Helping to understand the Why

I had posted in the website that I will write a blog every day and post it so you can keep up on the everyday on the goings on in Mankato.

I wanted to give you the readers some background on myself to help you understand my passion. I would like to start by saying I by no means will ever declare I am the biggest Vikings fan. I just enjoy writing and thus you have a blog to read.

My name is Todd Walkingstick and I go by the name Purplestick. I am going on my 14^th year as a season ticket holder. I am proud to say I have only missed one game in that span. I have driven up in blizzards, ice storms and am proud to say I obviously survived. The one game I actually missed was a preseason game.

I am so crazy about this team I take 3 weeks off work and go to training camp. I live about 40 miles away so it is not a bad drive. I do watch the price of gas especially this time of year for budgeting purposes.

I am coming up on my 20^th year of making this trip. I am proud to say in the last 16 years I have only missed 5 days. One of those days I had a kidney stone attack but made it back the next day.

I enjoy this part of the year as I watch practice every day and see how players perform. I have had the privilege to get pictures with over 400 different players in the last 8 years or so. The only one to turn me down was Randy Moss.

I have gotten my share of autographs but as I get older it gets harder to get one because I believe mainly Ebay. I just have a feeling players may not trust an older guy like me. I  cannot prove who I am but if they want to come to my house they would see I am not a seller rather a collector.

I have gone to 4 road games in my life. I went in 1999 to the St. Louis-Minnesota playoff games when Jeff George was qb for the purple.

I went to Denver the last year Mile High Stadium was in existence. Gary Anderson kicked a last second field goal to beat the Broncos. It made my life tough getting out of the stadium.

I went to New Orleans with my wife for the NFC Championship game. I paid 800.00 for 2 game tickets and sat near the top of the Superdome roof. We did sit behind the Vikes bench. It was worth every penny even though a heart wrenching loss.

I just made my first trip to Lambeau Field in my life as I attended the Packers-Vikes playoff game in January. It was one of the neatest experiences to see Lambeau  Field in person. Yes, a los occurred by the purple but I was in support in all purple from head to toe.

Now back to the part of the blog and why I want to. My home town paper somehow found out about my passion and asked to come over and talk to me . The article made front page on the sports section. It had a couple of pictures of my basement along with the article. I have since framed the article.  Time went along and when Brett Favre signed with the Vikes the paper called me to get my feelings about this. The next step was they asked if I would write a weekly blog from a fan perspective.

I agreed to do that and they told me after 7 articles I would qualify as a writer and they would then get me a press pass to sit in the dome.

I did not get paid rather I did because of my passion. The payment actually to me was the pass. I sat in the baseball press box with the rest of the media. I got to go in the locker rooms and conduct player interviews. I was up there with Sid Hartman, Mark Rosen and the rest of the Vikes media. I went to the post-game press conferences as well. I did 2 games a year because I am a season ticket holder and wanted to watch the games as well. The one thing in the press box that killed me was we could not where purple or cheer. I had to be neutral.

I made a few trip to Winter Park as well for press conferences on Thursdays. It was such a rush to do this.

The paper ended my gig after 3 seasons. I was disappointed yet also have to think I just lived a dream.

I wrote from 2009-2011. I called my sister who lives in Springfield, Illinois and is a major Vikes fan to tell her I was not writing any more. She said you love to write you should start your own blog.

I did and a little over a year I had 13,000 plus page views. It seems to be going well. I would now like to share with you what I see and hear during the seasons starting in Training Camp. I hope you enjoy these.

Thank you

Purplestick