Packers Loyalty Saved Man's Life

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Being a Green Bay Packers fan for more than six decades has given Jim Becker decades of excitement, heartache and may even have saved his life.

Becker, 79, of Racine, Wis., attended his first Packers game in 1941 when he was 11. He attended games every season from 1952 to 2008.

While watching Green Bay greats like Ray Nitschke and Bart Starr, he and his wife Patricia also raised 11 children – all Packers fans. Money was tight so instead of taking from the family budget to buy Packers season tickets, Becker would sell his blood for $15 a pint, according to the Packers Web site .

That just may have saved Becker's life.

While filling out a questionnaire about his family history during a routine physical exam, the doctor noticed Becker had written that his father died at age 43 of hemochromatosis. Testing showed that Becker also had the condition, in which excessive amounts of iron are retained in the blood.

It turned out that the only way to remove the excess iron was to give blood. By that time Becker had donated some 145 pints of blood to pay for his season tickets.

"If he hadn't, he very well may have died like his father. His love of the Packers saved his life. To this day he still donates three to four times a month," reads a submission nominating Becker as the 12th member of the Green Bay Packers FAN Hall of Fame.

Becker indeed was selected out of 10 finalists by some 40,000 votes submitted by fans from throughout the United States and the world. He was formally named the 12th fan Friday during Packers Fan Fest at the Lambeau Field Atrium.

"I just thought I was lucky," Becker told WDJT-TV in Milwaukee of the unintended benefit of his Packers devotion. Added his wife, Patricia: "His giving that blood saved his life."