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So You Say You Are A NFL Fan? Are You This Much Of A Fan?
Would you take a year off and move to a new Country to watch your team play football?
He gets my vote for Fan Of The Year.
Walt
AUSSIE PACKER FAN ACTUALLY KINDA COOL - With Leather
AUSSIE PACKER FAN ACTUALLY KINDA COOL
An Australian man became a fan of the Green Bay Packers at age 15 when a friend gave him a year-old videotape of a game against the Vikings. Fifteen years later, he sold his house and moved his family to Wisconsin so he can watch the Packers. I shit you not.
Wayne Scullino, 30, quit his job with a telecommunications company in Sydney. He, his wife and two boys are going to every Packers game this season and paying for it with the proceeds from the sale of their home. They plan to return to Australia when the season ends...
I'd rather punch myself in the cock for a week straight than move from Sydney in the spring/summer to Green Bay in the fall/winter (or any season, really). Plus, they're going to move in with his wife's parents when they move back, because, uh, he doesn't have a job or a house any more. So there's a whole lot to make fun of in this story. But then I read this quote:
"The thing with dreams though, in most cases at least, is that if you don't do something to make them happen yourself, they never will," [Scullino] wrote. "So with that, and a whole lot of understanding from the very best, non sport loving wife in the world, we made an executive decision. A decision that flies in the face of all rational thinking but one that we should all do at least once in our lives." [...] "At some point, you've got to stop living the life you've fallen into, and start living the life you want to," Scullino said.
And you know what? I can't hate on that. Anyone who trades in their life for actually living is all right in my book. But don't none of you go getting ideas. My readership is built on people trapped in unsatisfying jobs.
AOL Latino Foros -- Green Bay Packers -- Australian fan packs it all in to follow the Pack
By Mike Hoeft
mhoeft@greenbaypressgazette.com
Wayne Scullino — a Green Bay Packers fan from Sydney, Australia — recently quit his job, sold his house and cars and moved his family to Green Bay for what he calls a once-in-a-lifetime chance to follow his favorite football team for just one season.
Yes, he admits it's crazy.
"There's not a single person we've met who can believe it," he said. "They say it's absolutely nuts. At the same time, they say it's great."
In town less than a week, he already scored two tickets to Sunday's home opener against the Philadelphia Eagles. It will be his first game at Lambeau Field.
After arriving here Sunday with wife, Kelly, and sons Ben, 2, and 9-month-old Luc, Scullino said it was emotional seeing Lambeau Field and realizing he was here.
"It's something I've always wanted to do," said Scullino, who quit his job as a phone equipment salesman. "And with the house money in the bank and the boys not yet in school, it's literally now or never."
His plan: to attend as many home and away games as possible, tour the United States, "make a ton of friends" and keep an online diary until the day they fly home.
His goal: to publish a book as "The Once in a Lifetime Fan" that would inspire others to drop everything and follow their dreams.
"The Web site isn't so much about football as it is the idea that we've given up everything to follow a childhood dream. You know, the dreams you forget because you're too busy being an adult all of a sudden," Scullino said.
He acknowledged the dream carries challenges: that they've never lived in snow, or outside a major city, or driven on the opposite side of the road or been without a paycheck for six months.
"Oh, and the fact that we're using our life savings to do so with the very real prospect of having nothing on our return," he said.
Kelly Scullino said she's willing to back the Pack in a foreign land as long as they can take care of the boys.
"I just hope it's not too unsettling for them," she said.
For now, the family is staying at local motels. But they hope to find furnished lodging.
Kelly Scullino said the biggest things she'll miss from home will be beaches near Sydney, food and family occasions like weddings and birthdays. Ben will turn 3 and Luc will celebrate his first birthday here without their grandparents.
They've also been warned about Wisconsin winters.
They're both excited about seeing a white Christmas, making snowmen and sledding. But they're also dreading the cold.
Australia — 9,249 miles and a 15-hour-time difference from Green Bay — is in winter now and usually drops to about 55 degrees.
Kelly Scullino said she hopes to find a toddler play group for Luc and new friends for Ben.
The Scullino family was featured in a Press-Gazette story Oct. 23, 2005, when Wayne wrote to describe how difficult it was to be a Packers fan Down Under. Most sports fans there root for local rugby, soccer and cricket teams.
American football fans have to rely on NFL highlights, or watch live games by satellite at 3 a.m.
Wayne Scullino has been a Packers fan since high school. The first full game he saw was Minnesota at Green Bay. (The Packers, led by Don Majkowski, won 20-19 in that Nov. 26, 1989, game.) Never mind that he watched a tape of the game a year or so later, "the fact that it was full length was all that mattered."
In the 2005 story, he mentioned that he envied Green Bay fans and would like to move here for a season.
"I'm not afraid to say that there isn't a lot I wouldn't give to spend a season living your life," he wrote in 2005. "I envy the fact that you see every Packers game every week whether at the stadium or not."
Australian Family Moves North To Follow Green Bay Packers - Green Bay Packers News Story - WISN Milwaukee
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It's been said that Green Bay Packer Backers are some of the most loyal and spirited sports fans in the world, but one man may take the trophy as the most committed fan ever. He literally changed his life to fulfill his longtime dream of following the team from Titletown.
Wayne Scullino has a distinctly southern accent; southern hemisphere, that is. Hailing from Sydney, Australia, a city of more than 4 million, Scullino said maybe one in 1,000 people in his country has ever heard of the Green Bay Packers. It's a land where rugby rules.
"Most people couldn't care less about American football, and we call it 'American football' back home. So yeah, in fact, if I said, 'NFL,' most of them would probably think I said, 'NRL,' which is our National Rugby League," Scullino said.
Scullino said that when he was about 15 years old, a friend gave him a tape of a game between the Packers and the Minnesota Vikings.
"It (the game) was a year old. I watched it. The Packers won. I kept watching it. There was just something about the game and the atmosphere and the strategy that got me immediately," Scullino said.
Wayne was hooked.
Fast-forward 20 years, and Scullino had a good job with a telecommunications company. He also had a nice home with his wife, Kelly, and their two young boys. But his passion for the Packers had never gone away.
One day at work, Scullino said an idea spawned a call home.
"I called Kelly up and said, 'Hey, I've got this great idea. What do you think?' And it sort of snow-balled from there," Scullino recalled.
His great idea: to travel to Green Bay, but not just for one game at Lambeau Field.
The family is following the Packers to every game, all season, at home and way. Scullino quit his job and the family is financing the pilgrimage with the money they made from selling their Australian home.
"One person said to me, 'Man, you're crazy! That's the craziest thing I ever heard. You're following the Packers? They're not even any good,' Scullino said. He said he told that person, "Yeah, but things mean more to some people."
Scullino said his brother-in-law told him once that "A man without a dream will never have a dream come true," and he said the proverb struck a chord with him.
Kelly Scullino said she didn't immediately agree to the plan.
"I didn't just easily say, 'Sure, sweetheart, let's do whatever you want,'" she remembered. "It was a long decision. It was actually months. It took us months to put it together."
The family finally decided that there will be other jobs and other houses, and said that if they waited too long, the kids would be in school.
"So we couldn't do it in three or four year's time," Wayne Scullino said. "Brett (Favre) wouldn't be playing in three or four years time, either. Well, at least we don't think so," he said with a laugh.
Kelly Scullino said she is treating the whole trip as an adventure. She doesn't want people to think they're unstable.
"It sort of gets to me because we're not crazy. We're just people that are taking a risk and taking a chance, and doing it together as a family," Kelly Scullino said.
Green Bay Packers' spokesman Aaron Popke said that in the long history of one of the most celebrated franchises in sports history, the Scullino's Packers pilgrimage could be a first. Several years ago, the team did have a fan from Rome, Italy, visit Green Bay for a week.
"But to my knowledge, we haven't had somebody sell their home, pack up the family, and come from another country just to live in Green Bay and follow the team," Popke said.
Throughout the adventure, Wayne Scullino documents with a blog, video and pictures on his Web site, and he said he hopes to turn the whole experience into a book.
Web site: The Once In A Lifetime Fan
The family doesn't have tickets lined up for every game. They said they're living week-to-week, finding some tickets online, and some through their new Packer fan-friends.
"We went to the Washington game with a couple we'd never met," Wayne Scullino said. "But they e-mailed us, saying 'We've got four tickets. We normally take people from work, but you must come with us.'"
Another fan they met set them up with a furnished apartment at a bargain price, while another just gave them a truck to use while they're here. Kelly Scullino said she can't get over the generosity.
"Who gives someone a car? And my entire kitchen is stocked from a friend's sister, because she had a basement full of things and she wasn't using them," she said.
Coming from "Down Under," the Scullinos have never seen snow before, but they're here to experience everything a Packers fan goes through. Wayne Scullino said he doesn't expect to have a single regret.
"At some point, you've got to stop living the life you've fallen into, and start living the life you want to," Scullino said.
The family will return to Australia after the Super Bowl and stay with Kelly Scullino's parents while Wayne looks for a new job and a new home.
The Family Web Site. Link
THE ONCE IN A LIFETIME FAN
He gets my vote for Fan Of The Year.
Walt
AUSSIE PACKER FAN ACTUALLY KINDA COOL - With Leather
AUSSIE PACKER FAN ACTUALLY KINDA COOL
An Australian man became a fan of the Green Bay Packers at age 15 when a friend gave him a year-old videotape of a game against the Vikings. Fifteen years later, he sold his house and moved his family to Wisconsin so he can watch the Packers. I shit you not.
Wayne Scullino, 30, quit his job with a telecommunications company in Sydney. He, his wife and two boys are going to every Packers game this season and paying for it with the proceeds from the sale of their home. They plan to return to Australia when the season ends...
I'd rather punch myself in the cock for a week straight than move from Sydney in the spring/summer to Green Bay in the fall/winter (or any season, really). Plus, they're going to move in with his wife's parents when they move back, because, uh, he doesn't have a job or a house any more. So there's a whole lot to make fun of in this story. But then I read this quote:
"The thing with dreams though, in most cases at least, is that if you don't do something to make them happen yourself, they never will," [Scullino] wrote. "So with that, and a whole lot of understanding from the very best, non sport loving wife in the world, we made an executive decision. A decision that flies in the face of all rational thinking but one that we should all do at least once in our lives." [...] "At some point, you've got to stop living the life you've fallen into, and start living the life you want to," Scullino said.
And you know what? I can't hate on that. Anyone who trades in their life for actually living is all right in my book. But don't none of you go getting ideas. My readership is built on people trapped in unsatisfying jobs.
AOL Latino Foros -- Green Bay Packers -- Australian fan packs it all in to follow the Pack
By Mike Hoeft
mhoeft@greenbaypressgazette.com
Wayne Scullino — a Green Bay Packers fan from Sydney, Australia — recently quit his job, sold his house and cars and moved his family to Green Bay for what he calls a once-in-a-lifetime chance to follow his favorite football team for just one season.
Yes, he admits it's crazy.
"There's not a single person we've met who can believe it," he said. "They say it's absolutely nuts. At the same time, they say it's great."
In town less than a week, he already scored two tickets to Sunday's home opener against the Philadelphia Eagles. It will be his first game at Lambeau Field.
After arriving here Sunday with wife, Kelly, and sons Ben, 2, and 9-month-old Luc, Scullino said it was emotional seeing Lambeau Field and realizing he was here.
"It's something I've always wanted to do," said Scullino, who quit his job as a phone equipment salesman. "And with the house money in the bank and the boys not yet in school, it's literally now or never."
His plan: to attend as many home and away games as possible, tour the United States, "make a ton of friends" and keep an online diary until the day they fly home.
His goal: to publish a book as "The Once in a Lifetime Fan" that would inspire others to drop everything and follow their dreams.
"The Web site isn't so much about football as it is the idea that we've given up everything to follow a childhood dream. You know, the dreams you forget because you're too busy being an adult all of a sudden," Scullino said.
He acknowledged the dream carries challenges: that they've never lived in snow, or outside a major city, or driven on the opposite side of the road or been without a paycheck for six months.
"Oh, and the fact that we're using our life savings to do so with the very real prospect of having nothing on our return," he said.
Kelly Scullino said she's willing to back the Pack in a foreign land as long as they can take care of the boys.
"I just hope it's not too unsettling for them," she said.
For now, the family is staying at local motels. But they hope to find furnished lodging.
Kelly Scullino said the biggest things she'll miss from home will be beaches near Sydney, food and family occasions like weddings and birthdays. Ben will turn 3 and Luc will celebrate his first birthday here without their grandparents.
They've also been warned about Wisconsin winters.
They're both excited about seeing a white Christmas, making snowmen and sledding. But they're also dreading the cold.
Australia — 9,249 miles and a 15-hour-time difference from Green Bay — is in winter now and usually drops to about 55 degrees.
Kelly Scullino said she hopes to find a toddler play group for Luc and new friends for Ben.
The Scullino family was featured in a Press-Gazette story Oct. 23, 2005, when Wayne wrote to describe how difficult it was to be a Packers fan Down Under. Most sports fans there root for local rugby, soccer and cricket teams.
American football fans have to rely on NFL highlights, or watch live games by satellite at 3 a.m.
Wayne Scullino has been a Packers fan since high school. The first full game he saw was Minnesota at Green Bay. (The Packers, led by Don Majkowski, won 20-19 in that Nov. 26, 1989, game.) Never mind that he watched a tape of the game a year or so later, "the fact that it was full length was all that mattered."
In the 2005 story, he mentioned that he envied Green Bay fans and would like to move here for a season.
"I'm not afraid to say that there isn't a lot I wouldn't give to spend a season living your life," he wrote in 2005. "I envy the fact that you see every Packers game every week whether at the stadium or not."
Australian Family Moves North To Follow Green Bay Packers - Green Bay Packers News Story - WISN Milwaukee
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It's been said that Green Bay Packer Backers are some of the most loyal and spirited sports fans in the world, but one man may take the trophy as the most committed fan ever. He literally changed his life to fulfill his longtime dream of following the team from Titletown.
Wayne Scullino has a distinctly southern accent; southern hemisphere, that is. Hailing from Sydney, Australia, a city of more than 4 million, Scullino said maybe one in 1,000 people in his country has ever heard of the Green Bay Packers. It's a land where rugby rules.
"Most people couldn't care less about American football, and we call it 'American football' back home. So yeah, in fact, if I said, 'NFL,' most of them would probably think I said, 'NRL,' which is our National Rugby League," Scullino said.
Scullino said that when he was about 15 years old, a friend gave him a tape of a game between the Packers and the Minnesota Vikings.
"It (the game) was a year old. I watched it. The Packers won. I kept watching it. There was just something about the game and the atmosphere and the strategy that got me immediately," Scullino said.
Wayne was hooked.
Fast-forward 20 years, and Scullino had a good job with a telecommunications company. He also had a nice home with his wife, Kelly, and their two young boys. But his passion for the Packers had never gone away.
One day at work, Scullino said an idea spawned a call home.
"I called Kelly up and said, 'Hey, I've got this great idea. What do you think?' And it sort of snow-balled from there," Scullino recalled.
His great idea: to travel to Green Bay, but not just for one game at Lambeau Field.
The family is following the Packers to every game, all season, at home and way. Scullino quit his job and the family is financing the pilgrimage with the money they made from selling their Australian home.
"One person said to me, 'Man, you're crazy! That's the craziest thing I ever heard. You're following the Packers? They're not even any good,' Scullino said. He said he told that person, "Yeah, but things mean more to some people."
Scullino said his brother-in-law told him once that "A man without a dream will never have a dream come true," and he said the proverb struck a chord with him.
Kelly Scullino said she didn't immediately agree to the plan.
"I didn't just easily say, 'Sure, sweetheart, let's do whatever you want,'" she remembered. "It was a long decision. It was actually months. It took us months to put it together."
The family finally decided that there will be other jobs and other houses, and said that if they waited too long, the kids would be in school.
"So we couldn't do it in three or four year's time," Wayne Scullino said. "Brett (Favre) wouldn't be playing in three or four years time, either. Well, at least we don't think so," he said with a laugh.
Kelly Scullino said she is treating the whole trip as an adventure. She doesn't want people to think they're unstable.
"It sort of gets to me because we're not crazy. We're just people that are taking a risk and taking a chance, and doing it together as a family," Kelly Scullino said.
Green Bay Packers' spokesman Aaron Popke said that in the long history of one of the most celebrated franchises in sports history, the Scullino's Packers pilgrimage could be a first. Several years ago, the team did have a fan from Rome, Italy, visit Green Bay for a week.
"But to my knowledge, we haven't had somebody sell their home, pack up the family, and come from another country just to live in Green Bay and follow the team," Popke said.
Throughout the adventure, Wayne Scullino documents with a blog, video and pictures on his Web site, and he said he hopes to turn the whole experience into a book.
Web site: The Once In A Lifetime Fan
The family doesn't have tickets lined up for every game. They said they're living week-to-week, finding some tickets online, and some through their new Packer fan-friends.
"We went to the Washington game with a couple we'd never met," Wayne Scullino said. "But they e-mailed us, saying 'We've got four tickets. We normally take people from work, but you must come with us.'"
Another fan they met set them up with a furnished apartment at a bargain price, while another just gave them a truck to use while they're here. Kelly Scullino said she can't get over the generosity.
"Who gives someone a car? And my entire kitchen is stocked from a friend's sister, because she had a basement full of things and she wasn't using them," she said.
Coming from "Down Under," the Scullinos have never seen snow before, but they're here to experience everything a Packers fan goes through. Wayne Scullino said he doesn't expect to have a single regret.
"At some point, you've got to stop living the life you've fallen into, and start living the life you want to," Scullino said.
The family will return to Australia after the Super Bowl and stay with Kelly Scullino's parents while Wayne looks for a new job and a new home.
The Family Web Site. Link
THE ONCE IN A LIFETIME FAN
)....
....bless his unadventurous little heart.
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