Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Welcome to Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com.
Speaker 1: I am Mike Spofford, joined as always by my trusted
Speaker 1: colleague West Hodkowitz. We're coming to here from our studios
Speaker 1: at lambeau Field and West. It is Mini Camp week.
Speaker 1: That means a couple of things. Number one, three days
Speaker 1: mandatory mini camp, all the players required to be in
Speaker 1: attendance here at Lombardi Avenue. But it's also the conclusion
Speaker 1: of the off season program. After this week, the players
Speaker 1: are then off until the start of training camp. So
Speaker 1: as the off season wraps up, so to speak, is
Speaker 1: there anything in particular you'll be looking for out on
Speaker 1: the practice field this week. Well, I just want to
Speaker 1: point out, since this say is the last week of
Speaker 1: the off season program. On Friday afternoon, that screeching you'll
Speaker 1: hear from the lambeau Field parking lot will be my
Speaker 1: car sipping away, getting ready to go into the summer
Speaker 1: here and and get away for a bit. But first
Speaker 1: vacation goes to him that that after that then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to get out here for a few days
Speaker 1: and he's gone. This is what it comes down to,
Speaker 1: right right weeks get it where you can take it.
Speaker 1: But no, you're right, I mean it's it's always an interesting,
Speaker 1: uh sort of week in terms of it sounds like
Speaker 1: this year for the most part, a lot of the
Speaker 1: installs are in, so I don't know if there's gonna
Speaker 1: be so much reviewing. The way Mike McCarthy usually did it,
Speaker 1: this usually ended up being like installs five six or
Speaker 1: was it six, seven and eight. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of times it could be the last slate of them,
Speaker 1: almost like the last review period. McCarthy typically dismissed the
Speaker 1: veterans and then we're just focus on working with the
Speaker 1: younger players. Matt Lafleur has already said that he's expecting
Speaker 1: the veterans that they they will be here this week
Speaker 1: just because the new system going in year two the defense,
Speaker 1: they want to have those guys here. Yeah, McCarthy certainly
Speaker 1: didn't dismiss all the veterans his first couple of years.
Speaker 1: It was more towards the latter half of his program.
Speaker 1: So Matt Lafleur he wants to maximize this time. He
Speaker 1: understands the value in it. The only true differences I
Speaker 1: think practices can go a little bit longer. Players are
Speaker 1: obligated to be here under the construct of the c
Speaker 1: b A. So the last chance to get in some
Speaker 1: really good work here before you give into the summer
Speaker 1: for a little bit and back for training camp when
Speaker 1: we really start cooking with gas. Yeah, that would that'll
Speaker 1: be That'll be the time that things really take off.
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, you know, the first couple of
Speaker 1: days of training camp will still be no pads and
Speaker 1: they'll be that that grace period that easing into uh
Speaker 1: to full speed training camp, full contact training camp. But
Speaker 1: then we'll start to really get a sense of where
Speaker 1: the Packers are here with regard to Matt Lafleur's scheme
Speaker 1: and year two of Mike Petton's defense and all of that.
Speaker 1: So we'll have our eyes on the practice field this
Speaker 1: week and see exactly what's going on. Is things wrap up,
Speaker 1: But I want to get to some sponsor business here
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Speaker 1: Green Bay Packers. Okay, moving on, west I know there
Speaker 1: are a lot of times on this show we tell
Speaker 1: the fans to, hey, check this out on the website.
Speaker 1: You know you'll like this, watch this, But I'm telling you, folks,
Speaker 1: you need to give yourself a good half an hour,
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes of reading time, ten minutes of video time,
Speaker 1: maybe an extra five minutes to wipe away some tears
Speaker 1: because you have to go on Packers dot com and
Speaker 1: check out the piece that Weston hodkoits here put together
Speaker 1: on a former Packers tight end, Mitchell Henry and his
Speaker 1: story which was tragically cut short by an illness a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. West you flew to e Town, Elizabethtown, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: right at the end of the NFL right after the
Speaker 1: NFL draft is the day after you hopped on a
Speaker 1: plane with I don't know how Mike Vandersnick is still
Speaker 1: talking to me. Yeah, yeah, Mike Vandersnick, one of our
Speaker 1: videographers here in the Packers dot Com broadcast apartment, accompanied
Speaker 1: west to Etown, Kentucky. You put together, really you visited
Speaker 1: with all kinds of people who were a big part
Speaker 1: of Mitchell Henry's life, and uh put together his his
Speaker 1: whole story. And for those who don't know about it,
Speaker 1: um certainly go on the website and check it out.
Speaker 1: What I wanted to ask you, Wes, is when you
Speaker 1: go through a long reporting process like this and everything
Speaker 1: that was involved in it, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that happened, whether it's behind the scenes this and that,
Speaker 1: that don't necessarily make it into the final product. So
Speaker 1: is there something like that from that will stick out
Speaker 1: in your memory banks in terms of what you went
Speaker 1: through in the process and how you went about putting
Speaker 1: the story together that maybe hasn't seen the light of
Speaker 1: day just yet. It's a really good question, Mike, and
Speaker 1: I'll answer that in one moment. I want to set
Speaker 1: it up a little bit by just explaining why exactly
Speaker 1: I was going cat fishing, because it ties into that
Speaker 1: answer the cat fishing trip. So you I think, I
Speaker 1: don't know how much you got to talk to to
Speaker 1: Mitchell Henry when he came in at fifteen, but he
Speaker 1: was considered one of the top undrafted players the Packers
Speaker 1: draft that had signed that year after the two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen draft and might end out of Western Kentucky. Western
Speaker 1: Kentucky played with Jack Doyle. A lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of good tight ends have come through their. Tyler Higbee,
Speaker 1: also now with the l A. Rams, was in that
Speaker 1: same time, right right after Mitchell. I think, so what's
Speaker 1: interesting about Mitchell's story is that summer training to hit
Speaker 1: camp it gets long, right, So you get in twenty practices,
Speaker 1: you start getting into mid August, and people are looking
Speaker 1: for storylines. Well, for Charles Mitchell Henry, it it became
Speaker 1: the storyline about him being a cat fisherman and a
Speaker 1: noodler that Garon Rodgers brought it up. I know Jerry
Speaker 1: font and all the tight ends coach at the time
Speaker 1: brought it up. Ron Zook I think brought it up
Speaker 1: um And I got to know Mitchell a little bit.
Speaker 1: I got to know his brother Ben a little bit
Speaker 1: through the process, and I just joked with him near
Speaker 1: the end of training camp because it although he had
Speaker 1: broken his hand, it still looked like he might have
Speaker 1: a decent shot to make the roster, did play well
Speaker 1: on special teams, is maybe a third option at tight end.
Speaker 1: I just I just off the cuff. I mentioned him, well,
Speaker 1: you know what if you make the rosters after I
Speaker 1: wrote a story almost like you ate the roster, I'll
Speaker 1: come down. I'll go cat fishing with you and your
Speaker 1: dad and we both laughed it off. In Mitchell, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget the words, he said. He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know my dad he'd he'd be happy
Speaker 1: to take you. So I recount the story and inbox
Speaker 1: this was last June, and I just said someone a
Speaker 1: really stute question an inbox, probably one of my favorite
Speaker 1: questions someone's really ever asked in the three years I've
Speaker 1: been doing that was is there any stories you really
Speaker 1: enjoyed from undrafted players that you just never got to
Speaker 1: tell because then they got cut? For me, it was
Speaker 1: Mitchell Henry. I wrote that in a month later, Terry
Speaker 1: Henry's father wrote back to me and basically said, I
Speaker 1: have not been cat fishing since Mitchell passed away. But
Speaker 1: I know he'd want me to ask you to come along.
Speaker 1: So I stayed in contact with the family. March rolls around,
Speaker 1: April rolls around. They still want to do it. So
Speaker 1: we go down to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, five minutes outside of
Speaker 1: it little lake called Taylorsville Lake. I wrote in my
Speaker 1: second graph of the story, it looks like something out
Speaker 1: of a clear in Eastwood, Western It really does. It
Speaker 1: looks like a scene out about lawn. Josie wales Um.
Speaker 1: The answer to your question that you said that the
Speaker 1: story that stays with me the most is myself and
Speaker 1: our videographer, Mike Vanderstick. You have if your cat fishing,
Speaker 1: you don't just go and throw some lines out and
Speaker 1: then just you know, have some fun. It's actually a
Speaker 1: lot of work, is what I found out. We had
Speaker 1: to put down four lines. We put them down little
Speaker 1: banks of the river or lake. Go back to our
Speaker 1: our rental car. Fortunately, Mitchell's brother Ben was nice enough
Speaker 1: to bring us some some pillows and sleeping bags. So
Speaker 1: Vanderschnick and I slept in the front seat of the
Speaker 1: rental car for two whole hours. Got up at three,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, got up at one so We went to
Speaker 1: bed at eleven, got up at one, went and check
Speaker 1: the lines, got three catfish, rebait the lines, go back
Speaker 1: to our car, sleep for another two hours, get up
Speaker 1: at six, do it again the next morning. My favorite
Speaker 1: part of this little story is the fact that I
Speaker 1: had to wash out my clothes three times to get
Speaker 1: the smell of catfish out of them because it was
Speaker 1: just so pronounced, and I was trying to run in
Speaker 1: one of the shirts. I'm like, I can still smell
Speaker 1: the catfish. But it was such an incredible journey to
Speaker 1: be a part of. And I knew Mitchell a little bit,
Speaker 1: but getting to know his dad, his brother, his his
Speaker 1: lovely wife Madison, his mom, Leslie, his friends and families,
Speaker 1: so many people I talked to for the story. You
Speaker 1: don't fully appreciate every day, is what I learned through
Speaker 1: this process. And Mike say average his high school football coaches,
Speaker 1: his youth football coach, said, you know, you have a
Speaker 1: bad day and things hang with you that shouldn't hang
Speaker 1: with you, And you think about what Mitchell Henry went
Speaker 1: through with acute milloyd leukemia, a m L seven month battle,
Speaker 1: everything it did to challenge him and the faith that
Speaker 1: he showed, the courage that he showed, the strength that
Speaker 1: he showed in the face of that. It's always something
Speaker 1: that's gonna stick with me. This was I don't want
Speaker 1: to say he became emotionally invested in the story. I'm
Speaker 1: still a journalist at heart. I try not to do that,
Speaker 1: but getting to know the family and being there and
Speaker 1: in and in the Henry's house and in Madison's house.
Speaker 1: So many times we write an obituary and you forget
Speaker 1: weeks past, months past, and you just move on. And
Speaker 1: there's a quote that Madison says in both the video
Speaker 1: on the story about it's for me, it's not moving on,
Speaker 1: it's moving forward, and that's stuck with me. And I
Speaker 1: think that's always gonna stick with me. Yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: just there's things in your life that touch you. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be death, that doesn't have to be that,
Speaker 1: but things that shape you. And seeing how that family
Speaker 1: has persevered and endured and has attempted to heal after
Speaker 1: going through such a terrible, terrible loss at a terribly
Speaker 1: young age. UM, it has an impact on you. It
Speaker 1: certainly had an impact on me, and I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I liked the most about
Speaker 1: the story the way you did it, whether you're talking
Speaker 1: about the video that was put together, and certainly hats
Speaker 1: off to a Adam hebel Heinrich, Mike Atkinson, we already
Speaker 1: mentioned Mike vander Snick, their involvement in putting that video together.
Speaker 1: Some outstanding work there. But as journalists, you you said
Speaker 1: the word obituary. We've all written stories about people who
Speaker 1: have passed away. It's it's part of the business. It's
Speaker 1: it's something that we've all done. What I liked about
Speaker 1: your story, though, is this wasn't just telling the story
Speaker 1: of Mitchell and everything that happened to him. It was
Speaker 1: also the story of how Mitchell impacted so many other people,
Speaker 1: not only as as a kid and a great athlete
Speaker 1: and somebody everybody loved too, then someone everybody wanted to
Speaker 1: root for because he had a shot at the NFL too.
Speaker 1: Then everything he went through with his illness and trying
Speaker 1: to fight it and with his wife and his dog
Speaker 1: and all of these kinds of things that the all
Speaker 1: the pieces that went into it, Um, you know it,
Speaker 1: it really is emotional and and um there's no avoiding that.
Speaker 1: The other thing I'd like to ask you though, is
Speaker 1: I know, as we've all been through these types of
Speaker 1: processes before as writers or as videographers for that matter. Um,
Speaker 1: speaking of the guys who put together the video, there
Speaker 1: are always things that don't make it, that end up
Speaker 1: on the cutting room floor, so to speak. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure talking from talking to his coaches and family
Speaker 1: members and everything, I'm sure you've got some story reason,
Speaker 1: some anecdotes that you know just didn't quite fit, or
Speaker 1: maybe you didn't have room four in terms of the
Speaker 1: way you told the story. So is there one of
Speaker 1: those anecdotes from those folks about Mitchell or some encounter
Speaker 1: with him when he was alive that uh, um, that
Speaker 1: you think is worth sharing here? So naturally, because this
Speaker 1: is the way I always do things and unscripted, you
Speaker 1: give me a question that I answered a different way.
Speaker 1: There's probably three obviously that that stand out to me
Speaker 1: there from three different stages of his life. The first
Speaker 1: one that I really wish I could have gotten the
Speaker 1: story but it just didn't work out. His childhood friend
Speaker 1: Dylan and him used to go frog gigging. I think
Speaker 1: I got that right, frog gigging gigging, which is you know,
Speaker 1: so he's a big cat fisherman. He loves hunt doors, uh,
Speaker 1: hunting everything like that. He also liked to go catch frogs.
Speaker 1: And Dylan had this great story and it's it unfortunately
Speaker 1: got cut out last minute because it was already a
Speaker 1: five thousand words story and we're trying to keep it centered.
Speaker 1: But he had this phenomenal story about how you know Mitchell,
Speaker 1: even at a young age, he was fearless man. He
Speaker 1: didn't care. So like, they'd go out in these bogs
Speaker 1: and they'd be gigging, and I know, people from Kentucky,
Speaker 1: you're gonna watch this and be like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you're making a fool of yourself. But they'd be going
Speaker 1: after these frogs and Mitchell would have his waiters on
Speaker 1: and he'd be swimming through this water going after these frogs.
Speaker 1: And Dylan was telling me that he's like, I'd be
Speaker 1: sitting there petrified because I didn't want to put my
Speaker 1: hands in there because there's snakes and all these other
Speaker 1: wildlife things. Mitchell didn't care about that at all. He
Speaker 1: was just all about the outdoors. He loved every single
Speaker 1: bit of it and didn't he was just he was
Speaker 1: fearless in that way. The in it for the game.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, the the other thing just to touch
Speaker 1: on quickly, in his time in Green Bay, I had
Speaker 1: one of our packers. You know, there's a number of
Speaker 1: equipment people that work with Red Batty down there, and
Speaker 1: and and different kids that come through, and different guys
Speaker 1: that come through and help him out. There was one
Speaker 1: that texted me after the story ran, and he just
Speaker 1: he had such a great little snippets saying that out
Speaker 1: of every rookie, UFA, whatever that's come through there, you
Speaker 1: will not find anyone kinder than Mitchell Henry. The way
Speaker 1: he carried himself, you saw it, the way he walked
Speaker 1: around the locker room. He was just such a humble
Speaker 1: and and just everyday kind of guy that he just
Speaker 1: happened to be trying to play in the NFL. But
Speaker 1: he's just the type of guy that if if you're
Speaker 1: at home, he's just the guy you kind of would
Speaker 1: hang out with and have a good time with. And
Speaker 1: he was getting a lot of media attention because he's
Speaker 1: trying to make the team of a broken hand. If
Speaker 1: you look at in the video, you see some of
Speaker 1: the pictures, he's got the big club on his hand.
Speaker 1: This is a tight end who was trying to catch
Speaker 1: passes and trying to throw blocks and trying to make
Speaker 1: the team as an undrafted rookie, and he got put
Speaker 1: into some pretty difficult circumstances there and he's still almost yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's it's incredible all those things work out,
Speaker 1: the last thing, and it's unfortunately. More on the somber
Speaker 1: note was that Mitchell, throughout his illness, it didn't matter
Speaker 1: if he was originally in a town or when he
Speaker 1: went to Lexington and then finally to MD Anderson in Houston,
Speaker 1: one of the top cancer facilities in the country, he
Speaker 1: always kept a little journal um and a lot of
Speaker 1: times and you know, I don't I don't want to
Speaker 1: get preach or anything like that, but a lot of
Speaker 1: times it would just basically be conversations he was having
Speaker 1: centered on his faith and his religion whatever. You know, again,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to push anything on anybody, but how
Speaker 1: devoted he was and how he never steered away from,
Speaker 1: you know, what he believed. And I gotta be honest
Speaker 1: with you, Michael, if I'm in his shoes and I'm
Speaker 1: somebody that truly was devout, and you know, I'm so
Speaker 1: focused on being a really humble and good person. And
Speaker 1: that's something like that hits me. I think it would
Speaker 1: really challenge me. It would challenge me for why asking why.
Speaker 1: Mitchell never asked why, And I just I can't imagine
Speaker 1: the amount of strength that that takes to be able
Speaker 1: to still have that kind of character. Never, if people
Speaker 1: called him, this wasn't the story. But if people called him,
Speaker 1: he never let on if he was sick. He never
Speaker 1: it on to how he was feeling. He never complained
Speaker 1: about how he was feeling. He always tried to make
Speaker 1: it more about the other person so that when they
Speaker 1: hung up the phone, they would feel good about where
Speaker 1: things are at. To the point, James Harris high school
Speaker 1: basketball coach even told me his last conversation with him,
Speaker 1: when he talked to him, he's when he found out
Speaker 1: that he had passed away. He's like, I had talked
Speaker 1: to him two weeks later, two weeks earlier, what happened
Speaker 1: and his mom, Leslie then told James, well, if you
Speaker 1: were talking to to Mitchell, someone was probably holding the
Speaker 1: phone up for him because he just didn't have that
Speaker 1: kind of strength. And those are the things that stay
Speaker 1: with me the most, and I just he was a
Speaker 1: good human being that I hope with this story. My
Speaker 1: my main intention for this story is that people understand
Speaker 1: one there's human beings behind these helmets. Doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: your first round pick, doesn't matter if you were Shaan Gary,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you're the man on the roster. These
Speaker 1: are human beings that walk into this locker room, with families,
Speaker 1: with lives, with things that go beyond the field of play.
Speaker 1: And in my opinion, I humbly submit that that Mitchell
Speaker 1: Henry was one of the best of them from everything
Speaker 1: that we've known, from the way he carried himself, the
Speaker 1: stories that people tell. You would have to walk many miles,
Speaker 1: Michael to find anybody that's going to say something negative
Speaker 1: old Mitchell Henry and for him to lead that kind
Speaker 1: of life and have that kind of success that he
Speaker 1: did and never changed him. You wanted him back in
Speaker 1: Etown to talk to a high school basketball team. He
Speaker 1: left Green Bay, Wisconsin. He drove seven half hours to
Speaker 1: get there to do it, because that's just the guy
Speaker 1: is that's the that's the kid that Terry and Leslie
Speaker 1: Henry raised. And again it's it's a story that five ten, twelve,
Speaker 1: years and I hope people read it. I hope people
Speaker 1: check it out. But it's one that's definitely gonna stick
Speaker 1: with me. Yeah, it's definitely gonna stick with me too.
Speaker 1: And and I didn't know Mitchell certainly is as well
Speaker 1: as you did. But reading all the work that you did,
Speaker 1: everything you put into it, the video that was put together,
Speaker 1: just outstanding work. My cap is off to you, my friend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. And it's uh, it's something too that it is.
Speaker 1: It is sort of fun. It's probably the wrong word
Speaker 1: to say, but it was interesting in too, like reminiscent.
Speaker 1: But I got a chance to sit down with Brian
Speaker 1: Goodkun's last a couple of weeks ago and him kind
Speaker 1: of like going through some of the stories but what
Speaker 1: they liked about him as a football player where they
Speaker 1: thought potentially those are those are fun stories to do
Speaker 1: and in terms of just kind of understanding that side
Speaker 1: of the game too, like where this kid could have
Speaker 1: really potentially, um, you know, had a career from self,
Speaker 1: Brian good Ku sette he really thought, you know, if
Speaker 1: things played out a little bit differently, the injuries that
Speaker 1: hadn't mounted, this was a guy that really had a chance.
Speaker 1: And that's such a small part of mitchell story. There's
Speaker 1: a bigger story there, but just kind of understanding that
Speaker 1: aspect of it and knowing that, Okay, every year, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be another fifteen to twenty undrafted free agents that
Speaker 1: can of come come into this building and and they
Speaker 1: might not always have the story Mitchell has, but those
Speaker 1: are I think what makes this game special because it's
Speaker 1: what gives them. It gives these teams. I don't want
Speaker 1: to call it humanity, that's the wrong word, but it
Speaker 1: just it really drives home the point that this is
Speaker 1: a game him, this is something that you're gonna do
Speaker 1: for a very short time. It grounds you, it grounds you,
Speaker 1: and and once you move on, you have to be
Speaker 1: able to live a happy and positive life. And in
Speaker 1: Mitchell Henry's case, while it was short, what he did
Speaker 1: in those short twenty four years have really made a
Speaker 1: profound impact on those who knew him. Yeah, no question
Speaker 1: about it. With that, we're going to call it a
Speaker 1: rep on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to
Speaker 1: follow all of our coverage of the team, and certainly
Speaker 1: check out Wess great piece on Mitchell Henry on Packers
Speaker 1: dot com. Subscribe to us like us on iTunes and
Speaker 1: other podcast services if you don't mind. On Twitter, he's
Speaker 1: at west hot I'm at Mike Spofford at Packers for
Speaker 1: the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, We'll see
Speaker 1: you next time.