After Craig Counsell leaves for rival, a look at other Wisconsin sports ‘betrayals’

Milwaukee baseball fans were stunned to learn that longtime Brewers manager Craig Counsell would be managing for the rival Chicago Cubs next year. The hometown manager with a deep connection to the organization is now defecting to the Dark Side? Say it ain’t so!

Wisconsin sports fans have experienced what they’ve considered betrayal before, including these high-profile examples.

Brett Favre

He’s the first guy you thought of, right?

It seemed unfathomable that Favre, a three-time MVP, record-setter and Green Bay Packers legend, would wind up playing for the hated Minnesota Vikings, but that’s exactly what happened in 2009 when Favre signed there as a free agent after one year with the Jets. The deeply awkward divorce between the quarterback and team had divided the fan base, with many who felt the team was too quick to move on from the future Hall of Famer.

But that resolve was tested when Favre willingly re-entered the division, even if he initially said it wasn’t about revenge. Nobody was fooled. The Packers probably got the last laugh, although Favre defeated Green Bay twice in 2009 and went to the NFC Championship game, leading to a sequence that ended in schadenfreude (and familiarity) for Green Bay fans. The Packers then beat Favre’s Vikings twice in 2010 en route to the Super Bowl.

The franchise and the player reconciled over the years, leading into a 2015 ceremony on Thanksgiving. Perhaps the inclement weather that night was an omen that there were still some complex waters ahead as it related to Favre fandom.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

He was occasionally mercurial, but there was no denying that Milwaukee had landed a transcendent basketball talent Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) out of UCLA, the No. 1 overall pick in 1969 who transformed the franchise from expansion team to champion in three years, on his way to becoming the all-time leading scorer in NBA history. But Abdul-Jabbar itched to play on a coast, either close to home in New York or the more culturally diverse environment offered in California, and he ultimately expressed a desire to leave the team.

Milwaukee made out well in the 1975 trade that sent Abdul-Jabbar to the Los Angeles Lakers — Junior Bridgeman and Brian Winters were among those in the return — but the Bucks simply weren’t the same. It tapped into a pretty significant Wisconsin sports-fan dread — that superstar players don’t want to play here. At least Abdul-Jabbar was forthright about his intentions and allowed Milwaukee to make the best of an unfortunate situation.

Paul Molitor

In reality, this defection made a villain out of Brewers general manager Sal Bando more than Molitor himself. The career-long Brewers star signed with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993 and became World Series MVP that year, not to mention runner-up for the season-long MVP. In all, he had six more seasons left in the tank.

The Brewers brain trust delayed contract negotiations after the 1992 season, then infamously asked Molitor to take a pay cut. Instead, the Blue Jays entered the fray with a three-year offer worth $13 million. The Brewers offered him a shorter, cheaper deal.

“I didn’t understand their approach to that whole negotiation, and I guess I didn’t understand the economics of what they were going through at the time,” Molitor said later. “I just thought that I didn’t have the support. I thought they tried to make me out as the bad guy at the time, and they were trying to protect their image and do some damage control, too.

“It was really tough to leave Milwaukee. I thought, after having been there 15 years, that I was going to be one of those fortunate players to play a long time for one organization, which is the exception today. I was one of the few Brewers who lived in Milwaukee year-round. It was home. My daughter was in school there. I was involved in charities. I was entrenched.”

Bret Bielema

Everyone was shocked in December 2012 when the University of Wisconsin football coach announced he was leaving for Arkansas, even athletic director Barry Alvarez. The Badgers were on the cusp of playing in a third straight Rose Bowl when the news came down, and Bielema went 68-24 during his seven seasons with the Badgers.

Bielema mentioned he was dissatisfied with the pay his assistant coaches were receiving at UW and gave himself an opportunity to spread his wings in the SEC. It didn’t work out great for either party, although Alvarez came out of retirement (for the first of two occasions) to coach the team in the bowl game. The Badgers replaced Bielema with Gary Andersen, who himself left in a stunner after two seasons, and Bielema (now at Illinois) was fired after the 2016 season in Arkansas.

Recruits with a change of heart

It gets a little tricky when you’re talking about recruiting, which has proven to be an occasionally toxic process involving high-school kids. It’s also an avenue that can stoke a rivalry, particularly as it relates to in-state rivals Wisconsin and Marquette.

Vander Blue, from Madison Memorial, had orally committed to the University of Wisconsin before flipping to Marquette in 2009, and he expressed frustration with the online UW fan community as partial explanation for his change of heart. Before that, 2005 Madison Memorial graduate Wesley Matthews also chose Marquette over Wisconsin, where his father had a memorable college career.

Wisconsin had secured a commitment from Tyler Herro, who also famously decommitted late in the recruiting cycle in 2017, which rankled Badgers fans even with the understanding that he was going to play for a genuine blue-blood program in Kentucky.

Vince Lombardi?

Nobody in the world associates Vince Lombardi as anything other than the architect of a Packers dynasty, and his brief tenure with Washington ended sadly with his death in 1970. But it was an interesting final chapter, when Lombardi stepped down as Packers head coach after Super Bowl II and remained general manager, but then left for Washington to serve the dual role of coach and executive vice president.

In February 1968, Lombardi announced Phil Bengtson would succeed him as coach while Lombardi focused solely on GM duties, and in 1969, Lombardi changed franchises, perhaps going over the Executive Committee’s head to arrange an interview. Lombardi wanted a team ownership stake, which obviously wasn’t available in Green Bay, and wanted to get back into coaching.

Famously at the press conference, he proclaimed, “To set the record straight, I can’t walk across the Potomac even when it’s frozen.”

“He is too young and has too much to offer to be out of coaching,” Packers receiver Boyd Dowler said at the time. “He probably felt a little lost this season as far as his contribution to the team itself was concerned. When he retired as coach, he said the jobs of coach and general manager were too much for one man. But I think he contradicted himself.”

Wisconsin was fully in mourning when he died, however. Milwaukee Sentinel columnist Bud Lea kicked off his tribute by noting Lombardi was “a legend in his own time.”