• 
• CLASS
• JOBS
• AUTO
• HOMES

Opinion: A Super Bowl ring for Beloit's Jim Caldwell?

From the Jan. 31 2010 CSI Walworth County Sunday "The Way we see it" column:

After watching last Sunday’s National Football League conference championships, we’re left with two overriding impressions. First, Brett Favre demonstrated that you can take the quarterback out of Green Bay, but you can’t take Green Bay out of the quarterback. Summoning his inner Packer with the game on the line against the New Orleans Saints, Favre ripped the heart out of Vikings Nation with a crushing, karmic fourth-quarter interception.

Packers fans now will have months to revel in the misery of their obnoxious cross-border rivals, whose coach might try wearing a monocle next time, better to spot that 12th man rumbling toward the huddle.

At the same time, we hope Wisconsin football fans take some time to appreciate the accomplishments of native son Jim Caldwell of Beloit. The rookie head coach of the Indianapolis Colts is on his way to the Super Bowl, and has been the picture of class in a sport that tends to celebrate bellicose louts like vanquished New York Jets coach Rex Ryan. Just as important, Caldwell clearly outcoached Ryan in the AFC Championship game.

Many Beloit residents likely remember Caldwell as a star athlete at Beloit Memorial High School in the early 1970s. He helped the Purple Knights win a state basketball championship in 1973, and was an all-state football player. He spent eight seasons as head coach at Wake Forest University, and was part of Joe Paterno’s Penn State staff when the Nittany Lions upset Miami in the 1986 Fiesta Bowl to win a national title. He eventually joined Tony Dungy’s staff in the NFL, and took the helm in Indianapolis when Dungy retired last year.

Caldwell happily embraces his Beloit roots, and should be an inspiration to a community, indeed a state, that has endured more than its share of hardship in a withering economy.

We look forward to the day, then, when he returns to his hometown wearing a Super Bowl ring that Favre might have guessed would never be his as a member of the Minnesota Vikings.

Read more on the Outlook and Perspective pages of CSI's Walworth County Sunday e-edition on pages 8A and 9A. and add your comments below.