For years, decades even, a highlight of our Friday mornings has been our opportunity to present our Weenie of the Week; our recognition of someone from our area or from throughout the greater state of Wisconsin, who has done something stupid, selfish or mean-spirited. In other words; Weenie-like. However, this week, for the first time ever, I feel the need to recognize somebody or in this case somebodies for just the opposite reason.
So what is the opposite of a Weenie of the Week that is still alliterative? Winner of the Week? I like it but it sounds a little too much like somebody who just scored some concert tickets from us. Warrior of the Week? Seems a little more violent than what I had in mind. How about our Worthy of the Week? Not perfect but it will have to do for now.
So, with that in mind, I truly am proud to name as this week’s first Rick and Cutter Show Worthy of the Week… longtime listeners Bill Austin and Wally Wright. Allow me to explain. Wednesday, was the the annual day when we get to auction off some piece of Packer memorabilia in conjunction with Bergstrom Automotive to raise money for Make-A-Wish. Well the last several years we’ve usually had Aaron Rodgers’ signed items like jerseys and full-size helmets.
This year represented a passing of the torch. Our first time attempting to raise money for Make-A-Wish with a football signed by an admittedly untried commodity in Jordan Love.
We wondered, could we raise even half as much as we would get for an Aaron Rogers’ item? Even a quarter? At one point during the broadcast I fancifully tossed out the idea of how cool it would be if we could raise MORE money with the Jordan Love football than we EVER raised with any of the Aaron Rodgers memorabilia? I was half joking but Cutter queried as to how much that would be. I dug back in my records and as best I could tell, the most we had gotten at auction for Make-A-Wish with any Rodgers’ item was $2300. I loved the idea but it seemed a tad far-fetched to me but thankfully not to Bill and Wally.
Apparently, Bill phoned Wally Wednesday morning and said he’d kick in half if Wally would kick in the other half and together they could raise the price on the Jordan Love football to greater than any of our past Aaron Rodgers items. And so they did. Each donating $1200 and their $2400 bid narrowly edging out Nate Herman who is no stranger to our Make-A-Wish auctions. In fact, it was Norm who set the $2300 standard with his winning bid on a Rogers jersey a few years ago.
And so, the Jordan Love football goes to Bill or is it Wally? Turns out, Bill didn’t really want the football he just wanted to make the donation to beat the Aaron Rodgers record and was gonna let Wally have the football. Wally, on the other hand thought Bill was going to take the football. Since neither of them thought they had a perfect place to display it, they just donated the $2400 and gave back the football which we then offered to runner-up bidder Norm who took the football off their hands for $2300 more for Make-A-Wish.
Thanks to the generosity of WAPL listeners one Jordan Love football generated $4700 for Make-A-Wish! Now the pressure really is on for him to be good.
A little background, Wally has participated in a number of our on-air auctions for Make-A-Wish and Children’s Hospital during the past few years and has been the winning bidder on some very cool stuff.
Bill’s association with our charity work goes back even further. Bill has not only been the winning bidder on numerous items we’ve auctioned during the last 20 years (i.e. the coffin from our much ballyhooed Funeral-4-Favre) but has also donated prizes that we’ve auctioned off for charities. Bill has a connection to Nugent and has in the past donated numerous signed items and even hunting trips with Sweaty Uncle Teddy. One time we were auctioning off something from Bill and he didn’t think it was getting enough love so he outbid everyone else on the item he himself donated. Crazy bastard! They both are. But in a good way!
This all certainly makes Bill Austin and Wally Wright WORTHY of being our first ever Rick and Cutter…Worthies of the Week!
And, it makes Norm Herman our runner-up. He put out the most cash this week but at least he got the football!
