When were they all good? From Mr. Pintens

Last week I made a reference to the fact that the Badgers and Brewers have really never been good at the same time during our lifetime, and if you lump the Packers into the discussion it becomes an even trickier needle to find in the proverbial haystack. Leave it to Craig Pintens to find out that, for one more reason, 1982 was awesome.

Great job on the blog. I usually check it out once a day on the RSS feed. I know you had brought up when the Packers, Brewers, and Badgers have had a winning record in the same year. Well it really wasn't too hard to research when all the teams involved have collectively sucked for the majority of our lifetime, but we are looking at high times right now.

The last time all three had a winning record was 1982 as the Pack went 5-3-1 during the strike year and the Badgers (Al Toon and Wright or too early?) went 7-5. The only other time since 1975 was 1978 with the Pack going 8-7-1 and 5-4-2.

Most normal people could give two sh!ts about my five minute research project, but I needed a slight diversion today.

Keep up the great work and keep the Bucks basketball and starting up of the professional women's soccer chatter to a minimum as I don't think your audience cares.

Thanks for the research and kind words, Craig, they are appreciated. The over/under on when Randy Wright's name would first appear in my blog was two weeks, so we're a little early there. From that team, which beat Kansas State in the soon-to-be Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl for the first bowl victory in school history, other stars were Tim Krumrie (above - his tackles totals were ridiculous for a noseguard - still holds the school record for solo tackles), Darryl Sims (got to know him a little when he was an assistant at Oshkosh), David Greendwood, and Matt VandenBoom. That was actually Toon's first year playing, only had 30-some catches.

(Aside: searching for an image of Randy Wright I discovered that there is in fact an adult movie actress named Randi Wright, who sometimes goes by Randy Wright - probably for the Wisconsin release of her flicks.)

All I remember about the Packers that year was Jan Stenerud kicking OT field goals and Lynn Dickey hobbling around the field throwing bombs.

The Brewers in '82? Anything memorable there?

Next topic: Why did Briana Scurry start over Hope Solo in goal for the U.S. in its World Cup semifinal loss to Brazil? Discuss.