We Just Bought Some Stock

We bought a new stock this week.  It will never go up in value.  It cannot be sold but can purchased as a gift for someone else.  It does not pay dividends.  Once you own the stock it can be transferred only within your family.  It has not been available for the past fourteen years and will no longer be available after February 29, 2012.

So what does this stock do for us?  Well, all modesty aside, we are now part owners of the Green Bay Packers.  This team, in relatively small Green Bay, Wisconsin (population 105,000) is the only publicly owned team in the National Football League.  We fell in love with the Packers when we moved to Wisconsin many years ago.  A good friend with season tickets provided the opportunity to attend games at Lambeau every year.  We loved seeing the outstanding quarterback Brett Favre before he threw his adolescent temper tantrums, retiring and un-retiring and took his football and moved on to play for two other teams.

Since Brett moved on, we have seen that a quarterback can be immensely talented, have a deep love for the game, be as enthusiastic as a teenager, and still be a grownup.  Aaron Rodgers is unbelievably talented and after leading the team to win the Super Bowl last year, he has led them to an unbeaten season this year.  (I was actually sort of wishing Eli Manning might have beaten him.  I'd hate for their first loss to be during the playoffs!)  Watching this team is so much fun.  You will see Rodgers chatting with the opposing team.  The players seem to be having fun as well.

The fans certainly enjoy the team, especially when they do the "Lambeau Leap" after a touchdown.  Lambeau Field is outdoors and when there is snow during the season, local people vie for the opportunity to work with shovels clearing the stadium.  Every summer the fans line up several persons deep at the fences surrounding the training field to watch the players in training camp.  Little kids stand at the gate with their bicycles.  Many of the linemen will take a kid's bike and ride it to the fieldhouse.  What a wonderful sight...a three-hundred-pound player on a kid's bike.  The excited kid runs alongside.  More often than not the Packer riding the bike stops to autograph it for the kid before going into the locker room.  And pose for a photograph if Dad or Mom brought the camera.

(Both photographs from the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel)

Aaron Rodgers and his winning smile.

 My two favorite players, Rodgers on the right and Donald Driver on the left.

So what will we get from our new stock?  Although we are not likely to do so, we can attend the annual meetings that precede the training camp.  We have voting rights.  So why would we bother to purchase stock that will never appreciate in value and that we cannot trade or sell?  Because the stock sale is to raise money for renovations at Lambeau Field.  And, as I mentioned before, because technically speaking, the stock makes us  team owners.

Next Packer game, I can more honestly say they are MY Packers.  I will be glad when the season is over and I can wash my Packer shirt.  (I don't dare wash it for fear it will jinx the team.)  Of course I wear it only on game day.