ROSCOE, Illinois - To get a sense of just how intertwined the Packers-Bears rivalry is in Danica Patrick’s hometown, you need only start asking around.

A friendly, close-knit town of 10,500 along the Rock River, Roscoe is just 7 miles from the Wisconsin-Illinois state line. It’s easy to see how both states can lay claim to Patrick. She was born in the hospital just across the border in Beloit but grew up in the picturesque Rockford suburb.

There’s a Dairy Queen, a Family Video, a Historic Auto Attractions museum that boasts the Family Truckster from “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” great pride in the junior tackle football team and, by all accounts, about a 50-50 split when it comes to Packers fans and Bears fans.

Walk into Hononegah Community High School in nearby Rockton, where Patrick was a student until she left as a junior to pursue her racing career in Europe, and the receptionist will tell you — in the nicest of ways — that she doesn’t even know who Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is, much less that he’s dating the retired race car driver who once walked the halls as a cheerleader.

The yearbook adviser sitting next to her, with a Packers lanyard around her neck, is a Marshfield native whose parents had Packers season tickets in the 1980s but got rid of them. And then Brett Favre showed up.

Pop by Louie’s Tap House and Neil Lusmann of Rockford talks about how he’s been cheering for the Packers for 51 years, ever since he watched the Ice Bowl at his grandparents’ house in 1967. Yet somehow, of his five sons, he ended up with three Packers fans, one Cowboys fan and, in a cruel twist of football fate, a Bears fan.

Blame the in-laws from Milwaukee for that last one. They bought him Packers apparel when he was in first grade in the ’80s (not exactly the Packers’ glory years). He got picked on so much he switched his allegiance.

“He’s 39 now. Still an obnoxious Bears fan,” Lusmann said. “For the most part, Bears fans are kind of quiet, but you still have that 10 percent that are just really obnoxious and would like nothing more than to win two games (against the Packers).”

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'To each their own'

Over at the Roscoe Police Department on Main Street, Sgt. Tom Farone has been a Bears fan all his life. He even staved off the Vikings faithful during the 15 years he lived in Minnesota. Officer Chris Wilder also grew up in Illinois — as a Packers fan.

Come Monday morning, after the Packers-Bears “Sunday Night Football” season opener at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, one of them won’t be happy. The razzing from the other will be relentless but always good-natured.

“It’s been fairly one-sided in recent memory,” Farone says of the rivalry that dates back to 1921. “As Bears fans, we have to kind of take it with a grain of salt and keep a smile on our face regardless.”

That smile also came in handy when Patrick, Roscoe’s most famous export, confirmed in January she was dating Rodgers. A lifelong Bears fan, she announced she’ll be cheering not just for the Packers quarterback, but “I’m going to cheer for the whole team.” In July, she put the exclamation point on it by telling late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel: “I’m the biggest Packers fan.”

It sparked a flurry of national headlines but no hard feelings back home.

“To each their own. It’s OK,” Farone said “It’s hard to argue with an organization that has sustained success the way the Packers do, so who can really blame her.”

“She’s got some taste – not only with Aaron, but in the Packers themselves,” Wilder chimed in.

Even in Patrick’s own family there was a split. Her dad, T.J. Patrick, grew up a Bears fan, but her uncle, Randy Patrick, was a Packers fan. In that household on Sundays, you’d find Randy and their mom in the basement cheering on the Packers, and T.J. and their dad upstairs watching the Bears.

“It was fun to have the camaraderie, because you’ve got someone to argue with or tease, laugh a little bit,” said Randy Patrick, who lives in South Beloit. “But I don’t think the Bears fans are as friendly as the Packers fans.”

T.J. made headlines of his own this year when he told Autoweek his plan for meeting Rodgers for the first time was to wear his Brian Urlacher jersey and tackle him. He was joking of course.

At Poison Ivy Pub, 'Packers fans come in here just to rub it in a little bit more'

You might not find a bigger Bears fan in Roscoe than Poison Ivy Pub owner Steve Quies.

He was 8 years old when his dad, a Packers fan, took him to get an autograph from Bears linebacker Dick Butkus at the grand opening for a TV and appliance store in Rockford in the early 1970s. It was the first football player he ever met.

His upscale sports bar is loaded with Chicago sports memorabilia, including signed jerseys of Butkus, Urlacher, Gale Sayers, Mike Ditka and Devin Hester. William “The Refrigerator” Perry and Steve McMichael have stopped in during the 17 years he’s had the place.

There used to be an autographed Bart Starr photo on the wall. The Packers great is one of Quies’ all-time favorite quarterbacks, but when someone offered him $500 cash on the spot, he sold. There was one condition of the sale, the buyer said: Quies must hang a photo of Favre up in its place.

“So I went and got one of Favre wearing his Jets jersey,” Quies said. “That really got him grumbling.”

He likes to remind his snowmobiling buddies up north that Jim McMahon was twice the quarterback Favre ever was. The schtick goes something like this: How many Super Bowl rings does Favre have? One. How many does McMahon have? Two. (One of those was when he was with the Packers, but, you know, who’s counting?)

The Poison Ivy Pub, where the loaded Bloody Marys come with a slider on the skewer, gets a robust mix of Bears and Packers fans on Sundays. If Quies is being honest, it actually leans a little heavier on the latter, some who travel across the border for a bar stool.

He’s good with that. It makes it fun, he said.

“Well, they know my demeanor on the Bears so sometimes they come in just to watch my behavior. The Packers fans come in here just to rub it in a little bit more on me,” he said. “Of course, some of my Bears fans can get a little feisty with them. ‘Why don’t you go across the state line …’ That kind of talk.”

It’s not quite the scene it was back in the days when fans wanted to reserve a spot at the bar on Bears-Packers game days. An NFL schedule that has often put the match-up on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve or early in the season in recent years has played havoc with what used to be the bar’s annual chili cook-off. If Quies had his way, Packers-Bears games would always be at noon the fourth and 10th weeks of the season.

“It’s basically a dying rivalry unless we start doing something. … I don’t think we’re going to have our heyday with the Packers until Rodgers is gone, because he just seems to keep on going. We thought it was over when Favre was done,” he said. “I didn’t think anybody could be better than Favre, but this guy is just something else. I hate him, and I respect him at the same time. And I keep looking into your reserves to see if you’ve got another one of him coming out when he retires.”

If Aaron Rodgers showed up in Roscoe, 'that would spread like wildfire'

It’s not all Bears, Cubs and Blackhawks memorabilia at the Poison Ivy. Some of the display space is devoted to Patrick’s racing career. There’s a Sports Illustrated cover with the headline “Yes She Can,” a front-page Chicago Tribune story after she won the Indy Japan 300 and a Michael Goettner print Quies hopes to have her sign someday.

Hometown fans would pack the place to watch her races, Quies said, particularly before she made the move from IndyCar to NASCAR.

She doesn’t get back to Roscoe very often anymore. That doesn’t, however, mean her presence there isn’t felt. Residents are proud of what she’s done for the sport of racing and how she’s inspired others, particularly young girls. Most everyone you bump into can offer some version of “Six Degrees of Danica Patrick.”

“My son’s mother-in-law was a gym teacher here in Roscoe and had Danica in her gym class,” Lusmann said.

“My late husband’s father was married to Danica’s great-grandmother,” said Linda Schelman of Roscoe.

(In case you didn’t think it was a small world, even in Packers-Bears circles, Schelman, a Packers fan, was having lunch with Shirley Churchill. She’s the mom of Ryan Churchill, the Beloit native behind “The 60 Yard Line,” the Packers-themed romantic comedy filmed in Green Bay. Yes, the one where a cow walked the red carpet at Bay Park Cinema for the local premiere last year.)

“Everybody’s got a story about (Danica), and most of the time she was in England when the stories were supposed to be taking place. She was over learning to race,” Quies said.

If she does make a visit, you usually don’t hear about it until a couple of days later, officer Chris Wilder said. But if she were to swing through with Rodgers ...

“That would spread like wildfire,” he said, adding that he would be happy to help with any security needs he might have while visiting.

Patrick’s parents, T.J. and Bev Patrick, moved to Indiana several years ago, Quies said, but often stop in when they’re back in town. “Just down-to-earth Midwest people.”

There was some buzz on local radio the day Rodgers was to meet Danica Patrick’s family for the first time

“I would’ve liked to have been a little mouse in the corner when Mom and Dad met him just to hear what they all had to say,” Quies said. “I know them. They’re pretty outgoing. They’re not real timid, shy. Not afraid to say anything. That would’ve been a fun dinner to be at.”

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Patrick’s uncle, Randy, met Rodgers at a family birthday party. “Very nice guy. Kinda quiet, really. I think he just wanted to blend in and not be a celebrity.”

His niece has always been driven, “always had that gleam in her eye that she was going to do something,” he said. That she and Rodgers are both athletes, both have that competitive nature, complements their relationship, he said. He can see her challenging Rodgers to see how many push-ups or pull-ups they can do.

What’s a little trickier for him to picture is just what her game-day attire might look like when she’s at Lambeau Field on Sunday.

“I have a feeling she’ll probably wear some Bear apparel and maybe a little bit of Packer apparel. It will be interesting to see what she wears to the game,” he said. “... I would think by the end of the day though, she’d probably have a better evening if the Packers won. Dinner will probably be a lot more fun I would think if the Packers won.”