July 1, 2022 • 16 mins
Wayne Larivee sits down with former Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Evan Smith to talk through his journey from Seattle to substitute teaching (6:13), to becoming a Super Bowl champion in the 2010 season (11:33), and eventually settling down in Green Bay (12:43).
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
For more than a century, the Green Bay Packers have
been a benchmark for football excellence. Thousands of players have
helped pave the way, and we're here to tell you
their stories. I'm Wayne Laravi. This is the Packers alumni Spotlight.
(00:24):
The Packers under general manager Ted Thompson in the two thousands,
had an amazing run of productive college free agents. Among
those was offensive lineman Evan Smith, who came in as
an unheralded rookie free agent and learned his lessons well
under longtime Packers offensive line coach James Camping Camp. He
(00:46):
was my guy, can't be. Taught me a lot about
playing football. Um, you know, his knowledge of being a
former player. Um, taught me how to like run a line,
taught me how to you know, just have confidence and
what I do. Uh. He probably along very well. I
have a lot of respect for that guy. He meant.
He meant a lot to me in my career, for sure.
It is an interesting group of offensive lineman on that team.
(01:08):
And tell us a little bit about that. What are
your remembrances of that man? I got all the guys
that I played with here, I mean I think a
handful of them and probably get end up on the
wall down there at some point, you know, I know,
Josh and t J probably end up down on the
walls down here. I gotta play with Taos, Cliff Scott Wells,
Darren College, Um Marshall Newhouse, Bryan Blaga, uh Dave was
(01:32):
a rookie my last year here, so you know, I
gotta play with Josh and t J. You know, those
guys taught me a whole lot about pointing ball. Um.
I mean, you know, when I started out, I think
Josh just made you know, first team All Pro. Uh,
t J was coming along, and then they flip flopped
him my last year, you know, and that's you know,
and then you guys got the after I left, Josh
(01:54):
was left and t J was right for the rest
of the time. So let me ask you about the
two thousand nine season. You're a wide eyed rookie, but
the Packers kind of struggled through the first half of
that season and then catch fire down the stretch one
like seven of the last eight games or whatever, make
the playoffs high scoring team, Aaron Rodgers really coming into
his own the whole bit. Give us your thoughts on
(02:16):
that season. Could you sense that this team was going places.
You know. It's uh, it's one of those things I
got to kind of experience. The my whole college career,
we were we weren't really good. You know, we lost
a lot. And my whole high school career, I was
on some good teams that we won a lot, and
I won with some really good players, and then when
they left, I kind of notice how being on a
(02:37):
team with really good players, you know, shapes the team.
I got here and uh, you know what we had,
Charles Woodson, Nick Collins, I mean, Al Harris was there.
I think that was Al's last year. He towards his
A c L. I think in the second game of
the year or something like that in two thousand nine,
and that's what spark Tramon's run is being a great corner.
But that was my first real experience. It's that seeing
(03:00):
a team with just an incredible amount of talent and uh,
what it looks like to be that. And then as
the year came along, we kind of found our groove
and I mean it was, you know, the next year
we got one of these you know, but it was
you know, you could see it, um, you could see
it coming in training camp. Because I think that was
(03:22):
also the first year they just switched over to the
new defense with Dom, you know, so that I mean
everything it was a jelly process. But um, me and
Charlie were just talking about it. You know, it's teams
hit their stride at certain points of the year. We
peeked that team. We peeked right in the middle of
the season and wrote it all the way to that
uh you know that incredible playoff game and uh or
(03:42):
what was it at Arizona? Yeah, into that crazy ot
and next year, I mean it was, you know, the
fire was there. I remember we got the training camp.
You could just kind of tell um, you know that year.
I wish I would have done a little more in
the offseason to get myself ready for that. But you know, I,
you know, I I got cut, I went to Seattle,
and then I came back. And when I came back,
(04:04):
I you know, I knew I had to bring kind
of a different attitude to it, and I did, and
you know, I got to watch these guys basically just
great Super Bowl team just flourished. So coming out of
training camp two thousand and ten, there was a real feeling,
at least outside but inside of the team too, that
this team was going places. You could just tell. I
mean the level, you know, the level of competition was
very very high. I mean day in and day out,
(04:26):
it was you know, guys were out there making plays.
You know, Aaron was just another year mature in Mike system,
and you know, the the gun slinger was just starting
to come out and him you know a little bit
more and um, you know, but it was it was there.
I mean that you remember that wide receiver unit. I
mean it did just there was so much talent using
(04:47):
on that roster. You know, just when it all came together,
it was, you know, something awesome. But you ended up
in Seattle for the front part of the season, as
you mentioned before. So you're playing for Pete Carroll in
the infancy of his ten and you're in Seattle. What
was that like? What did you notice about Pete Carroll
and that team and the way they did business? He was, uh,
you know people was a good guy. Uh. My my
(05:10):
stint there was very short. You know, I didn't, like
I said, I was very young in the league. I
didn't quite understand the business and how it all really
went at that point, because, like I said, my first year,
I made the team and I was playing and I
was doing you know, I was kind of on the
roster because and then my second year, you know, then
I was kind of experienced the business end of the NFL.
But seeing what he had to do, and it's what
a lot of teams do. It's you have to shuffle guys.
(05:32):
You have to find guys that fit your scheme, your style,
your system. You know, you have to have a vision
with the coach and the GM and the personnel department
and everything. And you know, I think that year that
was I was one of like three d and fifty
transactions that they had set a record in the league with,
you know, but I mean that's what you gotta do.
You gotta plug and play, you gotta find it. And
then you know, Guy obviously, Guy obviously found all the
(05:54):
pieces and uh, you know it took them to they've
had a good run and they're still doing it up there.
All right. Um, So you're you're once you leave Seattle,
you're right down a few weeks. You're out of the
league for a few weeks, um, and then you get
a call and somebody said on New Year's Eve to
come back to the packers or this is how it was.
My wife was pregnant, we had you know, I wasn't
(06:17):
in the NFL. We weren't really kind of sure what
we're going to be and we're sitting in Seattle. Um,
so we moved back to California where I grew up.
I uh, you know, we had our we had my
daughter who was now ten, and we I quickly figured
out that I need to get a job, and so
(06:37):
I started working out. I was going to do substitute
teaching at the time. And then yeah, it was like
right after Christmas. Uh, Camping James called me. James Camping
called me and asked me what I was doing, like
if I was in shape. I was like, well, what
are you kind of getting at here, buddy? You know
what kind of deal? And uh and then yeah, sure enough,
(06:57):
my agent called me in about a few phone calls later,
I was heading on a plane back here, you know.
And then when I got back here, I could kind
of see, you know, because I was watching all the
games through the year, and you can kind of see
when the switch started turning for the team after that
New York game and everything, and you know, guys started
to believe because you know, once you get in the playoffs,
anything happened. Wow. And and so so you joined that
(07:20):
team that you were very familiar with because you had
spent training, spend the roster wasn't far from what it
was when I got when I left injury, Yes, minus
the injured guys, I mean, and when I got there,
I mean the online group was pretty much the exact
same um. And you know, I just came in and
my biggest thing was just you know, try and come
(07:43):
in and just practice hard, you know, make these guys
work and you know, do best I could, because at
that time, you know, you could feel the energy even
at every practice. I mean, guys, you know, I think
during Super Bowl week, ended up getting a fright getting
in a fight during a practice on SIS, like on
a Wednesday, you know, just out there just going after guys.
You know, just out there getting after it. And you know,
(08:03):
guys got heated and stuff. But yeah, we had a
fight in the middle of a Super Bowl week, you know,
a practice and stuff, just you know, just having fun. Man,
when did you on the team was you were part
of that five weeks round to the Super Bowl, When
did you guys as a team realized that you were
you could win the Super Bowl, because I'll tell you
when we realized that the Atlanta playoff game, number one
(08:25):
seed Atlanta, they had the week off, you had played
the week before, gotten by Philadelphia, and now you're in Atlanta,
number one seed. The dome is rocking, and and you
guys just lit them up. And at that point in time,
it was obvious to me that you guys are the
best team in the league. Is that when you realized
it or did you guys know before? I think the
I think the week I came back that Bears game
(08:47):
when it was winner go home. You could tell then.
You could tell then that and the Bears new then
they messed up when they because what the Bears were
the number one seed in the NFC end up going
down there or they were the number won the division. Yeah,
that one of the number we ended up playing the
NFC Championship down there against him, and uh but they
knew we had a second chance at him. It wasn't
(09:10):
gonna go their way. It didn't matter where it was.
Because I remember watching that game, I mean, we want
ten to six or something like that, like last minute,
you know, de Lee a little tight end sneak right
in the goal line, and um, you know, we went
to the The biggest thing I thought was getting through
that wild card game in Philly and Tamon had that
pick to seal the game. I was like, this is over.
(09:32):
I was like, no one's beating I was like, no
one's beating us the rest of the time, you know,
because I mean we had the defense at that that
was probably their biggest test on the back end, and
I didn't really think that there was gonna be another
like a set of receivers that would be able to
do anything. And yeah, that was it once once we
beat Philly. I I think the team kind of knew,
(09:52):
like the train, the train was, the train was on
the tracks and it wasn't slowing down. What was super
Bowl Like super Bowl Week, the preparation, um, all that
went into it. In the game day, what was that like?
It was? It was fun. I Mean, like I said,
I think the biggest part was the business attitude, the
energy and intensity that we had when we stepped on
(10:13):
the field of practice that whole week. You know, when
we were in you know, when it was time to
do football things and football meetings, everything, guys were locked in.
You know, because there was a lot down there. I
mean I had family, everybody had all their family members,
as many people as you could get that you had
tickets for you know what. You know, the week itself
is just crazy busy. But when we had to step
(10:35):
into doing football things, I mean it was laser focus.
I mean, practices were sharp, um you know. And it
was funny too because I remember we got down there.
Uh you know, we had the snowstorm and everything. So
we were going to practice at TCU and uh, that
all went because they didn't have an indoor facility at
(10:55):
that time, so we had to go to this high
school like a two million dollar uh indoor facility you
know in Texas of course. So it was but we
go to the we go to the facility and yeah,
it was like playing in It was like over in
the Hutching Center. We're just out there, we're just playing
and uh. But the one thing that always stood out
to me, like I said, was the focus and the
(11:15):
energy of those practices were you know, very very high
level for going into that week, being a part of that,
you know, being a part of that whole run and
kind of just seeing it because like I said, the
year before we only had just the taste of the playoffs,
you know, and then you got to see it, and
then obviously we wanted and we saw that kind of
every year as we went along. But Mike McCarthy did
(11:38):
something interesting super Bowl week. On the eve of the
Super Bowl, he actually had you guys fitted for your rings.
What did that say to you? I was thinking, Uh,
I was thinking something along the lines of like how
Homered did the stack of money for the guys you
know beforehand? You know, it was kind of one of
those things. Uh. You know, in Mike's mind, weren't losing
(12:00):
that game, you know, so that's you know, I think
that trickled down to a lot of guys too. You know,
it's like, hey, we're going to we're going to get
sized for one of these bad boys. I know every
I know the other team had to do it. But
you know, you could have waited, you could have done
that earlier in the week at some point. But he yeah,
he strategically did that as just another little dropping in
the back of your head for some motivation. For sure,
(12:21):
it was pretty cool. But you know, once we actually
all got to see these and we want and everything,
and you get to put one of these on your finger.
It holds a different weight than any other thing you
put on your hand. The Packers went on to win
Super Bowl. Evan went on to further his career in
Tampa Bay, but Green Bay kept calling. I love it here.
(12:44):
I grew up in a farmtown in California. Um we
grew up where Pebble Beaches, about about a hundred miles
south of San Francisco. But where I grew up it
was farmers. It was a farmtown built by built by farms.
You know. That's strictly the reason the town came to
be was because the land was meant to farm. So
when I came here, it reminded me very much. I
(13:06):
went to college in a small town. I came here
and I kind of still had that same feeling. And
then I met my wife here and her family was here,
and for me, it just seemed it just seemed like
this kind of lifestyle fit me a little bit better
than going back to California. It was a little more expensive.
Some financial stuff kind of played a big role, but um,
(13:27):
here for sure always felt like home, you know, regardless
of That's one thing too, was after I got cut
my second year. We we told ourselves we have to
find somewhere. It's going to be home. So no matter
what happens in this life, this is where we go.
We picked here because it was just kind of what
it felt like it And of course winter. You don't
mind winter now in the business you're in, right, you
(13:47):
kind of like it and root for winter, you know.
Like I said, I grew up in California. We didn't
get snow you know. I my favorite thing to do
was we as a kid, we used to go up
to the snow go snowboarding. Like I was really good
at snowboarding by the time I left high school. When
I was in college, I was so excited because everyone
in the winter always be like, oh man, this is terrible.
I'm like, we lived twenty minutes from a ski hill
(14:08):
when I was in college, so during the winter, all
we had was conditioning. We didn't have football stuff, so
I mean, handful of guys that always snowboarded. We'd always
just get in a car, go down there and go
snowboarding on Wednesdays when we didn't have workouts. And then uh,
I come here, so now I got my snowmobile, so
I got Yeah, I got stuff I like to do
in the winter. I don't mind doing the snow. I
(14:29):
think it's kind of I think, uh, having the four
seasons make it makes you enjoy all of them a
lot more, you know, because then when the things start
changing and it gets nice out, you get outside a
lot more so. But yeah, my my business involves me
being outside quite a bit. Doesn't matter what time of
year it is, so but I have a good time
doing it. Last question, Um, your experience as a packers
(14:52):
player in this environment, in this town in the NFL.
Tell us about it. It's amazing. I mean it's definitely, Uh,
it's definitely. I mean maybe Buffalo would be about the
only other town that have anything close to this, but
it doesn't have the legacy that Green Bay does. You know,
the you know, the whole town is just feels historic,
(15:15):
you know. And then of course when you come over
the seventy two, you come right over the Fox, it's
just like Bam, here's this giant gem right in the
middle of his whole thing. Factories, blue collar, you know,
just hard working people that are really really nice. Um,
you know, everything that this place is has been a
representation of this organization since it was founded from what
(15:35):
I can tell, and I think that's just probably one
of the greatest parts about being a part of the
legacy of the Packers, because you can go anywhere you want,
but not every place has a story like this does.
And today Smith is a businessman in the greater green
Bay area because this California native Green Bay and the
(15:57):
Packers are home to t T t f B Day
For more than a century, the Green Bay Packers have
been a benchmark for football excellence. Thousands of players have
helped pave the way, and we're here to tell you
their stories. I'm Wayne Laravi. This is the Packers alumni Spotlight.
(00:24):
The Packers under general manager Ted Thompson in the two thousands,
had an amazing run of productive college free agents. Among
those was offensive lineman Evan Smith, who came in as
an unheralded rookie free agent and learned his lessons well
under longtime Packers offensive line coach James Camping Camp. He
(00:46):
was my guy, can't be. Taught me a lot about
playing football. Um, you know, his knowledge of being a
former player. Um, taught me how to like run a line,
taught me how to you know, just have confidence and
what I do. Uh. He probably along very well. I
have a lot of respect for that guy. He meant.
He meant a lot to me in my career, for sure.
It is an interesting group of offensive lineman on that team.
(01:08):
And tell us a little bit about that. What are
your remembrances of that man? I got all the guys
that I played with here, I mean I think a
handful of them and probably get end up on the
wall down there at some point, you know, I know,
Josh and t J probably end up down on the
walls down here. I gotta play with Taos, Cliff Scott Wells,
Darren College, Um Marshall Newhouse, Bryan Blaga, uh Dave was
(01:32):
a rookie my last year here, so you know, I
gotta play with Josh and t J. You know, those
guys taught me a whole lot about pointing ball. Um.
I mean, you know, when I started out, I think
Josh just made you know, first team All Pro. Uh,
t J was coming along, and then they flip flopped
him my last year, you know, and that's you know,
and then you guys got the after I left, Josh
(01:54):
was left and t J was right for the rest
of the time. So let me ask you about the
two thousand nine season. You're a wide eyed rookie, but
the Packers kind of struggled through the first half of
that season and then catch fire down the stretch one
like seven of the last eight games or whatever, make
the playoffs high scoring team, Aaron Rodgers really coming into
his own the whole bit. Give us your thoughts on
(02:16):
that season. Could you sense that this team was going places.
You know. It's uh, it's one of those things I
got to kind of experience. The my whole college career,
we were we weren't really good. You know, we lost
a lot. And my whole high school career, I was
on some good teams that we won a lot, and
I won with some really good players, and then when
they left, I kind of notice how being on a
(02:37):
team with really good players, you know, shapes the team.
I got here and uh, you know what we had,
Charles Woodson, Nick Collins, I mean, Al Harris was there.
I think that was Al's last year. He towards his
A c L. I think in the second game of
the year or something like that in two thousand nine,
and that's what spark Tramon's run is being a great corner.
But that was my first real experience. It's that seeing
(03:00):
a team with just an incredible amount of talent and uh,
what it looks like to be that. And then as
the year came along, we kind of found our groove
and I mean it was, you know, the next year
we got one of these you know, but it was
you know, you could see it, um, you could see
it coming in training camp. Because I think that was
(03:22):
also the first year they just switched over to the
new defense with Dom, you know, so that I mean
everything it was a jelly process. But um, me and
Charlie were just talking about it. You know, it's teams
hit their stride at certain points of the year. We
peeked that team. We peeked right in the middle of
the season and wrote it all the way to that
uh you know that incredible playoff game and uh or
(03:42):
what was it at Arizona? Yeah, into that crazy ot
and next year, I mean it was, you know, the
fire was there. I remember we got the training camp.
You could just kind of tell um, you know that year.
I wish I would have done a little more in
the offseason to get myself ready for that. But you know, I,
you know, I I got cut, I went to Seattle,
and then I came back. And when I came back,
(04:04):
I you know, I knew I had to bring kind
of a different attitude to it, and I did, and
you know, I got to watch these guys basically just
great Super Bowl team just flourished. So coming out of
training camp two thousand and ten, there was a real feeling,
at least outside but inside of the team too, that
this team was going places. You could just tell. I
mean the level, you know, the level of competition was
very very high. I mean day in and day out,
(04:26):
it was you know, guys were out there making plays.
You know, Aaron was just another year mature in Mike system,
and you know, the the gun slinger was just starting
to come out and him you know a little bit
more and um, you know, but it was it was there.
I mean that you remember that wide receiver unit. I
mean it did just there was so much talent using
(04:47):
on that roster. You know, just when it all came together,
it was, you know, something awesome. But you ended up
in Seattle for the front part of the season, as
you mentioned before. So you're playing for Pete Carroll in
the infancy of his ten and you're in Seattle. What
was that like? What did you notice about Pete Carroll
and that team and the way they did business? He was, uh,
you know people was a good guy. Uh. My my
(05:10):
stint there was very short. You know, I didn't, like
I said, I was very young in the league. I
didn't quite understand the business and how it all really
went at that point, because, like I said, my first year,
I made the team and I was playing and I
was doing you know, I was kind of on the
roster because and then my second year, you know, then
I was kind of experienced the business end of the NFL.
But seeing what he had to do, and it's what
a lot of teams do. It's you have to shuffle guys.
(05:32):
You have to find guys that fit your scheme, your style,
your system. You know, you have to have a vision
with the coach and the GM and the personnel department
and everything. And you know, I think that year that
was I was one of like three d and fifty
transactions that they had set a record in the league with,
you know, but I mean that's what you gotta do.
You gotta plug and play, you gotta find it. And
then you know, Guy obviously, Guy obviously found all the
(05:54):
pieces and uh, you know it took them to they've
had a good run and they're still doing it up there.
All right. Um, So you're you're once you leave Seattle,
you're right down a few weeks. You're out of the
league for a few weeks, um, and then you get
a call and somebody said on New Year's Eve to
come back to the packers or this is how it was.
My wife was pregnant, we had you know, I wasn't
(06:17):
in the NFL. We weren't really kind of sure what
we're going to be and we're sitting in Seattle. Um,
so we moved back to California where I grew up.
I uh, you know, we had our we had my
daughter who was now ten, and we I quickly figured
out that I need to get a job, and so
(06:37):
I started working out. I was going to do substitute
teaching at the time. And then yeah, it was like
right after Christmas. Uh, Camping James called me. James Camping
called me and asked me what I was doing, like
if I was in shape. I was like, well, what
are you kind of getting at here, buddy? You know
what kind of deal? And uh and then yeah, sure enough,
(06:57):
my agent called me in about a few phone calls later,
I was heading on a plane back here, you know.
And then when I got back here, I could kind
of see, you know, because I was watching all the
games through the year, and you can kind of see
when the switch started turning for the team after that
New York game and everything, and you know, guys started
to believe because you know, once you get in the playoffs,
anything happened. Wow. And and so so you joined that
(07:20):
team that you were very familiar with because you had
spent training, spend the roster wasn't far from what it
was when I got when I left injury, Yes, minus
the injured guys, I mean, and when I got there,
I mean the online group was pretty much the exact
same um. And you know, I just came in and
my biggest thing was just you know, try and come
(07:43):
in and just practice hard, you know, make these guys
work and you know, do best I could, because at
that time, you know, you could feel the energy even
at every practice. I mean, guys, you know, I think
during Super Bowl week, ended up getting a fright getting
in a fight during a practice on SIS, like on
a Wednesday, you know, just out there just going after guys.
You know, just out there getting after it. And you know,
(08:03):
guys got heated and stuff. But yeah, we had a
fight in the middle of a Super Bowl week, you know,
a practice and stuff, just you know, just having fun. Man,
when did you on the team was you were part
of that five weeks round to the Super Bowl, When
did you guys as a team realized that you were
you could win the Super Bowl, because I'll tell you
when we realized that the Atlanta playoff game, number one
(08:25):
seed Atlanta, they had the week off, you had played
the week before, gotten by Philadelphia, and now you're in Atlanta,
number one seed. The dome is rocking, and and you
guys just lit them up. And at that point in time,
it was obvious to me that you guys are the
best team in the league. Is that when you realized
it or did you guys know before? I think the
I think the week I came back that Bears game
(08:47):
when it was winner go home. You could tell then.
You could tell then that and the Bears new then
they messed up when they because what the Bears were
the number one seed in the NFC end up going
down there or they were the number won the division. Yeah,
that one of the number we ended up playing the
NFC Championship down there against him, and uh but they
knew we had a second chance at him. It wasn't
(09:10):
gonna go their way. It didn't matter where it was.
Because I remember watching that game, I mean, we want
ten to six or something like that, like last minute,
you know, de Lee a little tight end sneak right
in the goal line, and um, you know, we went
to the The biggest thing I thought was getting through
that wild card game in Philly and Tamon had that
pick to seal the game. I was like, this is over.
(09:32):
I was like, no one's beating I was like, no
one's beating us the rest of the time, you know,
because I mean we had the defense at that that
was probably their biggest test on the back end, and
I didn't really think that there was gonna be another
like a set of receivers that would be able to
do anything. And yeah, that was it once once we
beat Philly. I I think the team kind of knew,
(09:52):
like the train, the train was, the train was on
the tracks and it wasn't slowing down. What was super
Bowl Like super Bowl Week, the preparation, um, all that
went into it. In the game day, what was that like?
It was? It was fun. I Mean, like I said,
I think the biggest part was the business attitude, the
energy and intensity that we had when we stepped on
(10:13):
the field of practice that whole week. You know, when
we were in you know, when it was time to
do football things and football meetings, everything, guys were locked in.
You know, because there was a lot down there. I
mean I had family, everybody had all their family members,
as many people as you could get that you had
tickets for you know what. You know, the week itself
is just crazy busy. But when we had to step
(10:35):
into doing football things, I mean it was laser focus.
I mean, practices were sharp, um you know. And it
was funny too because I remember we got down there.
Uh you know, we had the snowstorm and everything. So
we were going to practice at TCU and uh, that
all went because they didn't have an indoor facility at
(10:55):
that time, so we had to go to this high
school like a two million dollar uh indoor facility you
know in Texas of course. So it was but we
go to the we go to the facility and yeah,
it was like playing in It was like over in
the Hutching Center. We're just out there, we're just playing
and uh. But the one thing that always stood out
to me, like I said, was the focus and the
(11:15):
energy of those practices were you know, very very high
level for going into that week, being a part of that,
you know, being a part of that whole run and
kind of just seeing it because like I said, the
year before we only had just the taste of the playoffs,
you know, and then you got to see it, and
then obviously we wanted and we saw that kind of
every year as we went along. But Mike McCarthy did
(11:38):
something interesting super Bowl week. On the eve of the
Super Bowl, he actually had you guys fitted for your rings.
What did that say to you? I was thinking, Uh,
I was thinking something along the lines of like how
Homered did the stack of money for the guys you
know beforehand? You know, it was kind of one of
those things. Uh. You know, in Mike's mind, weren't losing
(12:00):
that game, you know, so that's you know, I think
that trickled down to a lot of guys too. You know,
it's like, hey, we're going to we're going to get
sized for one of these bad boys. I know every
I know the other team had to do it. But
you know, you could have waited, you could have done
that earlier in the week at some point. But he yeah,
he strategically did that as just another little dropping in
the back of your head for some motivation. For sure,
(12:21):
it was pretty cool. But you know, once we actually
all got to see these and we want and everything,
and you get to put one of these on your finger.
It holds a different weight than any other thing you
put on your hand. The Packers went on to win
Super Bowl. Evan went on to further his career in
Tampa Bay, but Green Bay kept calling. I love it here.
(12:44):
I grew up in a farmtown in California. Um we
grew up where Pebble Beaches, about about a hundred miles
south of San Francisco. But where I grew up it
was farmers. It was a farmtown built by built by farms.
You know. That's strictly the reason the town came to
be was because the land was meant to farm. So
when I came here, it reminded me very much. I
(13:06):
went to college in a small town. I came here
and I kind of still had that same feeling. And
then I met my wife here and her family was here,
and for me, it just seemed it just seemed like
this kind of lifestyle fit me a little bit better
than going back to California. It was a little more expensive.
Some financial stuff kind of played a big role, but um,
(13:27):
here for sure always felt like home, you know, regardless
of That's one thing too, was after I got cut
my second year. We we told ourselves we have to
find somewhere. It's going to be home. So no matter
what happens in this life, this is where we go.
We picked here because it was just kind of what
it felt like it And of course winter. You don't
mind winter now in the business you're in, right, you
(13:47):
kind of like it and root for winter, you know.
Like I said, I grew up in California. We didn't
get snow you know. I my favorite thing to do
was we as a kid, we used to go up
to the snow go snowboarding. Like I was really good
at snowboarding by the time I left high school. When
I was in college, I was so excited because everyone
in the winter always be like, oh man, this is terrible.
I'm like, we lived twenty minutes from a ski hill
(14:08):
when I was in college, so during the winter, all
we had was conditioning. We didn't have football stuff, so
I mean, handful of guys that always snowboarded. We'd always
just get in a car, go down there and go
snowboarding on Wednesdays when we didn't have workouts. And then uh,
I come here, so now I got my snowmobile, so
I got Yeah, I got stuff I like to do
in the winter. I don't mind doing the snow. I
(14:29):
think it's kind of I think, uh, having the four
seasons make it makes you enjoy all of them a
lot more, you know, because then when the things start
changing and it gets nice out, you get outside a
lot more so. But yeah, my my business involves me
being outside quite a bit. Doesn't matter what time of
year it is, so but I have a good time
doing it. Last question, Um, your experience as a packers
(14:52):
player in this environment, in this town in the NFL.
Tell us about it. It's amazing. I mean it's definitely, Uh,
it's definitely. I mean maybe Buffalo would be about the
only other town that have anything close to this, but
it doesn't have the legacy that Green Bay does. You know,
the you know, the whole town is just feels historic,
(15:15):
you know. And then of course when you come over
the seventy two, you come right over the Fox, it's
just like Bam, here's this giant gem right in the
middle of his whole thing. Factories, blue collar, you know,
just hard working people that are really really nice. Um,
you know, everything that this place is has been a
representation of this organization since it was founded from what
(15:35):
I can tell, and I think that's just probably one
of the greatest parts about being a part of the
legacy of the Packers, because you can go anywhere you want,
but not every place has a story like this does.
And today Smith is a businessman in the greater green
Bay area because this California native Green Bay and the
(15:57):
Packers are home to t T t f B Day
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