How you became a Vikings fan. Revisited.

I know this subject is covered elsewhere, because I remember doing it.  But since it's down time and many of us don't get back to read that thread I thought we could revisit how we became Viking fans. 


Geographically I should be a Packer fan. But it was Packer fans that made me a Vikings fan. Grade school, 1966. Appleton, WI. 29.8 miles from Lambeau field. 4th grade. This was the last year I attended speech therapy for stuttering. Nov. 6th. Vikings at Packers. The Vikings with Fran Tarkenton at the helm beat the Packers in Lambeau. It was the fist real Football game I remember watching. I was enamored with Vikings at the time after watching old movies with my dad during the summer. And for some reason was really into the color purple. We had a new color TV and the colors seemed so “real”. Anyway. I didn’t have a “team” that Sunday. But by Monday dinner time that had changed.



Monday morning when I went to school all the kids were talking about how the lowly Vikings had beat the Packers. And here I am thinking. What? You pick a team to cheer for? Since most of these kids b*tching were the same ones who had been teasing me for the last 3 years because I stuttered, I seized the day and became an instant Vikings fan. Rubbing it in. Oh, little did I know. But at the time it was glorious for and 8-year-old who had been picked on for years. Two weeks later the Vikings lost to the Packers in the old Met stadium. But it didn’t matter. I was a Vikings fan. And I brought one of my best friends with me. And, I’m a firm believer it helped me learn to control my stuttering. Which rears its ugly head every once in a while.



After the Season the was over the Vikings would trade Fran to the Giants and hire a new head coach. Joe Kapp and Bud Grant would take them to their first Super Bowl loss a couple of years later. And for the next 23 years, (After their 2nd Super Bowl) the Packers became mostly a sub .500 team only having 4 winning seasons. The Vikings had mostly good years while Bud was there, but well, never quite finished. And for pretty much the rest of the time before I joined the Air Force the Packers sucked.   By the time they became a good team again I had moved on to living in VA.   About 95% of all my relatives are Packer fans.  Including 5 of my 6 sisters.