Cheesehead
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- Mar 19, 2019
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GREEN BAY – He’s gone from a five-man unit on the football field to a four-man crew in a war zone, and Daryn Colledge’s dedication to both realms depicts the full story of this player, husband, father, brother and soldier.
The former Packers offensive lineman and member of the Super Bowl XLV championship team could have decided on a quiet, comfortable existence after nine years in the NFL. Instead he’s chosen anything but.
Colledge, who played five seasons in Green Bay (2006-10) before three in Arizona (’11-13) and a final one in Miami (’14), completed earlier this year a 10-month deployment to Afghanistan as a UH-60 helicopter crew chief in a medevac unit.
While he put his body on the line weekly in the NFL, the stakes are obviously higher in military operations overseas, but Colledge couldn’t imagine anything more personally fulfilling as a post-football career.
“When I retired, I was looking for that next thing to do,” Colledge said in an interview with packers.com last month, when he returned as a featured alum to attend the Packers’ Monday night game vs. Detroit.
“I realized what I missed most in the NFL was not so much the paychecks – which, don’t get me wrong, you miss – but you miss the brotherhood, you miss the camaraderie, you miss the group of people pushing for one end goal, and you miss the sacrifice. I was able to find that in the military.”
It’s something he’d been drawn to his whole life. He grew up in North Pole, Alaska, amidst a hotbed of military bases and saw multiple family generations involved in the armed services, including his brother.
A football scholarship to Boise State and a second-round draft selection by the Packers in 2006 provided both a lucrative first career and an extended detour before his second, which began when he enlisted in the Idaho National Guard a few years ago.