By Dave Boehler
Beacon Sports Editor
Ryker Lemke is now on the waiting list for Green Bay Packers season tickets.
Only he’s 4 months old.
And his father hates football.
And his parents have no idea who put him there.
“I would love for somebody to fess up to it so I could buy them a Christmas present or a hey-that-was-a-great-joke present,” said Ryker’s mother, Paula Wenger. “I’d love to see if the Packers see this, because we have no idea. I love the Packers. I’m all about the Packers, but we’re a family divided when it comes to football.
“The only thing I do is I talk to Ryker, like when they played the Lions on Monday night. When I came home from work on Tuesday, I was like, ‘Ryker, the Packers won last night but don’t tell dad I told you that.’”
It’s their secret because boyfriend Matt Lemke wants nothing to do with the sport, even though he’s from Green Bay.
“I guess if a lot of people like something, I don’t really flock to it,” he said. “I mean I played football in high school and it didn’t seem fun.
“I’m still trying to figure out if it was a joke or not. I told her it had to be somebody she knows that isn’t aware that I don’t like football.”
Only don’t rule out it’s someone Lemke knows.
“Yeah, because some of my friends can be jerks,” Lemke said as he laughed.
A few weeks ago, Lemke got the mail and put it on the kitchen counter without looking at it before going to work.
When Wenger came home from work, she noticed a post card from the Packers ticket office that had Ryker’s account ID and his number in line to purchase tickets: 137,130.
“I look at it and it’s addressed to Ryker,” said Wenger, a graduate of South. “I’m looking at it and I’m going, ‘OK, why is Ryker getting this and who did it?’ Knowing that Matt is not a fan of football because we watch NASCAR in our house, why are we getting this?
“So I’m just reading through it and I’m like, ‘oh my God, somebody signed up Ryker for the Packers’ wait list for season tickets. So I post it on Facebook because I thought it was hilarious because all of Matt’s friends know we don’t watch football, Matt doesn’t care for football and who signed him up for this?”
While at work, Matt saw the Facebook post and responded that he will never pay for these tickets. He eventually threw the post card out but Wenger wanted to save it for her child’s baby book.
“So I picked it out of the garbage and saved it,” she said. “This is a memory and it’s hilarious.”
But the family, who lives in Glenbeulah, still does not know who did it.
They think they found a clue after her Facebook post because someone who lives in the Green Bay area responded to it with nothing but three emojis who are winking and blowing a kiss.
“We think it might be him, but nobody has confessed to it,” Wenger said.
So I called Green Bay’s ticket office and asked if this happens.
It does once in awhile – 40 new applications arrive on a daily basis – because anyone can just fill out the form and turn it in to the Packers. But usually it’s a surprise gift from a relative or something like that.
Whether someone confesses or not, it will be years before it’s Ryker’s turn to buy his season tickets. And he shouldn’t count on his father to pay for them.
“I would not,” Lemke said.
At least the prankster did not sign the poor kid up for Chicago Bears tickets.
“Yeah, exactly,” Wenger said. “Oh God!”
Categories: Sports