Green Bay Packers tradition pays off in friendship for CB Casey Hayward
The Green Bay Packers have some of the best traditions in pro sports. One of them occurs every year during training camp, when the players borrow kids' bikes for a ride to the practice field.
Packers cornerback Casey Hayward was not familiar with this tradition upon his arrival in Green Bay three years ago.
"I didn't know anything about the bikes," Hayward told Weston Hodkiewicz of Press-Gazette Media. "Everybody was like, 'You have to ride the bikes.' I was like, 'What does that mean?' Everybody is picking up riders and I'm looking around and I see this cute little girl.
"I think I asked her if, 'I can ride your bike?' She said, 'Yeah, sure,' and the rest was history."
The little girl named Madison McMurdie was 6 years old at the time and had a tiny, pink bicycle. She hasn't missed a camp practice ever since, according to Press-Gazette Media, and the two are still friends.
"Of course I'm going to ride her bike until I can't ride it anymore," Hayward said, via Press-Gazette Media. "It gets my mind off football for 5 minutes we have together throughout the day. I get to see her right afterwards when I ride her bike back. It's not even football talk sometimes, though she'll tell me like, 'I saw you catch an interception or I saw you do this or that.'"
(h/t GreenBayPressGazette.com)