GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A memo sent to NFL teams on Wednesday indicates a Packers training camp tradition is in jeopardy of not happening for a second straight year.
The memo says fans can attend training camp practices, which the Packers have said will be possible this season. However, the memo says fans will not be able to interact with players and must stay 20 feet away.
The Packers are still digesting the protocols, but things like autographs, pictures and the tradition of players riding kids’ bikes seem highly unlikely.
For young Packers fans within biking distance of Lambeau Field, the last few weeks of summer break are a highly anticipated time of year.
“We would all talk about getting together and bringing all of our bikes and going over there,” said Landon Beauprey, a 14-year-old who lives in Green Bay. “We never lived close enough.”
Beauprey, and his brother Hayden, recently moved a street away from the stadium. It is much closer than where their mother lived when she was their ages.
“We used to live way back on the corner of Chestnut and Mather, so we used to bike all the way there and my brother used to take Doug Pederson like every week,” said Stephanie Rusch of Green Bay.
“It was like his regular. Me, I was a little bit smaller and had a littler bike, so I would just pass my bike and run along behind them. It was still fun.”
Rusch was hoping her boys would soon experience that fun, but the NFL memo makes it now seem like a longshot for this year.
“I always wanted to do that, but then I never got a chance and now it’s going to be very hard to,” said 10-year-old Hayden Beauprey.
“It’s kind of a bummer because they got to miss out on last year too,” said Rusch. “Hopefully something will change.”
The Packers Director of Public Affairs, Aaron Popkey, says the team “will be reviewing the COVID-19 protocols and finalizing camp operations, including details for fan attendance and other activities, and sharing that information along with practice dates when it’s finalized.”
“I think that as long as the visitors or the players are vaccinated that it would be perfectly fine for them to have an interaction,” said Landon Beauprey.
The Greater Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau has estimated training camp and other preseason events bring in $40 million for the local economy.
Brad Toll, president of the Greater Green Bay CVB, tells FOX 11 the protocols “may influence attendance a bit”, but ultimately everyone is coming to watch the team practice.
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