Packers Get Warm and Chilly Reception

Schools closed early, workers declared a holiday and fans teetered on green-tinted snowbanks.

The streets were lined six-deep Monday in Green Bay, Wis., for a roaring welcome for the Green Bay Packers, who brought the Super Bowl title back to this smallest of NFL towns.

Reggie White hoisted the Vince Lombardi trophy over his head as he stepped from the plane toward the buses carrying the players on a ticker-tape motorcade to Lambeau Field.

“That’s what it’s about right here,” White said of the trophy named for the legendary Packer coach. “Bringing this back home.”

The temperature was 17 degrees and the wind-chill factor was at 10-below zero during the ceremony,

Watching from a stroller was 10-month-old Weston Dekoning, with parents Mark and Annie Dekoning.

“He’ll hear what it was like his whole life and people will talk about this for years and years,” Mark Dekoning said. “We bought a paper so we can show him.”

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Even while Mike Ditka watched the Green Bay Packers beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, he was thinking about how he could put the New Orleans Saints in position to win next year’s contest.

Ditka, expected to become the Saints’ coach this week, was in New Orleans for the pregame coin toss at the Super Bowl. When he left the field, Ditka was asked if he would bring the Saints to the championship game.

He smiled and mouthed “Yes.”

General Manager Bill Kuharich recommended hiring Ditka, and will remain with the Saints as general manager and president, an NFL source told The Associated Press.

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Joe Pascale, who was on the Detroit Lions’ staff for a few days last week, was hired as the San Diego Chargers’ defensive coordinator.

Pascale was hired as Detroit’s linebackers coach by former Charger coach Bobby Ross.

Pascale resigned from the Lions on Thursday, and said he never actually signed a contract.

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Fox Network head Rupert Murdoch has expressed an interest in buying an NFL franchise for Los Angeles “if no one else steps forward.”

“We would love to see an NFC franchise in that market, not only for the NFL but for our owned and operated station there,” Murdoch said at the Super Bowl. “But we wouldn’t stand in the way if the NFL had someone else interested.”

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Seven-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle Gary Zimmerman, 35, plagued by shoulder injuries the last two seasons, will retire from the Denver Broncos, friends and teammates said. . . . Houston Mayor Bob Lanier rejected the Oilers’ suggestion that they trade their 7.1-acre practice facility in exchange for an early release from their Astrodome contract, allowing them to move to Nashville one year early.