Doug Robinson: Packers remind me of when I was a fan

The Packers were bigger than life. They were gods or at least folk heroes. I was almost shocked when I saw photos of the Packers decades later. You mean they age like the rest of us? There was a certain mystique about them. They played in snow and ice and mud in the far north. They won five championships in seven years. They were men, instead of the man-children we are stuck with today. They returned to the team year after year, unlike today's mercenaries.

I thought about all this on Sunday when the Packers clinched a Super Bowl berth. For a moment, I felt the old pull again. It's a different time and a different game, but I recalled the good old Packers of my youth. I kind of miss those days when I felt that way about something as simple as a sports team.

e-mail: drob@desnews.com