Now officially a former Vikings linebacker, Chad Greenway spoke for nearly 25 minutes before fielding the first question of his retirement press conference at Winter Park this morning.
With teammates, coaches and former Vikings greats such as Bud Grant, Carl Eller and Paul Krause in attendance, Greenway took his audience on a journey from his earliest football dreams as a 5-year-old growing up in Mount Vernon, S.D., to the final realization that, “I don’t want to play football anymore.”
Greenway thanked dozens of people from all walks of his professional and personal lives. Only once — when he got to his mother, Julie, and late father, Alan, who passed away in 2014 — did he become misty-eyed and have to pause to say “I got to pull it together here.