Don Riley was laughing this week while telling stories about how he incensed Green Bay fans writing about the “Bushers” in his St. Paul Pioneer Press column. Riley, who turns 89 next month, wrote a provocative column called the “The Eye Opener” for 31 years and Packers fans were often targeted.
“I never mention them as Green Bay,” said Riley who retired from the newspaper in 1987. “I just said the capital B Bushers.”
The Packers come to Minneapolis as almost double-digit favorites to beat the Vikings on Sunday. But Riley, during a telephone interview with Sports Headliners, talked about how close the scores and games have been over the years, and then announced he wouldn’t be surprised if the 1-5 Vikings beat the 6-0 “Bushers.”
Riley chose the term “Bushers” because it was “derogatory” without picking on one individual. But that didn’t mean Riley wouldn’t take an occasional shot at someone in Dairyland including Vince Lombardi, the Packers coach who back in the 1960s was building his legacy by winning NFL titles. Lombardi’s wife Marie wanted Riley fired from the Pioneer Press because he was “mean” to her husband, but the coach said no way. “Vince told her to lay off because he’s selling tickets for us,” Riley said.
The Packers recognized Riley’s inflammatory words were building the rivalry between the Vikings and Green Bay. “Ironically, they (the Packers) hired me to be their emcee for their western Wisconsin football rally and I would get a standing boo before it started,” Riley recalled. “Then I would have a few security guys…search them (the fans) for all the silverware that I claimed that they had stolen the previous dinner.”
Riley’s columns sold newspapers in western Wisconsin and he was often invited to speak at sports banquets. He was greeted with boos. “It went on for almost 40 years,” he said.
Riley was creative in bashing the “Bushers.” He told Packers followers that Green Bay was known for having the “world’s biggest toilet paper factories.” And one time he made an outrageous prediction about a Vikings-Packers game that prompted thousands of letters from Green Bay fans.
“I told them if we don’t beat you next Sunday by three touchdowns, I’ll push a peanut with my nose from Appleton to Green Bay,” Riley said. “That was my guarantee. Well, they (the Packers) knock us off. They had a cartoon in the newspaper over there on the front page. Color cartoon of me pushing a peanut, (and it) says ‘Come on. Show your guts, Riley.’
Well, Riley wasn’t about to push a peanut from Appleton to Green Bay and the result was profanity-filled letters poured into Riley’s mailbox. Maybe 3,700 letters from about “35 states and six foreign countries.”