Dani, the Hunters, and the NBA
In his bouncy and charming, Spanish-inspired English, Jose introduced me to his class.
“She’s from Wisconsin, you know? Students what do you know of Wisconsin?”
I was sizing up the nine pupils. Who is a window gazer? Who is a cube doodler? Of course no one has heard of my state before. So there’s the knuckle-cracker. The chronically-late student walked through the door holding his moped helmet when, “Milwaukee Bucks,” sounded from the side of the room. It was David, practically hugging the wall. He looked like a lost little lamb—a skinny kid with a greasy Euro mullet and glasses—compared to the pubescent cabros with gelled hair and soccer jerseys sitting to his left.
But he beamed as my I put my hand to my cheek. “Wow.”
Jose jumped in before I could praise the unlikely student who had heard of my hometown’s NBA team. “Yes, yes, very good. Now Allie, please, tell us why. Why the Bucks? Why do we call them the Bucks?”
I prepared my thoughts for five seconds and decided to bring my new students, and Jose, on a historical journey. I launched an imagination vacation, a montage of memories, to connect Wisconsin’s geography and European settlement with its professional sports teams. Cue Come on Feel the Illinoise! Alas Sufjan never got around to his Wisconsin album; Illinois’ will have to do.
I conjured a frayed, hand-drawn atlas noting the Louisiana Territory, Caribbean pirate ships, the Mighty Mississippi, and a cotton-gin in the legend’s code and we telescoped through time. Below in Wisconsin, the loggers were chopping old growth forests and surfing rivers of floating logs. Bunyan was napping and Babe was drinking from the stream. We paddled along the waterways, past the newly arrived German farmer who had built his life on rolling fields of glowing grain. In the hunting lodge we found the logger and farmer joking together. A long search for bucks left them thirsty for steins, which they drank under the watchful glass eyes of a noble beast, now stuffed and mounted.
Zooming out a little, fathers and sons pull on orange jumpsuits, caps and earplugs, pack coolers of High Life and jerky, to comb the now second growth woodland for stags to roast at a venison barbecue. Remember, the dads said, if it has a weighty crown of antlers it may end up on the wall, like when your mom pinned your first drawing to the fridge.
“Wisconsin has a hunting culture. That’s why Milwaukee’s team is called the Bucks,” I summarized.
“Allie, very good. Do you like American football? What about the Packers. Green Bay Packers. Why? Why Packers?”
So, you know those hunters? Well, they decided to start preserving their meat, to be able to eat it in the fall, winter, spring and summer. A meat packaging plant opened in Green Bay, which would eventually sponsor the team. The benefactor’s one stipulation was that their name refer to the Indian Packing Company, hence the Green Bay Packers.
“Very good, yes, thank you Allie, yes,” Jose was becoming a talk show host, anticipating his next question before he could finish his affirmations. “And the Denver Nuggets. Why? What is a nugget?”
Javi raised his hand and reminded everyone about McDonald’s bite-sized chicken pieces.
