Yesterday in La Crosse
When Mike Ditka, Ricky Williams and the New Orleans Saints called UW-La Crosse home with players like Joe Montana paying a visit
It was called the Cheese League. NFL teams holding minicamp across Wisconsin, and UW-La Crosse was host to one of those teams for a dozen years.
Beginning in 1988, the New Orleans Saints called the UW-L campus home for a few weeks in the summer.
From coach Mike Ditka, a rookie RB named Ricky Williams to the visiting Joe Montana during his Kansas City Chiefs era, fans got an up close look at the NFL right in their own backyard.
It’s an era that’s long passed, when NFL teams took over UW campuses.
In 1984, the Chicago Bears held camp at UW-Platteville until 2001. That led the Cheese League to grow, as the Kansas City Chiefs would practice at UW-River Falls from 1991-2009, and the Jacksonville Jaguars spent one grueling hot summer at UW-Stevens Point in their inaugural 1991 season.
Kansas City, in 1993 and 1994, had perhaps the greatest quarterback in NFL history at the helm in Montana. The Hall of Famer made his way to La Crosse for scrimmages, but apparently made some fans mad when he didn’t participate in for fear of injury — or perhaps it was too early in the morning for a QB nearing 40.
And while a big reason for the Saints heading to La Crosse to practice was for a cooler climate, ironically, that first year in 1988, the city experienced record heat above 100 degrees. But the Saints came back the next year, and for another decade after that.
The Saints’ presence in La Crosse led to the development of a business venture called the Who Dat Club, for which you could get a special card entitling you to certain perks. The name was derived from the Louisiana fan chant “Who Dat say they’re gonna beat the Saints?”
Those Saints marched back to New Orleans for good in 1999, as most teams opted to hold camps back home, leaving the Cheese League to melt.
The Packers, however, still hold camp in neighboring De Pere at St. Norbert College, while the Vikings continue to go to Minnesota State-Mankato in the summer.
