Defensive back LeRoy Butler and sportswriter Rob Reischel teamed up for Packers Pride, a book profiling players and coaches from across the decades. Some of the stories collected are priceless. In 1961, with the Championship game looming and Paul Horning drafted by the Army, Vince Lombardi called JFK and arranged to delay Horning’s induction. “The football fans of this country deserve the two best teams on the field,” Kennedy explained.
Jessie Garcia is a familiar face in local sportscasting from her years with Today’s TMJ4. Her memoir encompasses high school cheerleading and her coverage of all the area’s major teams as well as the Packers. Garcia’s warm, chatty television personality carries over onto the printed page. Her charm is her eagerness to get beyond the stats toward a fuller picture of the players’ lives—and their place in the lives of fans.
As for being a woman in a traditionally man’s game, she feels a female perspective adds dimension. “My mom knows nothing about sports and only wants the human touch; my stepdad needs to break down Xs and Os. If I can satisfy both, I’m doing my job,” she writes.
LeRoy Butler and Rob Reischel will be at Boswell Books, 7 p.m., Oct. 10.
Jessie Garcia will be at the Shorewood Public Library, 7 p.m., Nov. 6; Books & Company, 7 p.m., Nov. 14; and Barnes & Noble Greenfield, 1 p.m., Nov. 16.
