July 22, 2024 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in the 1980s, the Packers stadium had a kids-only section for kids between the 5th and 8th grades. During Jon Elfner’s 8th grade year he not only saw every game—he also fell in love.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Americans have a love affair with their sports teams, their
home sports teams, and not many cities love their home
sports football team, like the people in Green Bay who
actually own their football team and the.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Legendary field that Vince.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Lombardi made famous the iconic coach. I'm talking about lambeau Field.
This next story comes to us from John Elfner, a
frequent contributor, here to tell his story a lambeau Field
story is John Elfner.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I grew up in green Bay, Wisconsin, and there are
sports towns, but Green Bay is not a sports town.
Green Bay is a Packers town. Seventies and eighties. When
I was growing up, every Sunday that the Packers were
playing at home, it was the biggest event of the
year every time, which is a little surprising because the
Packers weren't that good. There were the perennial eight to
(01:16):
eight seventies and eighties Packers. Green Bay is not big
and if you'd just be going around town, you'd bump
into Packers. I remember playing a game of pickup football
at the gym with John Anderson and Rich Wingo are
star linebackers. Ken Bowman, who was the center for the
Packers and all those Super Bowls in the sixties. He
was my freshman football coach. So that's what I mean
when I say this was a Packers town. The Packers
(01:39):
organization had a very interesting arrangement. The whole section of
the stadium was a kid section, no parents in sight.
It was just hundreds of kids between fifth and eighth grade.
When you graduated from eighth grade, he had to give
up your ticket, and the tickets were only three dollars
and seventy five cents. Going into the season in nineteen
eighty three, this is going to be my last year
(02:00):
to have tickets in the student section. I was going
to be too old after this. So the day comes
they released the schedule for all the home games for
the Packers for the eighty three season, and that third
game there it was it was a Monday night game.
It wasn't just a Monday night game. There's a Monday
night game at lambeau Field against Joe Thaisman's Washington Redskins.
(02:21):
And we never got Monday night games. Nobody was interested
in seeing us play nationally and now we're playing the
Washington Redskins, who won the Super Bowl the year before.
And this is how would work. All the kids would
get dropped off at lambeau Field, a little like getting
dropped off at school. Our parents would let us out
of the station wagon and we all go marching in
(02:43):
with tens of thousands of strangers around us. And that
might sound odd, but you have to remember this is
Green Bay and the Packers were the center of the community.
Nobody worried about it. On my way in, I'd always
grab a hot dog Minnesota and I head to my
seat because I'm going into new seat in section one
oh three. I stopped dead my tracks. But it wasn't
(03:04):
my seat that got me. It was what was next
to my seat. It was a beautiful girl, and she
was just my age. She had a great smile, blonde hair,
angular eighties haircut, and she was wearing a baggy Packer sweatshirt.
This is every eighth grade boy's dream, at least every
eighth grade boy in Green Bay that year. And when
she said Hi, my name's Jenny, I said some like John,
(03:30):
And then really quickly I sat down and started eating
my hot tuck. Now I don't remember much about that
first game where I met Jenny. I'm not even sure
if we won and lost, but I do remember Jenny.
She went to a different school. I'd never met her before,
and I never see her between games. The only time
I was going to get to see Jenny was at
home football games. So that Monday night comes, we're kind
(03:53):
of expecting we're gonna get crushed by the Washington Redskins,
after all, they'd won the Super Bowl the year before.
But it didn't really matter. We had this beautiful night,
October seventeenth. It should have been cold and blustery, but
it's about sixty degrees and clear. I was excited for
the game, but I was a little bit more excited
that I was going to get to see Jenny again,
and I was going to get to see her at night.
(04:16):
So I walk in, it's under the lights. The field
is this luscious green. So I walked to my seat,
hot dog in hand, and this time I'm ready. There's
Jenny and she says, hi, John, and I said Hi, Jenny.
Take my seat next to her, and we start talking
and laughing. It fell a little like playing hooky. And
(04:38):
I'm thirteen years old. This game doesn't even start till
eight o'clock. We're going to be out till midnight. The
Redskins get the ball first, and on one of the
early plays there's a screen pass and our linebacker Mike Douglas,
he hits the receiver. The receiver fumbles, and Douglas picks
up the football and he runs into the end zone
right in front of me and Jenny. The scoring didn't
stop there. Every time each team got the ball for
(05:00):
the rest of the game, they scored. It was like
a boxing match. Packers would score, Redskins would answer. There'd
be a field goal, another touchdown, just back and back
and forth. And every time the Packers would score, Jenny
I would high five. With under a minute ago, the
Packers are winning forty eight to forty seven, but the
Redskins get the ball in their own twenty six yard line.
(05:20):
If they get a field goal, the Redskins will win.
Five yards here, three yards there. They're running out of
bounds a stopping the clocket. This is horrible for the Packers,
but part of me didn't mind it because every time
something bad would happen, Jenny would grab my hand. The
Redskins get the ball to the Packers twenty one yard line.
It's going to be a thirty nine yard field goal.
Jenny and I both knew about Mark Moseley, the kicker
(05:42):
for the Redskins come up. He'd won the MVP in
the Super Bowl the year before. There was no way
this guy was going to miss a field goal. He's
going to ruin my perfect night with Jenny. If the
ball is snapped, Jenny grabs my hand, mostly kicks the ball.
It sails through the air. Time stop. Jenny grabs my
hand even tighter, and we watch the ball sail towards
(06:04):
the goalpost and go wide right. It's no good. The
crowd went nuts, and I look at Jenny and she
jumps towards me and gives me the best hug I'd
ever received, a hugger as tight as I can. And
in that moment, I realized I love the Packers.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And you just heard a story from John Elfin in
one of our regular contributors. He teaches history in Illinois,
and you can tell he is a diehard Packers fan.
We all have stories like this from some sporting event,
a concert that brings us all together. What does it
tell you about the city of Green Bay that they
let fifth to eighth graders go out unsupervised and have
(06:50):
an entire section to themselves. Boy, I would have been
so depressed aging out of that. John teaches history, and
this is a little bit of his own history, and
today he'll never forget. Hopefully we all have childhood memories
like this, at least a few. By the way, our
own Greg Hangler was at that game two as a
fifth grader. John never saw Jenny again, but he still
(07:13):
loves the Packers. And by the way, Jenny, if you're
out there and you hear this story, we'd love to
hear from you. John Elfner's story of falling in love
at lambeau Field Here on our American Stories. Lihabibe here
the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
(07:35):
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Americans have a love affair with their sports teams, their
home sports teams, and not many cities love their home
sports football team, like the people in Green Bay who
actually own their football team and the.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Legendary field that Vince.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Lombardi made famous the iconic coach. I'm talking about lambeau Field.
This next story comes to us from John Elfner, a
frequent contributor, here to tell his story a lambeau Field
story is John Elfner.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I grew up in green Bay, Wisconsin, and there are
sports towns, but Green Bay is not a sports town.
Green Bay is a Packers town. Seventies and eighties. When
I was growing up, every Sunday that the Packers were
playing at home, it was the biggest event of the
year every time, which is a little surprising because the
Packers weren't that good. There were the perennial eight to
(01:16):
eight seventies and eighties Packers. Green Bay is not big
and if you'd just be going around town, you'd bump
into Packers. I remember playing a game of pickup football
at the gym with John Anderson and Rich Wingo are
star linebackers. Ken Bowman, who was the center for the
Packers and all those Super Bowls in the sixties. He
was my freshman football coach. So that's what I mean
when I say this was a Packers town. The Packers
(01:39):
organization had a very interesting arrangement. The whole section of
the stadium was a kid section, no parents in sight.
It was just hundreds of kids between fifth and eighth grade.
When you graduated from eighth grade, he had to give
up your ticket, and the tickets were only three dollars
and seventy five cents. Going into the season in nineteen
eighty three, this is going to be my last year
(02:00):
to have tickets in the student section. I was going
to be too old after this. So the day comes
they released the schedule for all the home games for
the Packers for the eighty three season, and that third
game there it was it was a Monday night game.
It wasn't just a Monday night game. There's a Monday
night game at lambeau Field against Joe Thaisman's Washington Redskins.
(02:21):
And we never got Monday night games. Nobody was interested
in seeing us play nationally and now we're playing the
Washington Redskins, who won the Super Bowl the year before.
And this is how would work. All the kids would
get dropped off at lambeau Field, a little like getting
dropped off at school. Our parents would let us out
of the station wagon and we all go marching in
(02:43):
with tens of thousands of strangers around us. And that
might sound odd, but you have to remember this is
Green Bay and the Packers were the center of the community.
Nobody worried about it. On my way in, I'd always
grab a hot dog Minnesota and I head to my
seat because I'm going into new seat in section one
oh three. I stopped dead my tracks. But it wasn't
(03:04):
my seat that got me. It was what was next
to my seat. It was a beautiful girl, and she
was just my age. She had a great smile, blonde hair,
angular eighties haircut, and she was wearing a baggy Packer sweatshirt.
This is every eighth grade boy's dream, at least every
eighth grade boy in Green Bay that year. And when
she said Hi, my name's Jenny, I said some like John,
(03:30):
And then really quickly I sat down and started eating
my hot tuck. Now I don't remember much about that
first game where I met Jenny. I'm not even sure
if we won and lost, but I do remember Jenny.
She went to a different school. I'd never met her before,
and I never see her between games. The only time
I was going to get to see Jenny was at
home football games. So that Monday night comes, we're kind
(03:53):
of expecting we're gonna get crushed by the Washington Redskins,
after all, they'd won the Super Bowl the year before.
But it didn't really matter. We had this beautiful night,
October seventeenth. It should have been cold and blustery, but
it's about sixty degrees and clear. I was excited for
the game, but I was a little bit more excited
that I was going to get to see Jenny again,
and I was going to get to see her at night.
(04:16):
So I walk in, it's under the lights. The field
is this luscious green. So I walked to my seat,
hot dog in hand, and this time I'm ready. There's
Jenny and she says, hi, John, and I said Hi, Jenny.
Take my seat next to her, and we start talking
and laughing. It fell a little like playing hooky. And
(04:38):
I'm thirteen years old. This game doesn't even start till
eight o'clock. We're going to be out till midnight. The
Redskins get the ball first, and on one of the
early plays there's a screen pass and our linebacker Mike Douglas,
he hits the receiver. The receiver fumbles, and Douglas picks
up the football and he runs into the end zone
right in front of me and Jenny. The scoring didn't
stop there. Every time each team got the ball for
(05:00):
the rest of the game, they scored. It was like
a boxing match. Packers would score, Redskins would answer. There'd
be a field goal, another touchdown, just back and back
and forth. And every time the Packers would score, Jenny
I would high five. With under a minute ago, the
Packers are winning forty eight to forty seven, but the
Redskins get the ball in their own twenty six yard line.
(05:20):
If they get a field goal, the Redskins will win.
Five yards here, three yards there. They're running out of
bounds a stopping the clocket. This is horrible for the Packers,
but part of me didn't mind it because every time
something bad would happen, Jenny would grab my hand. The
Redskins get the ball to the Packers twenty one yard line.
It's going to be a thirty nine yard field goal.
Jenny and I both knew about Mark Moseley, the kicker
(05:42):
for the Redskins come up. He'd won the MVP in
the Super Bowl the year before. There was no way
this guy was going to miss a field goal. He's
going to ruin my perfect night with Jenny. If the
ball is snapped, Jenny grabs my hand, mostly kicks the ball.
It sails through the air. Time stop. Jenny grabs my
hand even tighter, and we watch the ball sail towards
(06:04):
the goalpost and go wide right. It's no good. The
crowd went nuts, and I look at Jenny and she
jumps towards me and gives me the best hug I'd
ever received, a hugger as tight as I can. And
in that moment, I realized I love the Packers.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And you just heard a story from John Elfin in
one of our regular contributors. He teaches history in Illinois,
and you can tell he is a diehard Packers fan.
We all have stories like this from some sporting event,
a concert that brings us all together. What does it
tell you about the city of Green Bay that they
let fifth to eighth graders go out unsupervised and have
(06:50):
an entire section to themselves. Boy, I would have been
so depressed aging out of that. John teaches history, and
this is a little bit of his own history, and
today he'll never forget. Hopefully we all have childhood memories
like this, at least a few. By the way, our
own Greg Hangler was at that game two as a
fifth grader. John never saw Jenny again, but he still
(07:13):
loves the Packers. And by the way, Jenny, if you're
out there and you hear this story, we'd love to
hear from you. John Elfner's story of falling in love
at lambeau Field Here on our American Stories. Lihabibe here
the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
(07:35):
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give
Host
Lee Habeeb
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