Davis, Willie Wood, Johnny (Blood) McNally, Lambeau and Hutson.

They've got the Cheeseheads, the best advertisement for the dairy industry since the fondue pot.

After the Packers exposed the mold on the San Francisco 49ers, Green Bay coach Mike Holmgren used two words not usually associated with pro sports -- "fun" and "unselfish" -- to describe his season and his team.

Tight end Mark Chmura said the Packers' unity might stem from playing in the place that became known as "Title Town" during Lombardi's unprecedented run of success in the 1960s.

"I don't know if it's that we really want to win or because this town keeps us all close, but there really isn't any jealousy here," Chmura said.

The Packers might not be strong enough to overcome the Cowboys, who have that massive offensive line, Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and the world's leading practitioner of self promotion, Deion Sanders. But they've already proven themselves to be extraordinary in many ways.

This season, after Modell revealed he was turning his back on the city that had faithfully supported the Browns for 50 years, Cleveland mayor Michael White said, "If this can happen here, there is no safe franchise in America."

There is an exception. Green Bay is safe. The Packers will be there tomorrow, the day after that and when our children's children are having children. We all can take comfort in that.

(Bill McEwen writes for the Fresno Bee in California.)