MILWAUKEE — Even though Jordy Nelson hasn't played since 2018, and hasn't played in Green Bay a year before that, he remains one of the most popular recent Packers players. He continues his good guy image, raising money for SHARP Literacy in Milwaukee.
Nelson urged more than 400 Milwaukee area business and community leaders to support SHARP Literacy to help kids read, a gap that widened with the pandemic.
When Nelson shows up at a charity event, it's always the same old thing.
"When you come here and you start playing well, you're getting underpaid," Nelson says. "The moment you get paid, you're overpaid. The moment you get old, you can't play. And the moment you retire, they want you to come back because you can still play. So I don't think you're ever going to please anyone. So you just gotta go your way."
Nelson recently stopped in Milwaukee to help out SHARP Literacy at a fundraiser. He was previously a substitute teacher in his son's class when in Green Bay.
"He's just a great guy, and really understands how important literacy is and the importance and understands how important teachers are," SHARP Literacy President and CEO Lynda Kohler says. "He said he grew up with great teachers. He even did substitute teaching when he was injured from the Packers and taught math for his son's class."
"If it's through Young Life, when we were a part of helping them out and still are," Nelson says. "For something like this, like to a lot of these kids to have good influence. Good foundations as they're growing up I think is very big for our youth."
Nelson sees some parallels between this year's injured squad, and the injured Super Bowl 45 season.
"A lot of it is belief," Nelson says. "Getting comfortable with one another. I remember throughout that year, sitting in hotel rooms when we were on the bubble. We were in New England at the time and gave us a buffer game when Aaron was out. We lost to New England and allowed us to kind of still get in. Once that happened, we won a couple games and like I said, there wasn't a game in the playoffs that we didn't believe we could go in and win."
Nelson still can't believe he played on the grandest stage.
"The Bucks, winning theirs, or if it's a baseball team winning the World Series. To think that I was on that stage in my sport? It's kind of still surreal," Nelson says. "You honestly kind of forget about it. You don't think about it daily until it comes around to that time of year and you definitely have some great memories from it."
