#414 Packers Unscripted: Pause and reflect

are then off until the start of training camp. So as the off season wraps up, so to speak, is there anything in particular you'll be looking for out on the practice field this week. Well, I just want to point out, since this say is the last week of the off season program. On Friday afternoon, that screeching you'll hear from the lambeau Field parking lot will be my car sipping away, getting ready to go into the summer

here and and get away for a bit. But first vacation goes to him that that after that then I'm gonna try to get out here for a few days and he's gone. This is what it comes down to, right right weeks get it where you can take it. But no, you're right, I mean it's it's always an interesting, uh sort of week in terms of it sounds like this year for the most part, a lot of the installs are in, so I don't know if there's gonna

be so much reviewing. The way Mike McCarthy usually did it, this usually ended up being like installs five six or was it six, seven and eight. I think a lot of times it could be the last slate of them, almost like the last review period. McCarthy typically dismissed the veterans and then we're just focus on working with the

younger players. Matt Lafleur has already said that he's expecting the veterans that they they will be here this week just because the new system going in year two the defense, they want to have those guys here. Yeah, McCarthy certainly didn't dismiss all the veterans his first couple of years. It was more towards the latter half of his program. So Matt Lafleur he wants to maximize this time. He understands the value in it. The only true differences I

think practices can go a little bit longer. Players are obligated to be here under the construct of the c b A. So the last chance to get in some really good work here before you give into the summer for a little bit and back for training camp when we really start cooking with gas. Yeah, that would that'll be That'll be the time that things really take off.

And I think, uh, you know, the first couple of days of training camp will still be no pads and they'll be that that grace period that easing into uh to full speed training camp, full contact training camp. But then we'll start to really get a sense of where the Packers are here with regard to Matt Lafleur's scheme and year two of Mike Petton's defense and all of that. So we'll have our eyes on the practice field this

week and see exactly what's going on. Is things wrap up, But I want to get to some sponsor business here west the Green Bay Packers get ready for game day with the powerful noise canceling technology of Bows Quiet Comfort thirty five headphones. To learn more at www dot bows dot com, Slash Packers Bows the official headphones of the Green Bay Packers, and at Homer Here in the stands, we all know that Green Bay fans give it their all and that takes a lot of energy. So grab

a warm bowl of Campbell's Chunky Soup. It's meaty goodness fuels the greatness of Packers fans everywhere. Try the delicious classic chicken Noodle soup. Just visit your local supermarket and ask for Campbell's Chunky Sup Official Sup partner of the Green Bay Packers. Okay, moving on, west I know there are a lot of times on this show we tell the fans to, hey, check this out on the website.

You know you'll like this, watch this, But I'm telling you, folks, you need to give yourself a good half an hour, about twenty minutes of reading time, ten minutes of video time, maybe an extra five minutes to wipe away some tears because you have to go on Packers dot com and check out the piece that Weston hodkoits here put together on a former Packers tight end, Mitchell Henry and his story which was tragically cut short by an illness a

couple of years ago. West you flew to e Town, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, right at the end of the NFL right after the NFL draft is the day after you hopped on a plane with I don't know how Mike Vandersnick is still talking to me. Yeah, yeah, Mike Vandersnick, one of our videographers here in the Packers dot Com broadcast apartment, accompanied

west to Etown, Kentucky. You put together, really you visited with all kinds of people who were a big part of Mitchell Henry's life, and uh put together his his whole story. And for those who don't know about it, um certainly go on the website and check it out. What I wanted to ask you, Wes, is when you go through a long reporting process like this and everything that was involved in it, there are a lot of things that happened, whether it's behind the scenes this and that,

that don't necessarily make it into the final product. So is there something like that from that will stick out in your memory banks in terms of what you went through in the process and how you went about putting the story together that maybe hasn't seen the light of day just yet. It's a really good question, Mike, and I'll answer that in one moment. I want to set it up a little bit by just explaining why exactly I was going cat fishing, because it ties into that

answer the cat fishing trip. So you I think, I don't know how much you got to talk to to Mitchell Henry when he came in at fifteen, but he was considered one of the top undrafted players the Packers draft that had signed that year after the two thousand fifteen draft and might end out of Western Kentucky. Western Kentucky played with Jack Doyle. A lot of a lot of good tight ends have come through their. Tyler Higbee, also now with the l A. Rams, was in that

same time, right right after Mitchell. I think, so what's interesting about Mitchell's story is that summer training to hit camp it gets long, right, So you get in twenty practices, you start getting into mid August, and people are looking for storylines. Well, for Charles Mitchell Henry, it it became the storyline about him being a cat fisherman and a noodler that Garon Rodgers brought it up. I know Jerry font and all the tight ends coach at the time

brought it up. Ron Zook I think brought it up um And I got to know Mitchell a little bit. I got to know his brother Ben a little bit through the process, and I just joked with him near the end of training camp because it although he had broken his hand, it still looked like he might have a decent shot to make the roster, did play well on special teams, is maybe a third option at tight end.

I just I just off the cuff. I mentioned him, well, you know what if you make the rosters after I wrote a story almost like you ate the roster, I'll come down. I'll go cat fishing with you and your dad and we both laughed it off. In Mitchell, I'll never forget the words, he said. He's like, you know, I know, I know my dad he'd he'd be happy

to take you. So I recount the story and inbox this was last June, and I just said someone a really stute question an inbox, probably one of my favorite questions someone's really ever asked in the three years I've been doing that was is there any stories you really enjoyed from undrafted players that you just never got to tell because then they got cut? For me, it was Mitchell Henry. I wrote that in a month later, Terry Henry's father wrote back to me and basically said, I

have not been cat fishing since Mitchell passed away. But I know he'd want me to ask you to come along. So I stayed in contact with the family. March rolls around, April rolls around. They still want to do it. So we go down to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, five minutes outside of it little lake called Taylorsville Lake. I wrote in my second graph of the story, it looks like something out of a clear in Eastwood, Western It really does. It looks like a scene out about lawn. Josie wales Um.

The answer to your question that you said that the story that stays with me the most is myself and our videographer, Mike Vanderstick. You have if your cat fishing, you don't just go and throw some lines out and then just you know, have some fun. It's actually a lot of work, is what I found out. We had to put down four lines. We put them down little banks of the river or lake. Go back to our our rental car. Fortunately, Mitchell's brother Ben was nice enough

to bring us some some pillows and sleeping bags. So Vanderschnick and I slept in the front seat of the rental car for two whole hours. Got up at three, I'm sorry, got up at one so We went to bed at eleven, got up at one, went and check the lines, got three catfish, rebait the lines, go back to our car, sleep for another two hours, get up

at six, do it again the next morning. My favorite part of this little story is the fact that I had to wash out my clothes three times to get the smell of catfish out of them because it was just so pronounced, and I was trying to run in one of the shirts. I'm like, I can still smell the catfish. But it was such an incredible journey to be a part of. And I knew Mitchell a little bit, but getting to know his dad, his brother, his his lovely wife Madison, his mom, Leslie, his friends and families,

so many people I talked to for the story. You don't fully appreciate every day, is what I learned through

this process. And Mike say average his high school football coaches, his youth football coach, said, you know, you have a bad day and things hang with you that shouldn't hang with you, And you think about what Mitchell Henry went through with acute milloyd leukemia, a m L seven month battle, everything it did to challenge him and the faith that he showed, the courage that he showed, the strength that he showed in the face of that. It's always something

that's gonna stick with me. This was I don't want to say he became emotionally invested in the story. I'm still a journalist at heart. I try not to do that, but getting to know the family and being there and in and in the Henry's house and in Madison's house. So many times we write an obituary and you forget weeks past, months past, and you just move on. And there's a quote that Madison says in both the video on the story about it's for me, it's not moving on,

it's moving forward, and that's stuck with me. And I think that's always gonna stick with me. Yeah, because it's just there's things in your life that touch you. It doesn't have to be death, that doesn't have to be that, but things that shape you. And seeing how that family has persevered and endured and has attempted to heal after going through such a terrible, terrible loss at a terribly

young age. UM, it has an impact on you. It certainly had an impact on me, and I think that's one of the things that I liked the most about the story the way you did it, whether you're talking about the video that was put together, and certainly hats off to a Adam hebel Heinrich, Mike Atkinson, we already mentioned Mike vander Snick, their involvement in putting that video together. Some outstanding work there. But as journalists, you you said

the word obituary. We've all written stories about people who have passed away. It's it's part of the business. It's it's something that we've all done. What I liked about your story, though, is this wasn't just telling the story

of Mitchell and everything that happened to him. It was also the story of how Mitchell impacted so many other people, not only as as a kid and a great athlete and somebody everybody loved too, then someone everybody wanted to root for because he had a shot at the NFL too.

Then everything he went through with his illness and trying to fight it and with his wife and his dog and all of these kinds of things that the all the pieces that went into it, Um, you know it, it really is emotional and and um there's no avoiding that. The other thing I'd like to ask you though, is I know, as we've all been through these types of

processes before as writers or as videographers for that matter. Um, speaking of the guys who put together the video, there are always things that don't make it, that end up on the cutting room floor, so to speak. I know, I'm sure talking from talking to his coaches and family members and everything, I'm sure you've got some story reason, some anecdotes that you know just didn't quite fit, or maybe you didn't have room four in terms of the

way you told the story. So is there one of those anecdotes from those folks about Mitchell or some encounter with him when he was alive that uh, um, that you think is worth sharing here? So naturally, because this is the way I always do things and unscripted, you give me a question that I answered a different way. There's probably three obviously that that stand out to me there from three different stages of his life. The first one that I really wish I could have gotten the

story but it just didn't work out. His childhood friend Dylan and him used to go frog gigging. I think I got that right, frog gigging gigging, which is you know, so he's a big cat fisherman. He loves hunt doors, uh, hunting everything like that. He also liked to go catch frogs. And Dylan had this great story and it's it unfortunately got cut out last minute because it was already a five thousand words story and we're trying to keep it centered.

But he had this phenomenal story about how you know Mitchell, even at a young age, he was fearless man. He didn't care. So like, they'd go out in these bogs and they'd be gigging, and I know, people from Kentucky, you're gonna watch this and be like, oh my gosh, you're making a fool of yourself. But they'd be going after these frogs and Mitchell would have his waiters on and he'd be swimming through this water going after these frogs.

And Dylan was telling me that he's like, I'd be sitting there petrified because I didn't want to put my hands in there because there's snakes and all these other wildlife things. Mitchell didn't care about that at all. He was just all about the outdoors. He loved every single bit of it and didn't he was just he was fearless in that way. The in it for the game. I mean, yeah, the the other thing just to touch on quickly, in his time in Green Bay, I had

one of our packers. You know, there's a number of equipment people that work with Red Batty down there, and and and different kids that come through, and different guys that come through and help him out. There was one that texted me after the story ran, and he just he had such a great little snippets saying that out of every rookie, UFA, whatever that's come through there, you will not find anyone kinder than Mitchell Henry. The way he carried himself, you saw it, the way he walked

around the locker room. He was just such a humble and and just everyday kind of guy that he just happened to be trying to play in the NFL. But he's just the type of guy that if if you're at home, he's just the guy you kind of would hang out with and have a good time with. And he was getting a lot of media attention because he's trying to make the team of a broken hand. If you look at in the video, you see some of the pictures, he's got the big club on his hand.

This is a tight end who was trying to catch passes and trying to throw blocks and trying to make the team as an undrafted rookie, and he got put into some pretty difficult circumstances there and he's still almost yeah, and it's just it's it's incredible all those things work out,

the last thing, and it's unfortunately. More on the somber note was that Mitchell, throughout his illness, it didn't matter if he was originally in a town or when he went to Lexington and then finally to MD Anderson in Houston, one of the top cancer facilities in the country, he always kept a little journal um and a lot of times and you know, I don't I don't want to get preach or anything like that, but a lot of times it would just basically be conversations he was having

centered on his faith and his religion whatever. You know, again, I'm not trying to push anything on anybody, but how devoted he was and how he never steered away from, you know, what he believed. And I gotta be honest with you, Michael, if I'm in his shoes and I'm somebody that truly was devout, and you know, I'm so focused on being a really humble and good person. And that's something like that hits me. I think it would really challenge me. It would challenge me for why asking why.

Mitchell never asked why, And I just I can't imagine the amount of strength that that takes to be able to still have that kind of character. Never, if people called him, this wasn't the story. But if people called him, he never let on if he was sick. He never it on to how he was feeling. He never complained about how he was feeling. He always tried to make it more about the other person so that when they hung up the phone, they would feel good about where

things are at. To the point, James Harris high school basketball coach even told me his last conversation with him, when he talked to him, he's when he found out that he had passed away. He's like, I had talked to him two weeks later, two weeks earlier, what happened and his mom, Leslie then told James, well, if you were talking to to Mitchell, someone was probably holding the phone up for him because he just didn't have that

kind of strength. And those are the things that stay with me the most, and I just he was a good human being that I hope with this story. My my main intention for this story is that people understand one there's human beings behind these helmets. Doesn't matter if your first round pick, doesn't matter if you were Shaan Gary,

doesn't matter if you're the man on the roster. These are human beings that walk into this locker room, with families, with lives, with things that go beyond the field of play. And in my opinion, I humbly submit that that Mitchell Henry was one of the best of them from everything that we've known, from the way he carried himself, the

stories that people tell. You would have to walk many miles, Michael to find anybody that's going to say something negative old Mitchell Henry and for him to lead that kind of life and have that kind of success that he did and never changed him. You wanted him back in Etown to talk to a high school basketball team. He left Green Bay, Wisconsin. He drove seven half hours to get there to do it, because that's just the guy is that's the that's the kid that Terry and Leslie

Henry raised. And again it's it's a story that five ten, twelve, years and I hope people read it. I hope people check it out. But it's one that's definitely gonna stick with me. Yeah, it's definitely gonna stick with me too. And and I didn't know Mitchell certainly is as well as you did. But reading all the work that you did, everything you put into it, the video that was put together, just outstanding work. My cap is off to you, my friend. Yeah,

thank you. And it's uh, it's something too that it is. It is sort of fun. It's probably the wrong word to say, but it was interesting in too, like reminiscent.

But I got a chance to sit down with Brian Goodkun's last a couple of weeks ago and him kind of like going through some of the stories but what they liked about him as a football player where they thought potentially those are those are fun stories to do and in terms of just kind of understanding that side of the game too, like where this kid could have really potentially, um, you know, had a career from self, Brian good Ku sette he really thought, you know, if

things played out a little bit differently, the injuries that hadn't mounted, this was a guy that really had a chance.

And that's such a small part of mitchell story. There's a bigger story there, but just kind of understanding that aspect of it and knowing that, Okay, every year, there's gonna be another fifteen to twenty undrafted free agents that can of come come into this building and and they might not always have the story Mitchell has, but those are I think what makes this game special because it's

what gives them. It gives these teams. I don't want to call it humanity, that's the wrong word, but it just it really drives home the point that this is a game him, this is something that you're gonna do for a very short time. It grounds you, it grounds you, and and once you move on, you have to be able to live a happy and positive life. And in Mitchell Henry's case, while it was short, what he did in those short twenty four years have really made a

profound impact on those who knew him. Yeah, no question about it. With that, we're going to call it a rep on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team, and certainly check out Wess great piece on Mitchell Henry on Packers dot com. Subscribe to us like us on iTunes and other podcast services if you don't mind. On Twitter, he's at west hot I'm at Mike Spofford at Packers for the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, We'll see you next time.