Packers Photog Shoots Another Super Bowl

ARLINGTON, Texas – This is an old hat for Jim Biever. Though special in every sense of the word, taking photos at the Super Bowl is a venture of habit for Biever.

The Green Bay Packers photographer and Port Washington resident has been in Dallas all week, soaking in the football and snapping away. His flashes will be one of hundreds of thousands seen during Sunday’s game between the Packers and Steelers at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington.

This is his 15th Super Bowl, including Green Bay’s win over New England in 1997 and their loss to Denver the following season.

“I know my way around pretty well,” said Biever, 52, the son of legendary Packers photographer Vernon Biever and brother of John, a photographer for Sports Illustrated. “It’s one of the more difficult games to work because of the shear number of photographers I’m dealing with. You’re not going to get every picture. It’s just not possible.”

Vernon, who passed away in October, shot the first 35 Super Bowls and was there for Green Bay’s historic wins in Super I and II against Kansas City and Oakland, respectively. And John has worked all 44 to this point.

“It was a small town feeling,” Biever said his dad used to say of the old Super Bowl games. “The stadiums didn’t sell out, there were a handful of photographers on the sidelines. It wasn’t the big media extravaganza as it is today.”

His favorite Super Bowl moment caught on his memory card? Capturing Mike Holmgren holding the Vince Lombardi trophy after Green Bay won Super Bowl XXXI. 

As always, he’ll use his dad’s words of wisdom Sunday to be prepared and not to, “let the moment carry you away.”

“I have to shoot the Super Bowl like any other game,” he added.

Easier said than done considering his hometown Packers are vying to make history.