Reggie’s Redemption White Has Not Only Solidified Packers, But He’s Bonded With Green Bay Fans

How could you describe the emotions as Reggie White lingered there near the Packers’ bench, the tears welling up in his eyes, teammate after teammate coming over for a celebratory hug, the whole football world watching?

How?

Elation was certainly in the mix. The Packers were beating the Carolina Panthers 30-13, winning the NFC championship and heading for the first Super Bowl of White’s career. So there was simple joy, easy to understand.

Relief was there, too. For four straight years - on two teams, the Packers and Eagles - White had ended his season in Dallas, ended it in bitter playoff defeat. He was stunned sometimes and angry other times and bewildered at least once, and he still carried it all with him. Now, finally, he was letting it go.

Still, it was more complicated than that. White is not a simple man. His has not been a simple football life. He is the one who saw a Super Bowl here one day; others saw only the $17 million the Packers offered to pay him. He is the one who battled an owner named Norman Braman and was forced to leave a town he really seemed to love - and one that loved him back - and start again in the land of Limburger and Lombardi, start on a new team, a new life for his family, a new ministry.

“When I made the decision to come here four years ago, people mocked me,” White remembered Sunday. “I was asked by people if I thought this team had a chance to win the Super Bowl. I said that I did. They had a quarterback who could lead it. They had a coach who could build this team …

“People around the country can laugh all they want,” he said. “But this all worked out just like Jesus wanted it.”

So what’s the word?

Redemption.

Four years ago. It seems like 40 years sometimes, what with everything that’s happened to the Eagles since then. But it was in the winter of 1993 when Braman made it clear the Eagles weren’t going to offer White a new contract and he went shopping on a city-by-city tour.

He wasn’t originally coming to Green Bay for a visit. Who would, after all? But the way Packers president Bob Harlan remembers it, Packers general manager Ron Wolf just kept pestering and pestering and, seeing as White was already up in Pontiac, Mich., seeing the Lions, he figured, well, why not?

Harlan knew it would be a big number. At the time, during free-agency’s infancy, $17 million for four years was off the NFL charts. But he also knew this was a crucial time for his franchise. He thought Wolf and coach Mike Holmgren were finally the right guys.

“I had promised them no interference,” Harlan said. “I didn’t think that was the time to tell them no.”

So they signed him, and then everyone heard for how much, and then the snickering about White and about winning and about what God told him turned into unabashed and unabated guffawing. It finally stopped two years ago, but White heard it all. Know that.

But also know this: He changed this team by his very presence - and that’s even while acknowledging that he isn’t the same player at age 35 that he was at age 25. Everyone involved has described his leadership as invaluable, but it was even more than that. Just by being here, White was able to change everyone’s perceptions about what the Packers were about and where they might be headed.

As Wolf said, “When Reggie White came in here, that signaled to the rest of the National Football League that the Packers were for real and, more importantly, that Green Bay is for real.”

And since arson took his Tennessee church last year, the bond between White and the people of Wisconsin has become unbreakable.

White said, “I found out the first year how supportive the people are here. They’ve always had sellouts. But I think our hearts really connected last year when the church burned down. We didn’t ask them for any money, but they gave anyway. … I believe God knew the people’s hearts up here were prepared to hear his word. … That’s why he sent me up here.”

To preach.

To win.

To go to the Super Bowl.

“I always dreamed of this chance,” he said. “But I always knew there was also a purpose to this chance. It’s not just to put a ring on my finger. It’s to gain the wider audience to preach …

“I always said that it was great to win a championship. But if I have a ring and I also never have an effect on somebody’s life, the ring won’t mean anything.”

It’s a little bit hard to know what to make of White’s game anymore. The stat sheet is less kind than it used to be - 8-1/2 sacks for the season, never more than four tackles in a game; no tackles, no assists, no sacks, not even a line on the stat sheet Sunday.

But the thing is, teams still run away from him. Seventy percent of the Panthers’ runs were away from White. And teams still double-team him, at least sometimes.

In the old days, he would still manage to defeat the double-team and kill the quarterback. Now, he essentially occupies that second guy a lot of the time, which eases the pressure on everyone else. So he is a presence now more than a terror.

More than that, he is a civic treasure.

“You’re talking about an outstanding player, and he was worth it,” said Harlan, the club president. “He’s worth it just on what he’s meant to the club and meant to the fans.”

Redemption.