ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A pair of former NFL stars made the trip to the Last Frontier over the weekend to hold a meet-and-greet and a pair of watch parties for Alaskan football fans.
Daunte Culpepper and Jim McMahon, famous for their stints with the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears respectively, got the chance to visit Anchorage and acquaint themselves with the city and its people.
“Everybody’s been very nice and accommodating,” Culpepper said. “Just down-to-earth people, man. I love it.”
“They’ve been very, very nice, cordial,” McMahon corroborated. “It seems like they like their football as well.”
Culpepper, drafted 11th overall by the Vikings in 1999, led Minnesota to the playoffs three times. His 2004 season, during which he led the league with 4,717 passing yards and 39 touchdowns and broke Dan Marino’s all-time NFL record for combined passing and rushing yards, is one of the strongest single-season performances in league history.
McMahon, drafted 5th overall by the Bears in 1982, played his first eight seasons with Chicago. He is best known for being the starting quarterback of the 1985 Chicago Bears, widely regarded as one of the greatest football teams ever, that went 15-1 en route to the franchise’s first and so far only Super Bowl title.
For all those accolades, a foray into Anchorage was a new experience for both.
“When I think of Alaska, I think of the temperature, the cold, and then bears,” Culpepper said. “I always hear about the bears, you know. I was terrified.”
Fortunately, the three-time Pro Bowler got a chance to see a few from a distance during a visit to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.
“They had brown bears, black bears, and they had elk and minks,” Culpepper recounted fondly. “It was awesome.”
While McMahon’s Alaskan experience has featured less wildlife, it has been wild in other ways.
“We found a bar with a bull in it the other night, a mechanical bull,” McMahon recalled. “Thank God there was a lot of padding because I flew off that thing.”
Both men have expressed a desire to return.
“I met some guys yesterday who wanted to take us out fishing, so I’m looking forward to coming back,” the Arizona native McMahon said. “I told them it will be in the summertime.”
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