Old Ties Form a Bridge to the Bay

Tom Izzo is in a fix.

He has this best friend, Steve. They grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They roomed together in college there. They were best men at each other’s weddings. He is godfather to Steve’s little girl. Tom’s own 3-year-old, Raquel, just got some really cool Christmas gifts from her “Uncle Steve.”

Tom and Steve keep in touch, faithfully. Their parents are still “Yoopers”--people from the UP. They continue to live in Iron Mountain, population, oh, 8,000, maybe a few more. The town is about 95 miles--jokingly, Tom calls them “deer-infested miles”--from the Wisconsin border.

This is why Tom, Steve and their families were brought up to be die-hard fans of the Green Bay Packers. You live in Iron Mountain, you pull for the Packers. You pull into a gas station, you pull out with a Packer souvenir mug.

Tom got to meet Vince Lombardi a time or two. He was thrilled. He was even more thrilled to find out that Lombardi’s wife’s maiden name was Izzo. He thinks they could be distantly related.

A bigger thrill came after college, when his best friend swung a coaching job with the Packers.

Later on, Steve had to leave. He took a different coaching job in far-off California. At the thought of moving, Steve’s wife broke into tears. Tom hasn’t forgotten that.

Late last January, a couple of events coincided.

Midway through the month, George Seifert abruptly announced he would no longer be coaching the San Francisco 49ers.

Then came the Super Bowl.

Tom put on a green shirt. His daughter, Raquel, put on the Packer sweatshirt that Uncle Steve had sent her. With the game between Green Bay and the New England Patriots on his big-screen TV, Tom sat cheering like a kid. He called out to his kid, “Hey, Rocky! Uncle Steve’s old team is winning!”

He missed one of Brett Favre’s touchdowns, because he had to take Rocky upstairs and change her diaper.

But he didn’t miss the ending, when Green Bay won.

“Can you imagine how much beer and Skoal they’ll go through in Wisconsin today?” Tom asked.

Well, the celebration was 29 years in the making. Drinks were drunk. Cheese was eaten. Cheese was worn.

And then a funny thing happened to Raquel Izzo’s Uncle Steve.

He was named coach of the 49ers.

“I’m just so happy for him,” Izzo said on the phone this week. “He’s a regular guy. I love regular guys. He’s gotten the break of his life, the same way I have.”

Izzo is the basketball coach at Michigan State.

A year ago at this time, when Tom was in the second season of his new job and Steve Mariucci was still coaching college football in Berkeley, they couldn’t believe how far a couple of Yoopers like them had come.

Tom and Steve attended different junior highs but became close their freshman year of high school. They were multisport jocks for the Iron Mountain Mountaineers. They enrolled together at Northern Michigan, with similar tastes and goals.

“We were not party guys. We were wallflower guys,” Izzo recalls. “We were just two young guys who had dreams of being great college players.”

Mariucci’s father was a wrestler. He attended Michigan State and is in the state’s wrestling hall of fame. Steve played football for Northern Michigan. Tom played basketball and as a senior was the team’s MVP.

All these years, so much in common.

Until . . . the true test.

Which team is Izzo supposed to pull for Sunday, when the Green Bay Packers play the San Francisco 49ers for the right to go to Super Bowl XXXII?

This could be the end of a beautiful friendship.

“You’re putting me in a bad position,” Izzo told Mariucci this week. “Super Bowl tickets better be in the mail, for putting me through this.”

Steve did invite Tom to the NFC title game. Tom has checked the flights but isn’t sure he can clear his schedule.

He also isn’t sure the 49ers can win.

“I think they can. Brett Favre’s just so good, though. And I know everybody’s asking about Steve, ‘Has he played anybody?’ Well, I told him right to his face. You haven’t played anybody.”

If you can’t kid your best friend, who can you kid?

The truth is, Izzo, painfully, has chosen to cheer for San Francisco.

He says, “I told my daughter to get her Green Bay shirt out. I told her, ‘Bury it, baby.’ ”

Anything to tell Mariucci?

“Yeah. When you see him, tell him he’s a big-shot phony now who’s forgotten all his friends from before he was such a big deal. I mean it. Tell him.”

OK.

“Nah, don’t tell him that. Is it my fault I love the damn guy?”