By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Frank Lamping prides himself in his ability to collect unique Green Bay Packers items.
In a room dedicated to the Packers in his home in Union Grove, he has a cancelled check from a “Tom Miller” – issued by the Green Bay Packers and with Vince Lombardi’s signature. He also has one of the shoes Hall of Famer Reggie White wore in the final game at County Stadium.
The other shoe, Lamping said, was kept by the son of the owner of the shop where he purchased it.
There is a piece of the goalpost from old County Stadium, as well as a piece from the old heating system under Lambeau Field – in place for the Ice Bowl thanks to Vince Lombardi.
“That’s history,” Lamping said. “He didn’t touch it, but he had it installed in Lambeau Field.
“That’s a piece of history!”
Lamping’s unusual collection is only growing, and it’s part of the reason why he’s one of 10 finalists for the Green Bay Packers Fan Hall of Fame. The winner will be announced in February. He was nominated by a friend, Don Schauf, as well as his own niece.
“The Packers picked me out of more than 300 nominations,” Lamping said.
Online voting is available at www.packers.com, with the specific link nfl.packers.com/fan_zone/fan-hall-of-fame-2016/voting.
Schauf also set up a Facebook page called “Go Frank Go!” which can be found by searching for that title.
Lamping’s extensive memorabilia collection is just part of the reason why he’s a nominee for the Fan Hall of Fame. He has attended somewhere between 130 and 150 games, including his first in August 1968 – a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He went with his father, though he now needs to look up who won the game.
“The Packers won, 21-17,” he said.
He was in the stadium Sunday for Green Bay’s playoff win over the New York Giants, and he’s a season ticket holder for the Milwaukee package – the games that used to be played at County Stadium.
He has four tickets, and he travels with his wife, Andrea. But he also takes friends.
“We try to take people who haven’t been there before, so we can share the experience of going to Lambeau Field,” Lamping said. “They get to sit in the front row and see all the action.”
His tickets are in the southwest corner, front row. He hasn’t personally experienced a Lambeau Leap, though Randall Cobb came close in 2015.
A typical game day for Lamping involves leaving six hours before the start of the game.
After two hours of travel, he won’t tailgate. He parks on Stadium Drive in someone’s yard, and heads into the stadium about two and a half hours before the game starts.
Fans are let in two hours before the game, and he wants to make sure he’s first in line.
“I’m the first one in the stadium,” he said. “When the gates open, I basically run to the south end zone behind the goal posts.”
There, he’ll catch balls during kicking practice off the net, and then hand them to children. Parents are then able to take a photo of their child throwing the ball back to the field.
“I’m up there until about 10 minutes before the game starts,” Lamping said. “And then I go to my seat.”
From there, it’s three hours of “pure, raw chills and goosebumps.”
“When I go into the stadium, and there’s hardly anyone there, I get goose bumps,” Lamping said. “It just gives me a thrill, just to walk in there.
“I just love the Packers,” he added.
He’s never been to an away game, though. As he explained, it bothers him to see opposing teams’ fans in the stands at Lambeau – and he tries to afford the same courtesy.
“It’s not their team. It’s Green Bay,” he said. “But with the Internet, anyone can get tickets.”
He tried to get tickets to Green Bay’s Super Bowl XLV game, however. He had a flight down there, but it got cancelled twice due to the massive snow and ice storm of February 2011. Instead, he drove 28 hours – “It should have taken 16,” he pointed out – just for a chance to get a ticket.
“And experience the atmosphere of the Super Bowl,” Lamping said. “We went to the NFL Experience, Packer parties and then also to Brian Williams’ bar in Dallas.”
He didn’t secure tickets, but he watched the game from his wife’s aunt’s home.
“When we won, I started bawling,” Lamping said.
If the Packers get through to the Super Bowl in a month – though he corrects that thinking and says, “when” – he and his wife will go again.
“We had so much fun, I can’t describe it,” he explained.
Being a Packers fan means he has to absorb every single experience to its fullest, though he can’t exactly define what it means to him to be a Packers fan. It all started with going to games with his father, and being a fan of Bart Starr.
“He was just an underdog from a small city,” Lamping said. “I like being an underdog and winning, and that’s what Bart Starr was, and what Green Bay is. The smallest city in the NFL.
“I just fell in love with them,” he added. “It just grew on me, and I love the Packers.
“I cherish the times I get to go up there to Lambeau. I get goose bumps.”
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