Longtime Fan Gives Packers a Special Perspective on Pain

Bob Wieland, 44, is a double amputee. He lives in Southern California, but he is from Wisconsin. The weather there bothered him when he came home from Vietnam with no legs.

Don Majkowski, 26, is a football player with a lot of ability and a lot of agility. He quarterbacks the Green Bay Packers, who defeated the Raiders Sunday at the Coliseum, 29-16, with Wieland’s help.

“He inspired us,” Majkowski said.

“Guys like him should be an inspiration to all of us,” Packer Coach Lindy Infante seconded.

Wieland held a rap session with several players from his favorite NFL team Saturday night. When Infante found out about it, he asked Wieland to come back before Sunday’s game and address the players again.

What did Wieland say?

“I think maybe we should keep that just among ourselves,” Majkowski said.

But Infante, pointing toward the Packers’ lockers, said: “Go ask him . He’s right in there.”

He was there, all right, in his wheelchair, slapping palms with the players. Wieland, who was once the strength coach at Cal State Los Angeles, has spent plenty of time in this chair. He completed the L.A. Marathon in it. He even crossed the United States coast-to-coast in it.

One by one, each Packer made a special point of thanking Wieland while filing toward the exit. Told him what he had meant to them. Told them he had made a difference.

Including the quarterback.

“Thanks, man. You earned this,” Majkowski said, touching the game ball cradled in Wieland’s arms.

“Hey, man, my pleasure,” Wieland replied.

The Packers presented him with one game ball, and linebacker Tim Harris also gave him the ball he recovered after a Jay Schroeder fumble.

What had Wieland said to them?

“I’ll tell you what I said. I told them that I traveled 2,784.1 miles across America over three years, eight months and six days. I said: ‘If you guys can’t run up and down a 100-yard field for 60 minutes, shame on you.’

“I told them about a friend of mine who got hit in Vietnam. How before they took him away he said: ‘I didn’t come all the way to Vietnam just to be evacuated.’ I told them: ‘You guys didn’t come all the way to L.A. just to get your butts kicked.’ ”

And you wonder why Don Majkowski didn’t mind getting sacked by the Raiders eight times.

Sometimes it’s enough to get hit and still get up.

It’s even better when you win. Majkowski was able to do that, even if it wasn’t very pretty. He eluded the Raiders just often enough to throw two touchdown passes and set up five Chris Jacke field goals. He went home a winner.

And he went home in one piece.

“There are times when you realize how lucky you are,” Majkowski said. “This is definitely one of them.”

Majkowski is one of those people who enjoys life to the fullest. Besides playing football, he is a painter whose works have been displayed in a New York gallery and a musician who has sat in with rock groups on guitar. He led the NFL last season in passing yardage and is one of Wisconsin’s most eligible bachelors. Life is good.

His fondest wish of late has been for the Packers to start playing to their potential. Majkowski missed the start of the season. Anthony Dilweg took his place, and when Dilweg led the Pack past the Rams in the season opener, the man they call “Majik” was wondering if fame had been an illusion.

Now he’s the star of the show again.

His passing Sunday was pinpoint. He threw two balls to Perry Kemp, covering 29 and 28 yards, one play apart, that were pretty as could be. The first one came on third and 19 on a dead run, with several Raiders in pursuit. The next led Kemp perfectly for a touchdown.

It was the precisely the kind of accuracy the Raiders had not gotten from Schroeder most of the day.

So the fact that he got knocked on his number eight times didn’t seem that a deal.

“Yeah, I did take some hits,” Majkowski said. “But I fully expected it. From what I watched on film, the Raiders were very impressive. And from having played them, well, that’s one of the best defenses I’ve ever played against. That’s a very fine team they have there.”

Eight sacks? So what?

Said Infante: “I’m not worried about that statistic. That stat doesn’t bother me one iota. For all I know, we may set a league record for (getting sacked) and still be in the Super Bowl. So who cares?”

All that interested Infante was that Majkowski looked like his old self. And whenever Majik plays well, the Packers play well.

And whenever the Packers play well, they remind Bob Wieland of the Pack of his youth.

“This is a pretty good football team,” Wieland said. “And Don Majkowski is a guy with a lot of God-given gifts.”

Yes, he is.