When a kid grows up in Appleton and starts attending Green Bay Packers games as a 9-year-old in 1961, the year the Pack won its first NFL title under Vince Lombardi, and then thanks to Dad’s season tickets has a ringside seat for the Glory Years, when Green Bay won five NFL titles in seven years, destiny starts to take over pretty quickly.
For Tom Oates, the Appleton kid who just retired from the Wisconsin State Journal last week, that destiny was to become a sportswriter in his home state. And, really, Oatesy became the sportswriter in his home state, thanks to a marvelous 40-year career in our newsroom that was preceded by two years on the Badger Herald staff and four years at the Daily Jefferson County Union in Fort Atkinson.