What’s it Like to Be a Bear Fan on Packers Sunday? These UWM Students Found Out

They’re mortal rivals. The Packers and Bears. Packers and Vikings. But what happens when a growing number of Illinois and Minnesota students take up residence together in a Wisconsin dorm?

It’s one thing to shout at each other at a football game. Let’s just say some of these passionate Bear, Viking, and Packer fans, never thought they’d have to live together. But every Sunday, at UW-Milwaukee’s Sandburg Hall, they find a way to co-exist. Not always without drama.

“I’ve been both physically and mentally tormented,” says Ben Slowey, 18, who was born and raised in Chicago’s south suburbs. He grew up watching games with his father on Sundays – Bear games, that is.

“Usually I get teased every Sunday,” he says. “Usually, it goes along the lines of, ‘Hey, how about your Bears there? They didn’t look so hot; how about your boy, Cutler?”

One suspects that Slowey’s melodrama is somewhat for effect. Dig deeper in the UWM football dorm rivalries and you discover that, in a way, it’s become a bonding ritual. In a school without a college football team, football has become a uniting force on weekends, even if people stake out different sides. Even Slowey admits that he doesn’t take it that seriously.  And he says that the Sunday rivalries help out-of-state students settle into campus because they can relate to other people from back home.

Maggie Polsean, 18, also a freshman, is from Rockford Ill., and, yes, she is also a Bear fan. “It’s much friendlier in the dorms,” Polsean says of the rivalry between the teams’ fans. “There aren’t drunk 45-year-old men screaming at each other.”

The rivalry actually illustrates a new trend at Milwaukee’s public university. A growing number of Illinois students in particular are choosing UWM, as Wisconsin admissions decline sharply. Indeed, Illinois contributes the largest number of students of any other state but Wisconsin to UWM, (about 950 Illinois students were at UWM in 2013), and the number has tripled since 2004, increasing the chances greatly that a Packer fan might run into one. Minnesota students also grew in number over recent years, before dropping again slightly, although they number fewer than those from across the southern border. The Viking/Packer dorm rivalry is not as pronounced, although it does exist.

“It’s fun because back home there weren’t many Bear fans,” says Gabe Stoltz, who hails from central Wisconsin. “It’s fun to watch games with them.”

But he can’t stop himself from delivering the twist, “…and to watch them emotionally fall apart.”

Slowey has actually met Packer fans like Stoltz before. He was good friends with one because a friend’s family was from Wisconsin.

“There were a handful of those where I live,” he says, speaking as if he regarded those few with all of the curiosity of a cultural anthropologist discovering the last of a species roaming around.

He says he chose UWM for its media program and because it was close to home. Other students say the cost can be cheaper than studying in Illinois even for residents.

Polsean cares about the Bears. A lot.  “Very strongly. It’s my passion. I care a significant amount.” As for the rivalries, she says, “I’ve observed some and been a part of some.” Sometimes there’s screaming involved or people are called FIBS (expletive Illinois expletives in case you’re wondering).

“I don’t really care,” she says. ”Some people do.”

Of course, Packer fans are called Cheeseheads in return. “That’s an honor,” insists Stoltz.

Polsean’s father is a referee for high school and her brother is a collegiate football player.

“We usually go to Bears games twice a year and then we always have friends and family over,” she says.

Kind of sounds like Wisconsin. Only it’s for a different team. When you really dig deep down, you discover these Packer and Bear fans like each other. Very much.

Well, most of them anyway. Sometimes, it’s gotten physical.

Quin Voet, also a freshman who lives in the dorms, says, “He (Ben) got beat up. He was showing his great fandom because he’s very supportive of his beloved Chicago football team and was supporting it openly in the lobby.”

Which team does Voet, 18, support? He’s from Wisconsin, so it’s easy to guess. Packers? “Happily yes.”

Well, while not beaten up exactly, Slowey did end up on the floor surrounded by a bunch of Packers’ fans.

“Our other suitemate unrelated to the incident was at the microwave making Ramen, and he jumped on top,” says Slowey, who admits he yelled “Go, Bears” during the altercation. “This is a perfect example of the alienation I face on my floor during Packer/Bears games. I very rarely leave the vicinity of my room.”

Pressed as to how traumatized he really is, he finally admits, “usually it just kind of annoys me. It can be entertaining. I kind of make humor out of it. I will also acknowledge the Bears aren’t very impressive right now. It’s a fact I accept, rather than try to defend.”

Not impressive? They were routed by the Packers, 55-14, in November. Not that anyone’s keeping track.

Not everyone cares that much about professional football teams, of course. Patrick McCoy, 18, also a freshman, lives in dorms, and hails from Pewaukee.

“I can identify with fandom, but I am not very passionate about it,” he says. However, he, too, has witnessed the rivalries. One recent Sunday, he was standing on an elevator with a bunch of other students wearing Packer attire, when the door opened.

There stood a “lone Bear fan wearing a Bear jersey. He sees everyone in the elevator is pretty much wearing some kind of Packer gear, and he steps forward reluctantly, hesitant about his actions, and one of the guys in the elevator sticks out his arm and stops him from coming into the elevator.”

They said they were kidding and invited him to come back on. “The Bear fan rejected their invitation. I don’t think he was that upset, though,” McCoy says. ”The whole thing was funny. He played along with the whole thing.”

Jimmy Khun, 18, heralds from Minnesota. He isn’t a huge Vikings fan, so the rivalries haven’t touched him. But Packer fan Paul Willems, 18, of Appleton, was in the campus dorm movie theater when the Vikings were playing earlier in the season and witnessed a “Viking fan surrounded by all Packer fans and whenever the Packers scored, he would be sitting there, not knowing what to say, and they would all be circled around yelling.”

Samantha Drizner, 18, also from Chicago, engaged in a meme war with a fellow student who supports the Packers. “It’s pretty much for fun,” she says. One of them: “What do you call a Bears fan who has a Super Bowl ring? A thief.”

The Packer fan was Willems. “It’s basically been in my whole life,” he says. “As a kid, the Sunday routine is to get up, go to church and then the Packer game. I don’t remember what we did the rest of the day. It’s a huge thing; a family thing.”

Sort of like the Bear fans’ families – and then you realize, football is somewhat about family, and the cross-rival dorm friendships have become sort of a family away from home.

“I have a lot of Bear fans in my family,” offers Willems.

He pauses for effect.

“Not.”