Memorabilia belonging to former Packers guard Fred “Fuzzy” Thurston, including his Super Bowl II ring, is scheduled to be sold at auction to pay the $1.7 million he owes to the IRS. But some Packers fans are banding together to try to get Thurston a reprieve.
Members of the Save Fuzzy Thurston Facebook group are contacting President Obama to ask for a pardon for Thurston.
“this group is to tell the world that one of the best packer players from super bowl one and two is about to lose his championship first ring to the I.R.S. Please help me and my dad to stop this,” Packers fan Tony Fonder writes on the Facebook page. “How? Either by snail mail or e-mailing the president to pardon him. Without Fuzzy , there would NOT be a Titletown U.S.A.”
The organizers of the Facebook page don’t appear to be basing their call for a pardon on any particular legal or moral principle; it’s mostly an appeal to Packers fans to support one of their own. And people who know Thurston seem to realize it’s not going to work.
Catherine Migliano of Florida, a longtime friend of Thurston, told the Green Bay Press Gazette that she appreciates the support from Packers fans but doesn’t see it doing any good.
“He is like a surrogate dad to me,” Migliano said of Thurston. “I know what is going to happen, and I’m realistic. Fans are going to turn to the (Packers) and are going to start clamoring, and there is not anything the organization can do. The law is the law.”
And the law says that if you don’t pay your taxes, your assets will be seized. That law applies to everyone, former football hero or not.