The battle within the battle

Sporting News, The, Dec 6, 1993 by Terry Frei

Matthew, now at the age where he is beginning to understand a little about football and his father's celebrity, and Sheryl Ruettgers were waiting in the Packers' new gymnasium. For a while after the game, the place was packed with Packers friends and families. By the time Ruettgers walked in, the Ruettgers part was alone.

At the River's Bend Supper Club, Ken was waiting for a table when a fan in a green and yellow sweater jumped up from the bar and delivered a short message of congratulations and concern.

Sheryl - who met Ken when both were USC students - gently teased her husband about not giving her a thumbs-up sign to reassure her after his injury. To be honest, Ken said wryly, there was a moment when he wasn't so sure himself. Sheryl went to the pay phone and made a couple of quick calls, trying to reach her parents and her in-laws to inform them that Ken wasn't seriously hurt.

Matthew ran down his list of four favorite Packers - Favre, Sterling Sharpe, White and, of course, Dad - and even shared some of his Halloween candy with me.

Several more fans asked Ruettgers about his knee - he was fine and played the next week against Kansas City - and then congratulated him about the victory. These were not obnoxious intruders on their 11th bourbons and water, but polite, almost apologetic visitors briefly stopping by on the way to the salad bar or the door.

"As a left tackle, you could walk in somewhere in L.A. and somebody might just think you're a big thug," Ruettgers says. "But the people here not only know who you are, they respect you."

About the time Ruettgers took the final bite of his prime rib, Dent was landing in Chicago. A few weeks later, on the first Sunday of December, they would be meeting again. And not on the golf course.