ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220019
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
CARROLL DALE IS A BIG PART of Green Bay's storied football tradition, but the NFL championship game still isn't the most important thing to him.
Carroll Dale received two tickets, free of charge, for Sunday's Super Bowl. He gave them away.
Dale, 58, already had plans to conduct a church youth meeting in Kingsport, Tenn., and that's where he'll be Sunday night. Meanwhile, Dale's old team, the Green Bay Packers, will be in New Orleans to play the New England Patriots for the world championship of football.
Missing the game won't bother Dale, who lives in Wise and is the athletic director at Clinch Valley College. A trip to New Orleans would take him away from his grandchildren, and it would cut into his precious time for grouse-hunting. If anybody would understand Dale's choice of going to church and going hunting over going to watch a Super Bowl, it would be the Packers.
The day before the 1966 NFL championship game against Dallas - the famous Ice Bowl game - Dale and offensive tackle Bob Skoronski went duck hunting. They began in the wee hours of the morning and finished around lunchtime. They stopped to eat at a restaurant before their afternoon practice.
Well, being that Green Bay was a relatively small town (population: 60,000), and being that these were two members of the Packers' team, Dale and Skoronski might as well have been wearing cheese on their heads. Everybody in the restaurant noticed them, and somebody called their coach, Vince Lombardi. With so much cheese around, you're bound to have some rats.
``He wasn't happy,'' said Dale, a Virginia Tech alumnus. ``He didn't think it was wise to stand on your feet watching ducks the day before a game.
``The next time, we decided to go somewhere there wasn't a crowd.''
The crowds in Green Bay go where the Packers go, especially if the destination is Lambeau Field. The stadium has been home to NFL games longer than any in the league and hardly has changed since the days Dale ran pass routes on its grass. It has grown by nearly 10,000 seats to its 60,790-seat capacity, mainly by adding 108 luxury boxes.
The rest of Green Bay has grown, too. The city also has gained approximately 40,000 residents.
``The big change is the population,'' Dale said. ``Now it's more like the size of Roanoke.''
The Packers also have increased their office space and added a $3 million practice facility, much fancier than the field where Dale and Skoronski ran laps for Lombardi.
Most of Dale's Packers memories don't involve the sort of trouble he encountered with Lombardi on the day before that NFL championship game against Dallas. Dale was as popular as any Packer, starting at flanker opposite Boyd Dowler from 1965-72. Dale led Green Bay in receiving yardage for six years and in 1979 was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame.
He came to Green Bay in a trade with the Los Angeles Rams and later played for the Minnesota Vikings, with whom he reached Super Bowl VIII. The Vikings lost that game 24-7 to the Miami Dolphins. Dale said that Minnesota team didn't have the mental toughness of those old Packers squads.
``Guys were just happy to be going to the Super Bowl,'' Dale said, frustration still evident in his voice. ``In the first two, we were representing the NFL against the AFL. We had a job to do. Not only were we representing ourselves, we were representing the entire league.''
Dale represents an era that has given birth to the NFL's most tradition-rich franchise. His contemporaries are just as revered and loved as any of the current Packers, but ``the present players get tired hearing of the Lombardi era, the Bart Starrs and the Ray Nitschkes,'' Dale said.
This past fall Dale went back to Green Bay for three Packers games and was an honorary captain for the Nov.3 game against the Detroit Lions. He is a regular guest at the Packers' fantasy camp each June. When former Virginia Tech and current Packers wide receiver Antonio Freeman arrived in Green Bay in 1995 for rookie camp, Dale was there.
``The real clue to the Pack getting back to the Super Bowl was because they got a receiver from Virginia Tech,'' Dale said, chuckling.
Dale likes to talk with the Packers' wide receivers when he's in Green Bay. Some are more receptive than others, though. At a fantasy camp in the early 1990s, Dale tried to have a conversation with All-Pro receiver Sterling Sharpe, but Sharpe, now an NFL analyst for ESPN, wouldn't even acknowledge him.
By contrast, these Packers, as determined as they are to match the glory of the old teams, also seem to have embraced the past Packer heroes. Dale was at the fantasy camp this past June when 1996 Pro Bowl wide receiver Robert Brooks approached him. Brooks told Dale he appreciated having guys like Dale around, guys who had taken the Packers to the Super Bowl.
``He said he would do anything he had to do to get the Pack back in the Super Bowl,'' Dale said.
Brooks was happy to listen to Dale's advice and Dale was happy to give it - as long as it wasn't about hunting.
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GREEN BAY PACKERS. Carroll Dale was as popular as anyby CNBGreen Bay Packer, starting at flanker opposite Boyd Dowler from
1965-72. KEYWORDS: FOOTBALL