Zero2Cool
13 years ago
Anthony Shadid, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent who died on Thursday at 43, had long been passionately interested in the Middle East, first because of his Lebanese-American heritage and later because of what he saw there firsthand.

Here's an article Shadid (Packers fan) wrote for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel January 2011.

I realized it had become a problem in Baghdad. 2003 wasn't even that great of a season, at least early on. (The glories of Brett Favre on Monday night in Oakland and Al Harris' pick in overtime in the playoffs against Seattle awaited, as did the post-traumatic stress I still bear from fourth-and-26 in Philadelphia.)

For a fan, though, loyalty is never about wins and losses. It's about being there, and from thousands of miles away I managed to be, by way of a breathtakingly expensive satellite phone that brought me the radio broadcast.

"You're not going to believe the phone bill," my bureau chief, as alarmed as he was unknowing, declared to me right around the time the Packers had a 4-4 record.

I looked at him, shaking my head in insincere sympathy.

"Can they tell which computer ran up the bill?" I asked.

They couldn't.

My love of the Green Bay Packers started when I was a young reporter at the Associated Press in Milwaukee. As a boy, I had been a Dallas Cowboys fan but never really watched football after that. I went to all of one game at Camp Randall as a student at the University of Wisconsin. But on those long weekend shifts, Sundays interminable, I couldn't help but at least keep an eye on Packers games.

On the third week of the 1992 season, I was hooked - by a head-shaking final score of 24-23. When I've had enough of the mayhem on a bad day in Baghdad, I'll occasionally turn to You Tube and replay Favre's touchdown pass to Kitrick Taylor with 13 seconds left that won the game. (The other clip with which I drive my wife crazy is Lombardi shouting, "What the hell's going on out there?")

It went downhill from 1992.

As an editor on the AP's International Desk in New York, I wagered my rent a few too many times on the Packers. I ended up losing an especially tidy sum on the playoff game against the Detroit Lions. No matter. The Packers still won, 16-12.

In 1995, I was sent to Cairo as a foreign correspondent. The only satellite phones then were the size of steamer trunks, and I couldn't manage to take that home with me. So any time the Packers played a night game - those games, for some reason, broadcast on expensive satellite channels available in five-star hotels in the Middle East - I plopped down a few hundred dollars for a room at the Marriott. It was still too little Packers for me.

I suffered in anguish during the 1996 season, missing out on what I thought was history, when the Lombardi Trophy came home. My cousin finally managed to mail a tape of the Super Bowl, and it arrived just before a dinner party. I made it through an excruciating 45 minutes of the meal before surrendering to my passions. By midnight, I had watched the game twice.

I've worked as a foreign correspondent for 15 years, and I feel like the Packers were there on every assignment, from Cairo to Islamabad. On my way back from Egypt, after landing at JFK in New York, I listened in disbelief to the radio in the taxi as Terrell Owens snagged the game-winning pass with three seconds left. Three. In a brutal winter in Kabul, I logged on to the slowest Internet connection in the history of the Afghan capital to see that we had lost to the St. Louis Rams, 45-17. Next to a wood-burning stove, still in my sleeping bag, I asked myself whether Favre really could have thrown six picks. Six.

Budgetary constraints aside, I listened to every game in Baghdad. When I won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004, my editor at the Post, Phil Bennett, gave me front-row tickets to a game with the Washington Redskins. Forget the Pulitzer! I'm going to the game! I could have written another book if I had somehow managed not to spend countless hours reading about the Packers online. My wife, Nada, born abroad and having never heard the word touchdown, much less Packers, can now recite the starting lineup. (Well, part of it.)

In December, in my very own pilgrimage, I dragged her, my 9-year-old daughter Laila and my 8-month-old son Malik to the terra sancta of Lambeau Field for the game with the San Francisco 49ers. Nada and Malik made it all of 30 minutes. Laila weathered the first half. I then sat by myself, basking in frigid temperatures, gazing at the occasional flurry and sipping the tastiest beer ever, as time seemed to slow, just a little.

It's not so hard to watch the game these days abroad, as long as you set your alarm for the occasional 3 a.m. You can actually stream them on the Internet from anywhere in the world. I even have a satellite dish that offers ESPN and Fox Sports. But I guess I feel a little less worthy as a fan. Without all the effort, losses don't hurt as much. Wins are not as jubilant. It all feels a little more ordinary.

That was, until last Sunday.

Anthony Shadid - Jan. 30, 2011  wrote:


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wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member
13 years ago
wow. I am speechless. We lost a great one when he passed away.
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wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member
13 years ago
I love the twinkle in his eyes. I could see him looking surprised when his bureau chief is complaining about the huge phone bill

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Mucky Tundra (8h) : I could feel my body decomposing in real time when I read that
Mucky Tundra (8h) : @MIKEYSAINRISTIL Tyler Shough will officially be the last person drafted to the NFL born in the 1900’s
Mucky Tundra (18h) : saw the tweet, he meant the city
Mucky Tundra (18h) : Was that for the team or the city?
Zero2Cool (19h) : Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter · 3m Draft grade is in: Green Bay gets an A. The people, the city, the venue were all superb. NFL Draft’s next
Zero2Cool (19h) : Matt LaFleur says Jaire Alexander is participating in #Packers offseason program, which has been conducted virtually during this first week
Zero2Cool (19h) : ✅ ...
buckeyepackfan (19h) : Check
Zero2Cool (22h) : Matthew Golden cahanged 81 to 22??
TheKanataThrilla (26-Apr) : Sam Howell to Vikings...guess no Aaron
Martha Careful (26-Apr) : 1 round 7 min, with one extra minute if there is a trade. 2nd round 4 minutes, 3rd -3, 2 thereafter IMO
Martha Careful (26-Apr) : Agree
dfosterf (26-Apr) : Great idea imo
dfosterf (26-Apr) : 1st round to 7 minutes with one extension
dfosterf (26-Apr) : NFL comissioner wants to shorten the 2st
Mucky Tundra (26-Apr) : @jalenreagors They’re discussing if Sheduer can go back to college on NFL Network LMFAOOOOO
beast (26-Apr) : Great point Martha
beast (26-Apr) : Buddy Ryan used to say if a candy bar goes missing, there are two to blame, Rex and Rob 🤪 jk 😁
Martha Careful (26-Apr) : Bum Phillips used to say there are two ways to get better. Get better players or get players to play better. We have a new DL coach
Zero2Cool (26-Apr) : Yes. Look at the losses last year. They can win.
beast (26-Apr) : Can Packers win with their current DL?
bboystyle (26-Apr) : waiting for a pass rusher.
dfosterf (25-Apr) : 5 minutes between picks in the 3rd
dfosterf (25-Apr) : 3rd. Hate this phone
dfosterf (25-Apr) : 4rd
dfosterf (25-Apr) : 5 minutes in the 4
dfosterf (25-Apr) : 7 minutes between picks in the 2nd round
Martha Careful (25-Apr) : Sorry to bitch, but the headline writers in that section absolutely mislead, or don't know how to read. It is maddening
Martha Careful (25-Apr) : No thanks. Not a dependable guy to be in the right place and run the right route. Dumb as a box of rocks.
Zero2Cool (25-Apr) : Losing 2nd round pick for a one year rental, not ideal. Especially a headcase.
TheKanataThrilla (25-Apr) : Pickens for Jaire may be interesting. Definitely not sure we want Pickens long term.
dfosterf (25-Apr) : No.Absolutely not
Zero2Cool (25-Apr) : NO NO NO NO NO NO!!1 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
dhazer (25-Apr) : scenario: Our main prospects are off the board when our pick comes around, do we just throw a 2nd round pick at Pittsburgh for Pickens
TheKanataThrilla (25-Apr) : Hopefully she had some comfort that her son will be live his dream when she passed away. Sad news.
Mucky Tundra (25-Apr) : Damn that sucks
Zero2Cool (25-Apr) : News about Derrick Harmon mom, saddening.
Zero2Cool (25-Apr) : Mark Murphy: "I predict we will trade up once and down twice."
beast (25-Apr) : Rip the Packers and getting the fans yelling and booing him
beast (25-Apr) : Super competitive Bears fan and WWE "superstar" wrestler, Seth Rollins is supposed to announce a Bears pick and absolutely rip Packers
packerfanoutwest (25-Apr) : Golden
beast (25-Apr) : I want DT Derrick Harmon, Oregon
Mucky Tundra (25-Apr) : And I can't be looking at my phone
Mucky Tundra (25-Apr) : Hey I'm at work lol
Zero2Cool (24-Apr) : btw, new site chat won't delete auto like
Zero2Cool (24-Apr) : because everyone left like wimps
TheKanataThrilla (24-Apr) : I am wondering if there is some type of autoclear when there isn't activity after a certain amount of time.
Mucky Tundra (24-Apr) : What happened in the chat? Me and Zero posted a few things earlier and they're all gone
dfosterf (24-Apr) : 10-15 min bs plus flyover
dfosterf (24-Apr) : Yes
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