Dave Zirin http://www.thenation.com/blog/160162/taking-back-los-angeles-dodgers
On Friday, I wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times that put forward a common-sense solution to the current ownership disaster that is the Dodgers franchise: public ownership. Last week, Commissioner Bud Selig and Major League Baseball took the unprecedented step of seizing the team from bankrupt chief executive Frank McCourt.
In my column, I asked the question: instead of now selling off this historic franchise to the highest bidder, why not allow the fans to be the new bosses? What if Commissioner Bud Selig and Major League Baseball pursued the solution—that has been so successful for the Green Bay Packers—public ownership? The Dodgers faithful could buy shares in the squad. Then—like in Green Bay—60% of concessions could go to local charities, premium tickets could be made affordable to working class Angelenos, and one of baseball’s most storied teams could repair its ruptured relationship with an alienated fan base. Let Los Angeles be a baseball town again. Let them truly be the people’s team.
It’s unlikely that Major League Baseball or the sclerotic Selig would want any of this. After all, since 1961, it’s been written explicitly in the league’s bylaws that fan ownership is as forbidden as the spitball or aluminum bats. Selig sees his number one job as protecting the profits and interests of ownership—not safeguarding the best interests of the game. Proclaiming to the world that fans can own a team and sports owners are superfluous creatures runs counter to Selig’s very DNA. In other words, I didn’t expect the suggestion to gain much traction at MLB central.
But I also didn’t expect Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn to step up to the plate and swing for the cause. Hahn, the daughter of former City Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, is now running for US Congress. The day following publication, Hahn cited my piece in the LA Times on her campaign website and issued the following statement: “The Dodgers have been previously owned by FOX and the McCourt family, it is clear that the only ones who have the teams best interest at heart are the fans. If elected to Congress, I will introduce an amended version of the ‘Give Fans A Chance Act’ which would allow Major League Baseball teams to be owned and operated by their fans, much like the Green Bay Packers are structured today.”
This is an idea whose time has come. Major League Baseball for years has relied on public subsidies to make mountainous profits. We have collectivized the debt and privatized the profit for years in operating the National Pastime. But now, as our states face historic cuts, it’s time for payback.
I spoke to 12th grade LA public school teacher Sarah Knopp, and she said,
"Just a percentage of the revenue from merchandise sales could help save the hundreds of art and music teachers being pink-slipped right now. At my small school for at-risk kids, art is one of the main tools that keeps students engaged and practicing higher-order thinking. And we're losing our art teacher. Then there’s physical education. Maybe Dodger revenue could help us to develop world-class sports programs, rather than cutting them. When I was a public school student, girls' sports were crucial for me during those formative years of self-esteem development. I'm scared that a whole generation of girls (and boys) will suffer the effects of not having those opportunities."
The only way this option could be pursued is with a tremendous amount of pressure. This pressure needs to be of two kinds: popular, fan-based pressure on Major League Baseball, and political pressure on—and through—the political powers in LA and California. People should rally, fans should hold up signs, politicians should be questioned, and every union in greater Los Angeles, should back Councilwoman Hahn's call. The Bud Selig alternative involves selling off the team to the highest bidder, with no guarantees this broken franchise would even stay in Los Angeles. Today Selig announced, that former member of the George W. Bush inner circle and Ambassador to Japan J. Thomas Schieffer would be running the team. This is not the right direction for the team or the city. The answer lies not in Bush-Land, but Green Bay.
It should be noted that this franchise was founded when it was stolen from the people of Brooklyn, Then the actual Dodgers Stadium was built on the original sin of the Chavez Ravine land grab. At that time, Chavez Ravine was a beloved residential community of Chicanos known to all as “the poor man’s Shangri La”. Shangri-La was seized by the state and handed over to owner Walter O’Malley. Second base now sits on what was once someone’s house. It’s long past time we take the team back. Doing so would rectify the past, aid the present, and maybe play a part in changing the future.
Dave Zirin is the author of “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) and just made the new documentary “Not Just a Game.” Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Showing posts with label Green Bay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Bay. Show all posts
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Aaron Rodgers: We Need Your Voice for Wisconsin's Working Families
by Dave Zirin | February 19, 2011
I believe in athletes having the freedom and space to take political stands without having to worry about media and corporate backlash. I believe in athletes having the freedom and space to NOT take political stands if that’s their choice. But I also believe that there are moments in history when silence itself becomes a political stand, a luxury we cannot afford. For Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl MVP quarterback, this is one of those moments. I’m just returning from Madison, Wisconsin where tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, unionists, and students, are fighting for their very lives. Day after day, I saw the crowds swell as people arrived on buses from across the state and even across the country. I saw feeder marches of 5,000 high school students chanting with an unguarded, proud fury you’d never know today’s teenagers possessed. I saw people dressed like King Tut with a banner saying they would “protest like Egyptians.” I spoke to nurses choking with rage that they would have to take second jobs or go onto food stamps if business as usual took place in the Capitol Building. I saw thousands sing the Wisconsin Badger football fight song, ending with “Fight Fight Fight and We’ll WIN THE DAY!” and they weren’t talking about football.
They’re trying to stop their Governor Scott Walker, also known as “The Mubarak of the Midwest”, from gutting their pay, benefits, and very right to collectively bargain. Walker has also threatened to bring in the National Guard if he can’t get his way. For those who don’t know, the budget “deficit”, Walker is so concerned about is a result of tax breaks he handed to out-of-state corporate donors, gutting the state’s surplus. Now he wants the workers to pay.
Already, five current and former members of the Super Bowl Champ Green Bay Packers, have spoken out against the bill. As Ed Garvey, the former head of the NFL Players Association, and proud Wisconsinite, said to me, “More Packers have now stood up for Wisconsin workers than DC democrats!” Already, the NFL Players Association has issued their own statement in support of Wisconsin’s working families. We must assume, that Aaron Rodgers, as the leader of the Packers and as the team’s union rep, has his fingerprints on both of these statements. But what we don’t have yet, is Aaron Rodgers’ voice.
Rodgers is a graduate of Cal Berkeley so he’s hardly unfamiliar with the power of protest. He’s, also according to my sources at the NFLPA, a fantastic union rep so he’s hardly unfamiliar with the critical necessity of collective bargaining rights. The crowds in Madison are aware of this as well. I saw dozens of Rodgers jerseys as well as signs that read, “Aaron Rodgers is a union rep!”
Gov. Walker wants a state where anything that’s not nailed down is for sale to multinational corporations. If he had his druthers, Lambeau Field would be renamed Kraft Macaroni and Cheesehead Stadium. Or he would just sell the team to Los Angeles for 50 cents on the dollar. He’s that craven, that unprincipled, that callous about the future for the people of Wisconsin.
Walker also says he has the “quiet majority” of Wisconsinites on his side. Given the unique place the Packers hold in the hearts of cheeseheads and given their status as a non-profit, fan owned team, there are no words for how much it would mean if Rodgers would issue a personal statement of solidarity. Last September, Rodgers said to the Sporting News, “Hopefully the legacy I’ll leave is one of somebody who was of high character, did things the right way, cared about his teammates, was coachable and was good to the community he lived in.” If that’s what Rodgers wants his legacy to be, the time is now. Aaron, your community needs you. Time to get your Berkeley-on and bring it to Badger-Land. One press conference, one quote, hell, one tweet. Anything but silence.
I believe in athletes having the freedom and space to take political stands without having to worry about media and corporate backlash. I believe in athletes having the freedom and space to NOT take political stands if that’s their choice. But I also believe that there are moments in history when silence itself becomes a political stand, a luxury we cannot afford. For Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl MVP quarterback, this is one of those moments. I’m just returning from Madison, Wisconsin where tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, unionists, and students, are fighting for their very lives. Day after day, I saw the crowds swell as people arrived on buses from across the state and even across the country. I saw feeder marches of 5,000 high school students chanting with an unguarded, proud fury you’d never know today’s teenagers possessed. I saw people dressed like King Tut with a banner saying they would “protest like Egyptians.” I spoke to nurses choking with rage that they would have to take second jobs or go onto food stamps if business as usual took place in the Capitol Building. I saw thousands sing the Wisconsin Badger football fight song, ending with “Fight Fight Fight and We’ll WIN THE DAY!” and they weren’t talking about football.
They’re trying to stop their Governor Scott Walker, also known as “The Mubarak of the Midwest”, from gutting their pay, benefits, and very right to collectively bargain. Walker has also threatened to bring in the National Guard if he can’t get his way. For those who don’t know, the budget “deficit”, Walker is so concerned about is a result of tax breaks he handed to out-of-state corporate donors, gutting the state’s surplus. Now he wants the workers to pay.
Already, five current and former members of the Super Bowl Champ Green Bay Packers, have spoken out against the bill. As Ed Garvey, the former head of the NFL Players Association, and proud Wisconsinite, said to me, “More Packers have now stood up for Wisconsin workers than DC democrats!” Already, the NFL Players Association has issued their own statement in support of Wisconsin’s working families. We must assume, that Aaron Rodgers, as the leader of the Packers and as the team’s union rep, has his fingerprints on both of these statements. But what we don’t have yet, is Aaron Rodgers’ voice.
Rodgers is a graduate of Cal Berkeley so he’s hardly unfamiliar with the power of protest. He’s, also according to my sources at the NFLPA, a fantastic union rep so he’s hardly unfamiliar with the critical necessity of collective bargaining rights. The crowds in Madison are aware of this as well. I saw dozens of Rodgers jerseys as well as signs that read, “Aaron Rodgers is a union rep!”
Gov. Walker wants a state where anything that’s not nailed down is for sale to multinational corporations. If he had his druthers, Lambeau Field would be renamed Kraft Macaroni and Cheesehead Stadium. Or he would just sell the team to Los Angeles for 50 cents on the dollar. He’s that craven, that unprincipled, that callous about the future for the people of Wisconsin.
Walker also says he has the “quiet majority” of Wisconsinites on his side. Given the unique place the Packers hold in the hearts of cheeseheads and given their status as a non-profit, fan owned team, there are no words for how much it would mean if Rodgers would issue a personal statement of solidarity. Last September, Rodgers said to the Sporting News, “Hopefully the legacy I’ll leave is one of somebody who was of high character, did things the right way, cared about his teammates, was coachable and was good to the community he lived in.” If that’s what Rodgers wants his legacy to be, the time is now. Aaron, your community needs you. Time to get your Berkeley-on and bring it to Badger-Land. One press conference, one quote, hell, one tweet. Anything but silence.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Those Non-Profit Packers
Dave Zirin
In a season where N.F.L. owners have steadily threatened to lock out the players next year unless they secure more profits in the next collective bargaining agreement, it’s poetic justice to see the Green Bay Packers, the team without an owner, make the Super Bowl. Actually, it’s not quite accurate to say the Packers are without an owner. They have a hundred and twelve thousand of them. The Packers are owned by the fans, making them the only publicly owned, not-for-profit, major professional team in the United States. The Pack have been a fan-owned operation since the primitive pro football days of the nineteen-twenties, when N.F.L. teams could be won in card games and no one foresaw the awesome power this sport would hold over both the American imagination and the American wallet.
In 1923, the Packers were just another hardscrabble team on the brink of bankruptcy. Rather than fold they decided to sell shares to the community, with fans each throwing down a couple of dollars to keep the team afloat. That humble frozen seed has since blossomed into a situation wherein more than a hundred thousand stockholders own more than four million shares of a perennial playoff contender. Those holding Packers stock are limited to no more than two hundred thousand shares, keeping any individual from gaining control over the club. Shareholders receive no dividend check and no free tickets to Lambeau Field. They don’t even get a foam cheesehead. All they get is a piece of paper that says they are part-owners of the Green Bay Packers. They don’t even get a green and gold frame for display purposes.
The shareholders elect a board of directors and a seven-member executive committee to stand in at N.F.L. owners meetings. But football decisions are made by General Manager Ted Thompson, perhaps the luckiest and happiest G.M. in sports. This structure allows Thompson to execute decisions, even unpopular ones, without an impatient, jittery billionaire breathing down his neck. Since his hire in January 2005, Thompson has made his share of controversial moves. But unlike his G.M. brethren around the league, who carry little or no job security, Thompson has been given the space to see his moves succeed or fail on their own accord. It was Thompson who decided to jettison legendary quarterback Brett Favre in 2008 for the unproven but younger and considerably lower maintenance Aaron Rodgers. Today, Favre is officially (we hope) retired and Rodgers stands at the pinnacle of his sport.
The Packers’ unique setup has created a relationship between team and community unlike any in the N.F.L. Wisconsin fans get to enjoy the team with the confidence that their owner won’t threaten to move to Los Angeles unless the team gets a new mega-dome. Volunteers work concessions, with sixty per cent of the proceeds going to local charities. Even the beer is cheaper than at a typical N.F.L. stadium. Not only has home field been sold out for two decades, but during snowstorms, the team routinely puts out calls for volunteers to help shovel and is never disappointed by the response. It doesn’t matter how beloved the Cowboys are in Dallas; if Jerry Jones ever put out a call for free labor, he’d be laughed out of town.
Here are the Packers: financially solvent, competitive, and deeply connected to the hundred thousand person city of Green Bay. It’s a beautiful story but it’s one that the N.F.L. and Commissioner Roger Goodell take great pains both to hide and make sure no other locality replicates. It’s actually written in the N.F.L. bylaws that no team can be a non-profit, community owned entity. The late N.F.L. commissioner Pete Rozelle had it written into the league’s constitution in 1960. Article V, Section 4—otherwise known as the Green Bay Rule—states that “charitable organizations and/or corporations not organized for profit and not now a member of the league may not hold membership in the National Football League.”
I talked with Rick Chernick, a member of the Packers board of directors, about whether other communities should challenge the N.F.L. constitution and be like Green Bay. Chernick expressed doubt, saying:
"I’m just not sure in today’s day and age a team could follow the Packer way. The cost of ownership is a ton today, thus being almost an impossible task without deep pockets. Green Bay is truly a special, special situation."
Chernick makes a valid point. But there is a strong counterargument as well. It may be exorbitantly expensive to run a team, but people don’t buy N.F.L. teams as a civic service. Being an N.F.L. owner is like having a license to print money. Television contracts alone run in the billions, with the 2006-2011 contracts valued at approximately $3 billion annually, $800 million more than the previous contracts. In addition, N.F.L. teams have received $6 billion in public funds to build the current crop of stadiums. In other words, the public is already shouldering a great deal of the cost and debt for N.F.L. franchises. But these public dollars, through some sort of magic alchemy, morph into private profits that often flow away from the communities that ponied up the dough. In the United States, we socialize the debt of sports and privatize the profits. Green Bay stands as a living, breathing, and, for the owners, frightening example, that pro sports can aid our cities in tough economic times, not drain them of scarce public resources.
Fans in San Diego and Minnesota, in particular, where local N.F.L. owners are threatening to uproot the home teams and move them to Los Angeles, might look toward Green Bay and wonder whether they could do a better job than the men in the owner’s box. And if N.F.L. owners go ahead and lock the players out next season, more than a few long suffering fans might look at their long suffering franchises and ask, “Maybe we don’t need owners at all.” It has worked in Green Bay—all the way to the Super Bowl.
In a season where N.F.L. owners have steadily threatened to lock out the players next year unless they secure more profits in the next collective bargaining agreement, it’s poetic justice to see the Green Bay Packers, the team without an owner, make the Super Bowl. Actually, it’s not quite accurate to say the Packers are without an owner. They have a hundred and twelve thousand of them. The Packers are owned by the fans, making them the only publicly owned, not-for-profit, major professional team in the United States. The Pack have been a fan-owned operation since the primitive pro football days of the nineteen-twenties, when N.F.L. teams could be won in card games and no one foresaw the awesome power this sport would hold over both the American imagination and the American wallet.
In 1923, the Packers were just another hardscrabble team on the brink of bankruptcy. Rather than fold they decided to sell shares to the community, with fans each throwing down a couple of dollars to keep the team afloat. That humble frozen seed has since blossomed into a situation wherein more than a hundred thousand stockholders own more than four million shares of a perennial playoff contender. Those holding Packers stock are limited to no more than two hundred thousand shares, keeping any individual from gaining control over the club. Shareholders receive no dividend check and no free tickets to Lambeau Field. They don’t even get a foam cheesehead. All they get is a piece of paper that says they are part-owners of the Green Bay Packers. They don’t even get a green and gold frame for display purposes.
The shareholders elect a board of directors and a seven-member executive committee to stand in at N.F.L. owners meetings. But football decisions are made by General Manager Ted Thompson, perhaps the luckiest and happiest G.M. in sports. This structure allows Thompson to execute decisions, even unpopular ones, without an impatient, jittery billionaire breathing down his neck. Since his hire in January 2005, Thompson has made his share of controversial moves. But unlike his G.M. brethren around the league, who carry little or no job security, Thompson has been given the space to see his moves succeed or fail on their own accord. It was Thompson who decided to jettison legendary quarterback Brett Favre in 2008 for the unproven but younger and considerably lower maintenance Aaron Rodgers. Today, Favre is officially (we hope) retired and Rodgers stands at the pinnacle of his sport.
The Packers’ unique setup has created a relationship between team and community unlike any in the N.F.L. Wisconsin fans get to enjoy the team with the confidence that their owner won’t threaten to move to Los Angeles unless the team gets a new mega-dome. Volunteers work concessions, with sixty per cent of the proceeds going to local charities. Even the beer is cheaper than at a typical N.F.L. stadium. Not only has home field been sold out for two decades, but during snowstorms, the team routinely puts out calls for volunteers to help shovel and is never disappointed by the response. It doesn’t matter how beloved the Cowboys are in Dallas; if Jerry Jones ever put out a call for free labor, he’d be laughed out of town.
Here are the Packers: financially solvent, competitive, and deeply connected to the hundred thousand person city of Green Bay. It’s a beautiful story but it’s one that the N.F.L. and Commissioner Roger Goodell take great pains both to hide and make sure no other locality replicates. It’s actually written in the N.F.L. bylaws that no team can be a non-profit, community owned entity. The late N.F.L. commissioner Pete Rozelle had it written into the league’s constitution in 1960. Article V, Section 4—otherwise known as the Green Bay Rule—states that “charitable organizations and/or corporations not organized for profit and not now a member of the league may not hold membership in the National Football League.”
I talked with Rick Chernick, a member of the Packers board of directors, about whether other communities should challenge the N.F.L. constitution and be like Green Bay. Chernick expressed doubt, saying:
"I’m just not sure in today’s day and age a team could follow the Packer way. The cost of ownership is a ton today, thus being almost an impossible task without deep pockets. Green Bay is truly a special, special situation."
Chernick makes a valid point. But there is a strong counterargument as well. It may be exorbitantly expensive to run a team, but people don’t buy N.F.L. teams as a civic service. Being an N.F.L. owner is like having a license to print money. Television contracts alone run in the billions, with the 2006-2011 contracts valued at approximately $3 billion annually, $800 million more than the previous contracts. In addition, N.F.L. teams have received $6 billion in public funds to build the current crop of stadiums. In other words, the public is already shouldering a great deal of the cost and debt for N.F.L. franchises. But these public dollars, through some sort of magic alchemy, morph into private profits that often flow away from the communities that ponied up the dough. In the United States, we socialize the debt of sports and privatize the profits. Green Bay stands as a living, breathing, and, for the owners, frightening example, that pro sports can aid our cities in tough economic times, not drain them of scarce public resources.
Fans in San Diego and Minnesota, in particular, where local N.F.L. owners are threatening to uproot the home teams and move them to Los Angeles, might look toward Green Bay and wonder whether they could do a better job than the men in the owner’s box. And if N.F.L. owners go ahead and lock the players out next season, more than a few long suffering fans might look at their long suffering franchises and ask, “Maybe we don’t need owners at all.” It has worked in Green Bay—all the way to the Super Bowl.
Football Season Is Over: 2011 Officially Begins
In the final insult to a completely humiliating season for Brett Favre, the Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl XLV, beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25. It's their fourth SB title, and it took Packers QB Aaron Rodgers three years to win one, as many as Favre had in his entire career. Rodgers, unlike Favre, also won the game's MVP award, passing for 304 yards and 3 touchdowns. The curse of the Lutefisk continues...
The game was watched by a record 111 million in the US, 4.5 million more than last year's game and 5 million more than the final episode of M*A*S*H. Probably the coolest ad: a young boy dressed like Darth Vader trying to use The Force to open a 2012 Volkswagen Passat.
The NFL changed things around this year, presenting all the season best awards during the week. Here's the winners:
MVP: Tom Brady, New England Patriots
Offensive Player of the Year: Tom Brady, New England Patriots
Defensive Player of the Year: Troy Polamalu, Pittsburgh Steelers
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Ndamukong Suh, Detroit Lions
Coach of the Year: Bill Belichick, New England Patriots
Comeback of the Year: Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles
And finally, the Hall of Fame picks: modern era players Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk, Richard Dent and Shannon Sharpe, NFL Films founder Ed Sabol and senior picks Chris Hanburger and Les Richter. A good list, though it contains some snubs: Faulk got in over running backs Jerome Bettis and Curtis Martin, wide receivers Chris Carter and Tim Brown were left out, and five time Super Bowl champ Charles Haley failed to make the cut. And then there's Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler and punter Ray Guy, the two most offensive long-term snubs from Canton...
The game was watched by a record 111 million in the US, 4.5 million more than last year's game and 5 million more than the final episode of M*A*S*H. Probably the coolest ad: a young boy dressed like Darth Vader trying to use The Force to open a 2012 Volkswagen Passat.
The NFL changed things around this year, presenting all the season best awards during the week. Here's the winners:
MVP: Tom Brady, New England Patriots
Offensive Player of the Year: Tom Brady, New England Patriots
Defensive Player of the Year: Troy Polamalu, Pittsburgh Steelers
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Ndamukong Suh, Detroit Lions
Coach of the Year: Bill Belichick, New England Patriots
Comeback of the Year: Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles
And finally, the Hall of Fame picks: modern era players Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk, Richard Dent and Shannon Sharpe, NFL Films founder Ed Sabol and senior picks Chris Hanburger and Les Richter. A good list, though it contains some snubs: Faulk got in over running backs Jerome Bettis and Curtis Martin, wide receivers Chris Carter and Tim Brown were left out, and five time Super Bowl champ Charles Haley failed to make the cut. And then there's Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler and punter Ray Guy, the two most offensive long-term snubs from Canton...
Friday, January 29, 2010
Silver Lining for Vikings Fans (Politically)
by Dave Zirin
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/521374/silver_lining_for_vikings_fans_politically
This is a day to empathize with the agony amongst the long-suffering fans of the Minnesota Vikings. With a trip to the Super Bowl in their buttery grasp, they fumbled it all away. In a game they largely dominated from start-to-finish, the Vikes lost in overtime to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship Game, 31-28. Miscues, interceptions, and some questionable calls will have Vikings Nation asking "what if" for the next nine months.
Yes, there is misery in Minnesota. But there is also a silver lining, and I'm not talking about the joy in Green Bay at the spectacular fall of Minnesota QB Brett Favre. Vikings owner Zygi Wilf was locked and loaded to arrive at the Minnesota State Legislature on February 4 - three days before the Super Bowl - to press for a new $1 billion stadium with $700 million to be paid by the taxpayers. The Vikings, like many teams, is holding up the specter of moving the franchise to Los Angeles if they don't get a nine-figure welfare check. With the state's phony populist absentee governor Tim "Glass Jaw" Pawlenty saying little more than, "We have to keep the Vikings no matter what," Wilf was ready to roll the state's taxpayers. But now that the team has failed to reach the Big Game, the wind is out of Wilf's sails and Zygi is no longer coated with stardust. This isn't to say that Wilf won't emerge triumphant, but without the team in the Super Bowl, it's much more apparent that he will have a fight on his hands.
As Minnesota resident and dogged stadium opponent Willard Shapira wrote, "Most communities around the U.S. have caved in to such outrageous demands but socially concerned Minnesotans are fighting the Vikings tooth and nail. Others around the U.S. battling big-money and establishment power politics would take heart from a public victory over the Vikings and their gang of arrogant, plutocratic conspirators in business, politics and the media."
Remember that Minnesotans repeatedly rejected the Twins billionaire owner Carl Pohlad's efforts to get a new baseball stadium on the public dime. Despite their votes, Pawlenty rammed the $500 million facility through the legislature and it opens for business this spring. Now the owner called "the Big Bad Wilf" wants his piece of the public pie, recession be damned. The Vikings failure to make the Super Bowl makes his effort far more perilous.
On the flip side, and ever so ironically, New Orleans first trip to the Super Bowl makes it a near impossibility for the Saints owners, the Benson family, to fulfill their pre-Katrina dreams of moving their franchise to the City of Angels. If they made that move, I'm convinced that the Crescent City would implode with grief. Now, as a Super Bowl team, that move becomes a political impossibility.
Therefore in one tense contest to see who would ascend to the Super Bowl, two sets of owners saw their most treasured dreams to burn tax payers and break hearts go up in smoke. That's something all fans should cheer. Even in Minnesota.
Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/521374/silver_lining_for_vikings_fans_politically
This is a day to empathize with the agony amongst the long-suffering fans of the Minnesota Vikings. With a trip to the Super Bowl in their buttery grasp, they fumbled it all away. In a game they largely dominated from start-to-finish, the Vikes lost in overtime to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship Game, 31-28. Miscues, interceptions, and some questionable calls will have Vikings Nation asking "what if" for the next nine months.
Yes, there is misery in Minnesota. But there is also a silver lining, and I'm not talking about the joy in Green Bay at the spectacular fall of Minnesota QB Brett Favre. Vikings owner Zygi Wilf was locked and loaded to arrive at the Minnesota State Legislature on February 4 - three days before the Super Bowl - to press for a new $1 billion stadium with $700 million to be paid by the taxpayers. The Vikings, like many teams, is holding up the specter of moving the franchise to Los Angeles if they don't get a nine-figure welfare check. With the state's phony populist absentee governor Tim "Glass Jaw" Pawlenty saying little more than, "We have to keep the Vikings no matter what," Wilf was ready to roll the state's taxpayers. But now that the team has failed to reach the Big Game, the wind is out of Wilf's sails and Zygi is no longer coated with stardust. This isn't to say that Wilf won't emerge triumphant, but without the team in the Super Bowl, it's much more apparent that he will have a fight on his hands.
As Minnesota resident and dogged stadium opponent Willard Shapira wrote, "Most communities around the U.S. have caved in to such outrageous demands but socially concerned Minnesotans are fighting the Vikings tooth and nail. Others around the U.S. battling big-money and establishment power politics would take heart from a public victory over the Vikings and their gang of arrogant, plutocratic conspirators in business, politics and the media."
Remember that Minnesotans repeatedly rejected the Twins billionaire owner Carl Pohlad's efforts to get a new baseball stadium on the public dime. Despite their votes, Pawlenty rammed the $500 million facility through the legislature and it opens for business this spring. Now the owner called "the Big Bad Wilf" wants his piece of the public pie, recession be damned. The Vikings failure to make the Super Bowl makes his effort far more perilous.
On the flip side, and ever so ironically, New Orleans first trip to the Super Bowl makes it a near impossibility for the Saints owners, the Benson family, to fulfill their pre-Katrina dreams of moving their franchise to the City of Angels. If they made that move, I'm convinced that the Crescent City would implode with grief. Now, as a Super Bowl team, that move becomes a political impossibility.
Therefore in one tense contest to see who would ascend to the Super Bowl, two sets of owners saw their most treasured dreams to burn tax payers and break hearts go up in smoke. That's something all fans should cheer. Even in Minnesota.
Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Vikings' Favre embarrasses Thompson, Packers
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/10175662/Vikings'-Favre-embarrasses-Thompson,-Packers
Vikings' Favre embarrasses Thompson, Packers
by Alex Marvez
Alex Marvez is a Senior NFL Writer for FOXSports.com. He's covered the NFL for the past 15 seasons as a beat writer and is the former president of the Pro Football Writers of America.
October 6, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS - This was the matchup Green Bay never wanted to happen.
Now we know why.
Losing to a hated division rival is painful enough. Being tormented by a Packers legend is an outright embarrassment to the franchise.
Brett Favre got what he wanted.
There is no greater revenge that Favre could have personally extracted on Packers general manager Ted Thompson than the humiliation he delivered Monday night. Wearing a throwback Minnesota Vikings jersey, Favre turned the clock back to the days when he was winning three NFL Most Valuable Player awards in Green Bay before being shipped out of town.
Favre coolly channeled the inner rage toward how his 16-season Packers tenure ended into one of the most rewarding performances in a Hall of Fame career. A 271-yard, three-touchdown effort paced Minnesota's 30-23 home victory.
Just like during the week preceding the game, Favre tried downplaying the personal satisfaction of sticking it to the Packers. That's OK. Favre's teammates spilled the beans on what this game meant to him.
"Just the determination in his eyes, you could tell this was a little extra," Vikings running back Adrian Peterson said.
Peterson then laughed and said, "It wasn't just another game. We can admit that now."
The reason dates back to summer of 2008 when Favre decided to emerge from his first retirement. The Packers had vigorously tried to keep Favre from playing in Minnesota once it became clear the Vikings had interest and Green Bay was moving on with Aaron Rodgers as its starting quarterback. Packers management first tried persuading Favre to stay retired with a lucrative post-football endorsement deal. When that didn't work, Thompson refused to trade Favre to Minnesota and instead dealt him to the New York Jets. Thompson even included language that required New York to provide Green Bay heavy draft-pick compensation if Favre was ever sent to the Vikings.
A bitter Favre took verbal shots at Thompson, a good man who was in a tough spot because of the quarterback's offseason waffling and the much-younger Rodgers being ready to play. Favre never called Rodgers to offer advice on trying to fill his giant shoes. And as first reported by FOXSports.com NFL insider Jay Glazer, Favre spilled secrets about Green Bay to Detroit during a telephone conversation before a 2008 early-season game.
But the most harmful thing he did to the Packers? Favre found a way to Minnesota even if it was one season late. Favre and his agent shrewdly negotiated his outright release from the Jets after New York selected replacement quarterback Mark Sanchez in April's draft. That cleared the way for Favre to do the unthinkable for Packers faithful: Come out of retirement again to wear purple, white and yellow.
"I know there are Packers fans out there who like me and there are those who are unhappy," Favre said during his postgame news conference. "I can understand how they feel."
Favre, though, clearly has no remorse about extending his NFL career elsewhere.
"As long as the guys in the locker room give me a good chance to win, that's all that really matters," Favre said.
With the Vikings at 4-0, it's obvious they do.
Green Bay's defense contained star Vikings running back Adrian Peterson (55 yards on 25 carries) but had no answer for a familiar face. Early in the third quarter, Favre's massive offensive line provided almost eight seconds of protection on a drop-back that he converted into a 25-yard completion to tight end Jeff Dugan. On the next snap, Favre fooled cornerback Al Harris with a pump-fake. That freed wide receiver Bernard Berrian down the sideline for a 31-yard touchdown strike as a trailing Harris pointed at Packers safety Derrick Martin bemoaning the lack of coverage help.
The play that put Minnesota up 28-14 was just a small part of a game-long quarterback clinic. Despite saying he was "about as nervous as I've ever been before a game going into this one," Favre started hot and stayed that way. He connected on all five of his passing attempts on Minnesota's opening drive, capping it with a 1-yard touchdown throw. Favre started the play by rolling right but fullback Naufahu Tahi was covered. Favre, though, didn't hesitate. He stopped and fired back across the field to tight end Visanthe Shiancoe for the score.
A scene Green Bay knows all too well followed: A Favre touchdown celebration. He ran around wildly, stuck his finger in the air and leapt for a body-bump with kicker Ryan Longwell.
So much for the foot injury that limited Favre in last week's practices.
Favre was at it again in the second quarter after Green Bay had tied the score at 7. On third-and-11 from the Packers 14-yard line, Favre dropped back and pumped to his left. He then avoided Green Bay's pass rush by shifting slightly to the right before gunning a touchdown pass down the middle to wide receiver Sidney Rice.
So much for concerns about Favre's arm strength after offseason biceps surgery.
The Packers countered with their second big play of the game, a strip of Peterson and 42-yard fumble return for a touchdown by rookie linebacker Clay Matthews. Peterson, though, was soon making amends with a 1-yard touchdown plunge. That's because Favre quickly marched Minnesota downfield with completions of 16, 19 and 43 yards to Rice, running back Chester Taylor and rookie wideout Percy Harvin. By the time he was done Monday night, Favre had connected with eight receivers.
So much for Favre needing more "bonding" with his targets.
In fact, just about everything Favre has done in 2009 defies conventional NFL wisdom. Nobody returns from two separate retirements. Players — especially quarterbacks — are supposed to need offseason programs for conditioning, mastery of the playbook and bonding with teammates. Plus, Favre's wishy-washy behavior until deciding to return midway through training camp would have alienated other coaches without nearly as much patience — and perhaps desperation — as Minnesota's Brad Childress.
Entering the game, Favre was more caretaker than difference-maker in Minnesota's offense. His average per completion (6.0 yards) was Favre's lowest in 18 seasons. Favre's lack of mobility also was exposed with nine sacks through three contests.
But while not as spry, Favre — who turns 40 Saturday — also is playing smarter football than at maybe any other point in his NFL career. The risk-taking that led to so many roller-coaster Favre moments — mostly good, some bad — is greatly tempered. An efficient Favre has only one interception through four games, his lowest total ever as an NFL starter.
The old Favre magic in crunch time is still there as well. Favre proved that eight days earlier when hitting Greg Lewis on an improbable game-winning touchdown pass against San Francisco.
He didn't need any late heroics this time. A Jared Allen-led defense sacked Rodgers eight times, notched one safety and forced two turnovers that were converted to touchdowns. The Packers (2-2) also doomed themselves by failing to convert on three consecutive plays from the Vikings 1 late in the third quarter. A fourth-down drop by tight end Donald Lee essentially sealed Green Bay's fate despite a rally that fell short in the final minute.
"We wanted to make a statement," Packers linebacker Aaron Kampman said. "It's a frustrating deal. We have to fix this team."
Favre didn't take any extra joy publicly in helping to break the Packers, a team he will be facing again Nov. 1 at Lambeau Field in what will be another emotionally charged encounter. But when asked whether he wanted to keep the football from the final snap that reserve quarterback Sage Rosenfels salvaged from the referee, Favre didn't decline the gift.
Rather than taking a spot on Favre's mantle, the ball actually belongs in the Hall of Fame. Favre is now the first starting quarterback in NFL history to defeat all 32 NFL teams — a scenario Thompson made possible by cutting ties with a player whose bust will be in Canton soon enough.
Vikings' Favre embarrasses Thompson, Packers
by Alex Marvez
Alex Marvez is a Senior NFL Writer for FOXSports.com. He's covered the NFL for the past 15 seasons as a beat writer and is the former president of the Pro Football Writers of America.
October 6, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS - This was the matchup Green Bay never wanted to happen.
Now we know why.
Losing to a hated division rival is painful enough. Being tormented by a Packers legend is an outright embarrassment to the franchise.
Brett Favre got what he wanted.
There is no greater revenge that Favre could have personally extracted on Packers general manager Ted Thompson than the humiliation he delivered Monday night. Wearing a throwback Minnesota Vikings jersey, Favre turned the clock back to the days when he was winning three NFL Most Valuable Player awards in Green Bay before being shipped out of town.
Favre coolly channeled the inner rage toward how his 16-season Packers tenure ended into one of the most rewarding performances in a Hall of Fame career. A 271-yard, three-touchdown effort paced Minnesota's 30-23 home victory.
Just like during the week preceding the game, Favre tried downplaying the personal satisfaction of sticking it to the Packers. That's OK. Favre's teammates spilled the beans on what this game meant to him.
"Just the determination in his eyes, you could tell this was a little extra," Vikings running back Adrian Peterson said.
Peterson then laughed and said, "It wasn't just another game. We can admit that now."
The reason dates back to summer of 2008 when Favre decided to emerge from his first retirement. The Packers had vigorously tried to keep Favre from playing in Minnesota once it became clear the Vikings had interest and Green Bay was moving on with Aaron Rodgers as its starting quarterback. Packers management first tried persuading Favre to stay retired with a lucrative post-football endorsement deal. When that didn't work, Thompson refused to trade Favre to Minnesota and instead dealt him to the New York Jets. Thompson even included language that required New York to provide Green Bay heavy draft-pick compensation if Favre was ever sent to the Vikings.
A bitter Favre took verbal shots at Thompson, a good man who was in a tough spot because of the quarterback's offseason waffling and the much-younger Rodgers being ready to play. Favre never called Rodgers to offer advice on trying to fill his giant shoes. And as first reported by FOXSports.com NFL insider Jay Glazer, Favre spilled secrets about Green Bay to Detroit during a telephone conversation before a 2008 early-season game.
But the most harmful thing he did to the Packers? Favre found a way to Minnesota even if it was one season late. Favre and his agent shrewdly negotiated his outright release from the Jets after New York selected replacement quarterback Mark Sanchez in April's draft. That cleared the way for Favre to do the unthinkable for Packers faithful: Come out of retirement again to wear purple, white and yellow.
"I know there are Packers fans out there who like me and there are those who are unhappy," Favre said during his postgame news conference. "I can understand how they feel."
Favre, though, clearly has no remorse about extending his NFL career elsewhere.
"As long as the guys in the locker room give me a good chance to win, that's all that really matters," Favre said.
With the Vikings at 4-0, it's obvious they do.
Green Bay's defense contained star Vikings running back Adrian Peterson (55 yards on 25 carries) but had no answer for a familiar face. Early in the third quarter, Favre's massive offensive line provided almost eight seconds of protection on a drop-back that he converted into a 25-yard completion to tight end Jeff Dugan. On the next snap, Favre fooled cornerback Al Harris with a pump-fake. That freed wide receiver Bernard Berrian down the sideline for a 31-yard touchdown strike as a trailing Harris pointed at Packers safety Derrick Martin bemoaning the lack of coverage help.
The play that put Minnesota up 28-14 was just a small part of a game-long quarterback clinic. Despite saying he was "about as nervous as I've ever been before a game going into this one," Favre started hot and stayed that way. He connected on all five of his passing attempts on Minnesota's opening drive, capping it with a 1-yard touchdown throw. Favre started the play by rolling right but fullback Naufahu Tahi was covered. Favre, though, didn't hesitate. He stopped and fired back across the field to tight end Visanthe Shiancoe for the score.
A scene Green Bay knows all too well followed: A Favre touchdown celebration. He ran around wildly, stuck his finger in the air and leapt for a body-bump with kicker Ryan Longwell.
So much for the foot injury that limited Favre in last week's practices.
Favre was at it again in the second quarter after Green Bay had tied the score at 7. On third-and-11 from the Packers 14-yard line, Favre dropped back and pumped to his left. He then avoided Green Bay's pass rush by shifting slightly to the right before gunning a touchdown pass down the middle to wide receiver Sidney Rice.
So much for concerns about Favre's arm strength after offseason biceps surgery.
The Packers countered with their second big play of the game, a strip of Peterson and 42-yard fumble return for a touchdown by rookie linebacker Clay Matthews. Peterson, though, was soon making amends with a 1-yard touchdown plunge. That's because Favre quickly marched Minnesota downfield with completions of 16, 19 and 43 yards to Rice, running back Chester Taylor and rookie wideout Percy Harvin. By the time he was done Monday night, Favre had connected with eight receivers.
So much for Favre needing more "bonding" with his targets.
In fact, just about everything Favre has done in 2009 defies conventional NFL wisdom. Nobody returns from two separate retirements. Players — especially quarterbacks — are supposed to need offseason programs for conditioning, mastery of the playbook and bonding with teammates. Plus, Favre's wishy-washy behavior until deciding to return midway through training camp would have alienated other coaches without nearly as much patience — and perhaps desperation — as Minnesota's Brad Childress.
Entering the game, Favre was more caretaker than difference-maker in Minnesota's offense. His average per completion (6.0 yards) was Favre's lowest in 18 seasons. Favre's lack of mobility also was exposed with nine sacks through three contests.
But while not as spry, Favre — who turns 40 Saturday — also is playing smarter football than at maybe any other point in his NFL career. The risk-taking that led to so many roller-coaster Favre moments — mostly good, some bad — is greatly tempered. An efficient Favre has only one interception through four games, his lowest total ever as an NFL starter.
The old Favre magic in crunch time is still there as well. Favre proved that eight days earlier when hitting Greg Lewis on an improbable game-winning touchdown pass against San Francisco.
He didn't need any late heroics this time. A Jared Allen-led defense sacked Rodgers eight times, notched one safety and forced two turnovers that were converted to touchdowns. The Packers (2-2) also doomed themselves by failing to convert on three consecutive plays from the Vikings 1 late in the third quarter. A fourth-down drop by tight end Donald Lee essentially sealed Green Bay's fate despite a rally that fell short in the final minute.
"We wanted to make a statement," Packers linebacker Aaron Kampman said. "It's a frustrating deal. We have to fix this team."
Favre didn't take any extra joy publicly in helping to break the Packers, a team he will be facing again Nov. 1 at Lambeau Field in what will be another emotionally charged encounter. But when asked whether he wanted to keep the football from the final snap that reserve quarterback Sage Rosenfels salvaged from the referee, Favre didn't decline the gift.
Rather than taking a spot on Favre's mantle, the ball actually belongs in the Hall of Fame. Favre is now the first starting quarterback in NFL history to defeat all 32 NFL teams — a scenario Thompson made possible by cutting ties with a player whose bust will be in Canton soon enough.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Steroids fueled spectacular rise and fall
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4073575
April 17, 2009Steroids fueled spectacular rise and fall
By Kory Kozak
ESPN
The Story Of Tony Mandarich
Tony Mandarich discusses his steroid-fueled rise to top NFL prospect and his status as one of the biggest draft busts of all time
How could he not be great in the NFL? How could Tony Mandarich possibly be a bust?
I saw what might have been in 1988. I was an 18-year-old freshman defensive end at Rutgers. At that point, the Rutgers football slogan was "On the Rise" because we were always mediocre in those days. Our first game that season was against Michigan State, the 15th-ranked team in the country and defending Rose Bowl champ. They had an All-America tackle -- Tony Mandarich -- who was humiliating players every week.
He was 6-foot-6, 320 pounds. He was huge. He was a mutant. He was all-natural? Impossible.
I was all-natural, tipping the scales at about 230 and having already lost about 10 precious pounds in training camp.
Not a great matchup. You can imagine how that would have turned out. But it never happened. I was redshirted and wasn't going to see the field unless the seven or eight players in front of me were maimed.
And Mandarich, ultimately, was suspended. He sat out the first three games of the season after applying for the NFL draft.
During training camp, we studied Michigan State's offensive line on film. Watching the Rose Bowl, we saw Mandarich pancaking Tim Ryan from USC on one play, driving him out of the film frame on the next. It wasn't as if Ryan was terrible; the guy was a first-round pick of the Bears a year later.
Our reaction? Laughter. Not because Ryan was getting destroyed, but because we weren't. That wasn't going to be us because he wasn't playing.
We watched more film, and it wasn't only Ryan. We saw an All-America defensive end pinned to the ground by Mandarich, a linebacker from Wisconsin on skates 10 yards downfield, a defensive tackle from Ohio State curled up in the fetal position. The worst was the Iowa team captain who went for the trifecta: on skates for 10 yards, pinned to the ground and then curled up in the fetal position.
It didn't stop there.
Mandarich punched an Ohio State player during the coin toss and told him he "was going to die today." He drove a Northwestern player into the end zone, pancaked him and then told the player to "stay there."
Sometimes he was blocking two players at a time. Who does that? It was a no-brainer that Mandarich was the most dominant college offensive lineman ever. Maybe not the best, but definitely the most dominant.
How could he not make it in the NFL?
The Unnatural
Well, for starters, he was cheating.
He was chemically enhanced to the nth degree. He was the Six Million Dollar Man of steroids.
"I was taking Winstrol V, equipoise, Anadrol 50s, testosterone, Anavar, Dianabol," he told me dispassionately in an ESPN interview last month at the W Hotel, near his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Mandarich says he started using steroids in 1984, and was able to beat NCAA testing at the Rose and Gator bowls.
Twenty years after he was the second player taken in the 1989 NFL draft, Mandarich is 42 years old. He looks like a cross between Judas Priest's Rob Halford and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. He's still huge and looks as if he could still play. He told me he had been taking steroids since May 1984.
His older brother, John, who was playing at Kent State, turned Mandarich onto them. His usage escalated during his time at Michigan State. The rumors of steroids started to surface, but schools were not testing for steroids yet, and the NCAA tested only at bowl games. Mandarich kept beating the system. He cheated on the tests for the Rose and Gator bowls.
"I basically strapped something to my back a little -- it was actually a little doggie toy," Mandarich said in an interview that stretched longer than 2½ hours. "Hooked up a little hose to it … ran a tube underneath and put a piece of gum to cap the tube."
As a player, his legend was growing. So was his ego.
"You're not supposed to be as strong as I am. You're not supposed to be as fast as I am. You're not supposed to be as good as I am," Mandarich said in the midst of his steroid haze in 1989.
He dropped out of Michigan State after the Gator Bowl and moved to Los Angeles. It was where he wanted to be -- a big city with big-city media. He had big plans. He wanted to play football for six or seven years in the NFL, win Mr. Universe and then move on to the movies. He wanted to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was hanging out with Guns N' Roses, and he had the tattoos to prove it.
All the while, against the general rules of nature, Tony kept getting bigger, stronger and faster. He hosted his own combine at Michigan State that spring. The numbers were staggering:
Weight: 308 pounds
Bench press: 39 repetitions at 225 pounds
40-yard dash: 4.69 seconds.
The hype machine was at full throttle.
Sports Illustrated, memorably, put him on the cover, shirtless and massive. It called him "the best offensive line prospect ever." It bragged of his insane 15,000-calorie diet and his love for Axl Rose.
I put that SI cover on my dorm wall. Every lineman -- high school or college -- probably did the same. He was what all of us aspired to be: huge, cut and nasty on the football field. He was supposed to change offensive linemen forever. He was the anti-Reggie White, the guy who was built to block men like White and maybe even dominate them.
Before the 1989 draft, Sports Illustrated put Mandarich on the cover, shirtless and massive. They called him "the best offensive line prospect ever."
As the 1989 draft approached, Mandarich was the highest-rated player on the board. Higher than Troy Aikman. Higher than Barry Sanders. Higher than Deion Sanders and Derrick Thomas. It was on. He had serious clout. Mandarich could call his own shot. Everyone had bought in. Almost everyone.
The Kansas City Chiefs were courting Mandarich because they had one of the top five picks in the draft. General manager Carl Peterson and coach Marty Schottenheimer took him out to dinner. They asked him whether he was on steroids, Mandarich says. Fair question. Mandarich said he had never failed a drug test. Not exactly what the coach wanted to hear.
According to Mandarich, Schottenheimer looked him square in the eye and said, "I think you're lying."
"If you think I am lying," Mandarich said coolly, "then don't draft me."
His arrogance with NFL teams did not stop there.
"I had said even before the draft that I did not want to get drafted by the Packers," Mandarich said. "I didn't want to play in a small market. I called Green Bay a village. Some of the stuff I said, when I look back now, is just embarrassing."
Saying it, he truly sounds embarrassed, maybe even disgusted.
Needless to say, the Packers took Mandarich second overall, after the Cowboys took Aikman. Some experts thought Dallas was crazy for not taking Mandarich.
The Packers weren't planning to pay him the $1.1 million per year that he was demanding. So, Mandarich cranked up the hype again. He held out of Packers camp. Then he appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman."
Mandarich: "I want to fight Tyson."
Letterman: "Oh, geez … what kind of a guy does it take to sit here and say that?"
The Packers might lose Mandarich to boxing? They had to ante up. And they did.
A mythical monster
Green Bay had no idea what it was getting for its $4.4 million; Mandarich was the first offensive lineman to make seven figures a season.
Mandarich missed the entire training camp. He wasn't ready to play in the NFL's pass-first game. Michigan State threw the ball maybe 10 times a game in those days, and pass blocking was not Mandarich's strong suit.
But something else was happening, and it wasn't just steroids.
Mandarich had stopped taking steroids just before the combine for fear of getting caught by the NFL drug-testers. Those guys actually watch you fill the cup from point-blank range. No dog toys to save him there.
Mandarich was an utter disappointment in Green Bay, and he never made it on the field in the final season of a four-year, $4.4 million deal.
The bigger issue, according to Mandarich, was an addiction to painkillers. He was a junkie. By the time he arrived in Green Bay, he was hooked. As he ended his steroid usage, he started taking painkillers to get rid of the aches and pains from his intense weight training.
He wasn't messing around, either. He was main-lining them. Straight into the vein. Six or seven times a day. Even during practice.
"I was getting really paranoid about people finding out, so what I would do with that bottle and a syringe, I would put it in my jock strap," Mandarich said. "I'd say 'Hey, I've got to go to the bathroom,' lock myself in the bathroom, take a shot, and then come back out to practice and get ready for one-on-one pass drills with the defensive line, and I'm half in the bag."
He did this every day. Stadol, Fiorinal #3, Valium, Percodan, Percocet, Vicodin. The shots eventually became pills because they were easier to come by, and sometimes the pills were replaced by booze.
Mandarich created a monster built on lies. It was all torn down in a few months. He was the bust to end all busts. He never got on the field for the last year of his contract, 1992, and Mike Holmgren's new Green Bay regime elected to not re-sign him.
"I spent four years in Green Bay and never [had] a sober day," Mandarich said. "Every day I was ever in Green Bay I was not sober."
Mandarich went to his home in Traverse City, Mich., and became a full-time junkie -- and hid. His full-time job was to find ways to get more drugs by conning another doctor or faking another illness.
More lies.
Things got worse. Mandarich's older brother, John, was dying of cancer. John was his hero, having played for Kent State and then the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League. On the day John died in 1993, his little brother was in his truck, driving 400 miles to Green Bay from Traverse City to get more painkillers.
At that point, the drugs were more important to him than anything.
This was the time that Mandarich was supposed be in the prime of his career, taking on Reggie White and Bruce Smith on his way to the Hall of Fame, with yearly visits to Hawaii along the way. Instead, he was chasing down painkillers to get by until the next day. He was down to 260 pounds, pale, and looking nothing like the shirtless guy who was on the cover of SI.
"Fifty, 60, 70 painkillers a day," Mandarich said. "I would just drink more because it's easier to get alcohol. A lot of self-loathing … absolutely hated myself. I hated everything about me."
He could never live up to that monster he created.
Tony Mandarich, now 42, says he doesn't regret the mistakes he made because they "forced me to make corrections -- it was either make corrections or die for me."
Making it right
Rock bottom. He was there.
In March 1995, Mandarich checked himself into the Brighton Hospital Chemical Dependency and Mental Health Treatment Center in Brighton, Mich. Twelve steps. Time to pay the price for all those lies.
"How in the world do you make amends for the disaster you created in the NFL?" he said, sounding contrite. "And that you had wronged the fans, you had wronged the Packers, you embarrassed the sport. How do you right that wrong?"
Mandarich's way was to try to come back to the NFL, but this time do it right. Clean. Sober. No outrageous comments. Be happy to be there.
In 1996, Mandarich made it back to the NFL, playing three seasons with the Colts -- without the aid of steroids, he says.
Miraculously, Mandarich made it back to the NFL in 1996, playing for the Indianapolis Colts. He was huge once again, weighing in at around 320. But this time, he says, it was natural. No juice. For three more years, he was good, not great -- not pinning guys on their backs, not keeping stats of pancakes and guys he drove off the screen.
But he says he was clean. And Mandarich insists he has remained clean since.
Today he keeps a low profile in Arizona, with his wife and business partner, Char. They run an Internet marketing company and do photography and video work. In their home, there are few mementos from his football days. In one small room, his Michigan State Rose Bowl jersey and his Colts jersey hang on the wall.
Nothing from his years with the Packers. No other trophies. A few years ago, Mandarich took all the trophies he had from Michigan State and burned them.
"Got tired of them sitting in boxes," he explained.
That might have been as symbolic as anything he did. Clearly, that time in his life is well behind him.
He is promoting a new book, "My Dirty Little Secrets," published by Modern History Press. He said he wants to speak to NFL players about the dangers of steroid abuse and painkillers, another step in the 12-step circle of making amends.
He has become -- sincerely, it seems -- reflective.
"I don't regret any of the pills I took, or I don't regret the steroids I took," he said. "I don't regret the whiskey I drank, and I don't regret the mistakes I made, because all of those things coupled together tore me down and made me forced me to look at myself and forced me to make corrections -- it was either make corrections or die for me."
There is one eye-catching remnant of his chemically enhanced life. The infamous Sports Illustrated cover, the one that proclaimed him "The Incredible Bulk." He has a blown-up version in his garage.
It hangs just above a garbage can.
Kory Kozak is a producer for ESPN.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Manning Named MVP
http://views.washingtonpost.com/theleague/nflnewsfeed/2009/01/manning-named-mvp.html
Manning Named MVP
By Mark Maske
January 2, 2009
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was named the NFL's most valuable player today by the Associated Press.
Manning also won the award in 2003 and 2004 and joins New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre as the league's only three-time MVPs. Favre won his awards while with the Green Bay Packers.
Each of the quarterbacks shared the award once, Manning with Steve McNair in 2003 and Favre with Barry Sanders in 1997. Favre's other two awards came in 1995 and '96.
Manning received 32 votes in balloting of media members to far outdistance Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington and Atlanta Falcons tailback Michael Turner, who finished tied for second with four votes each.
Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison and Minnesota Vikings tailback Adrian Peterson got three votes apiece. San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers received two votes, and Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner and Tennessee Titans rookie tailback Chris Johnson each got one.
Manning and the Colts got off to a sluggish start this season after Manning underwent preseason knee surgery. The Colts lost four of their first seven games. But they won their final nine games of the season to secure a playoff spot, and Manning led the way. He threw 27 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions this season while passing for 4,002 yards, and he was the league's fifth-rated passer.
Manning Named MVP
By Mark Maske
January 2, 2009
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was named the NFL's most valuable player today by the Associated Press.
Manning also won the award in 2003 and 2004 and joins New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre as the league's only three-time MVPs. Favre won his awards while with the Green Bay Packers.
Each of the quarterbacks shared the award once, Manning with Steve McNair in 2003 and Favre with Barry Sanders in 1997. Favre's other two awards came in 1995 and '96.
Manning received 32 votes in balloting of media members to far outdistance Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington and Atlanta Falcons tailback Michael Turner, who finished tied for second with four votes each.
Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison and Minnesota Vikings tailback Adrian Peterson got three votes apiece. San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers received two votes, and Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner and Tennessee Titans rookie tailback Chris Johnson each got one.
Manning and the Colts got off to a sluggish start this season after Manning underwent preseason knee surgery. The Colts lost four of their first seven games. But they won their final nine games of the season to secure a playoff spot, and Manning led the way. He threw 27 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions this season while passing for 4,002 yards, and he was the league's fifth-rated passer.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Hall of Shame: Detroit sets dubious mark
http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=sportsnetwork&page=nfl/news/newstest.aspx?id=4199839
Hall of Shame: Detroit sets dubious mark
12/28/08
Green Bay, WI (Sports Network) - The Detroit Lions finished their 2008 season the way they finished every week of this season, with a loss, and became the first team in NFL history to finish a campaign 0-16.
Just one season after New England became the first NFL team to go 16-0 in the regular season, Sunday's 31-21 loss for the Lions, at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, handed Detroit the first winless non-strike season since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14 in 1976, the expansion club's initial season.
It is appropriate that Detroit ended its lost season at the Packers, as its current run of 17 straight losses began in Green Bay on the last week of last season.
The Lions came into Sunday's contest with hope, given that the team had played the Packers tight during a Week 2 loss at Ford Field. In that game, the Lions took a 25-24 lead with 7:41 to play after Jon Kitna and Calvin Johnson connected on a 47-yard score, but Green Bay scored 24 unanswered points and Jon Kitna was picked off three times on the final three drives, with the last two being returned for touchdowns in a 48-25 loss.
The team had a four-week stretch in which it lost by eight points or less, including a 12-10 loss at Minnesota in Week 6, but was beaten by at least 20 points in five games this season and lost by double-digits in 10 games.
The Lions now join the 1962 New York Mets (40-120), the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers (9-73) and the 1974-75 Washington Capitals (8-67-5) as the owner of the worst season in their respective sports. However, the Mets and Capitals were both expansion teams when they set their marks.
Despite Sunday's history, this was not the first time Detroit went winless in a season. The 1942 Lions finished the 1942 campaign at 0-11 in a season that saw the war-depleted Lions outscored by a total of 263-38.
The Achilles' Heel of this team was its defense. Going into Sunday's action, the Lions were last in the league in the following defensive categories: total defense (399.1 yards per game), scoring defense (32.4 points per game), rushing defense (169.5 yards per game), touchdowns allowed (59), rushing touchdowns allowed (30), yards allowed per rush (4.99), rushes allowed of 20 yards or longer (23), and interceptions recorded (4).
The team gave up a total of 517 points on the season, which is the second-most in the history of the league, and just 16 points fewer than the 1981 Baltimore Colts, who gave up 533 points.
The offense hasn't been much better, but the team did have two outstanding players in wide receiver Calvin Johnson (78 receptions, 1,331 yards and 12 touchdowns) and rookie running back Kevin Smith (238 carries, 976 yards and eight touchdowns). In addition, kicker Jason Hanson was his usual effective self as his only missed field goal attempt of the season was a block, and he went 8-for-8 from 50-plus yards. Hanson, who also had an extra-point attempt blocked, finished the season with 88 points.
That being said, one of the biggest problems of the offense was that it used five different quarterbacks during the campaign: Kitna, Dan Orlovsky, Daunte Culpepper, Drew Stanton and Drew Henson.
Rod Marinelli, who could lose his job in the coming days, and his club have not won a game since a home win over the Kansas City Chiefs last Dec. 23rd, and are 1-23 in their past 24 games overall, in addition to a a 12-game losing streak as the visitor since notching a win at Chicago last Oct. 28.
Hall of Shame: Detroit sets dubious mark
12/28/08
Green Bay, WI (Sports Network) - The Detroit Lions finished their 2008 season the way they finished every week of this season, with a loss, and became the first team in NFL history to finish a campaign 0-16.
Just one season after New England became the first NFL team to go 16-0 in the regular season, Sunday's 31-21 loss for the Lions, at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, handed Detroit the first winless non-strike season since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14 in 1976, the expansion club's initial season.
It is appropriate that Detroit ended its lost season at the Packers, as its current run of 17 straight losses began in Green Bay on the last week of last season.
The Lions came into Sunday's contest with hope, given that the team had played the Packers tight during a Week 2 loss at Ford Field. In that game, the Lions took a 25-24 lead with 7:41 to play after Jon Kitna and Calvin Johnson connected on a 47-yard score, but Green Bay scored 24 unanswered points and Jon Kitna was picked off three times on the final three drives, with the last two being returned for touchdowns in a 48-25 loss.
The team had a four-week stretch in which it lost by eight points or less, including a 12-10 loss at Minnesota in Week 6, but was beaten by at least 20 points in five games this season and lost by double-digits in 10 games.
The Lions now join the 1962 New York Mets (40-120), the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers (9-73) and the 1974-75 Washington Capitals (8-67-5) as the owner of the worst season in their respective sports. However, the Mets and Capitals were both expansion teams when they set their marks.
Despite Sunday's history, this was not the first time Detroit went winless in a season. The 1942 Lions finished the 1942 campaign at 0-11 in a season that saw the war-depleted Lions outscored by a total of 263-38.
The Achilles' Heel of this team was its defense. Going into Sunday's action, the Lions were last in the league in the following defensive categories: total defense (399.1 yards per game), scoring defense (32.4 points per game), rushing defense (169.5 yards per game), touchdowns allowed (59), rushing touchdowns allowed (30), yards allowed per rush (4.99), rushes allowed of 20 yards or longer (23), and interceptions recorded (4).
The team gave up a total of 517 points on the season, which is the second-most in the history of the league, and just 16 points fewer than the 1981 Baltimore Colts, who gave up 533 points.
The offense hasn't been much better, but the team did have two outstanding players in wide receiver Calvin Johnson (78 receptions, 1,331 yards and 12 touchdowns) and rookie running back Kevin Smith (238 carries, 976 yards and eight touchdowns). In addition, kicker Jason Hanson was his usual effective self as his only missed field goal attempt of the season was a block, and he went 8-for-8 from 50-plus yards. Hanson, who also had an extra-point attempt blocked, finished the season with 88 points.
That being said, one of the biggest problems of the offense was that it used five different quarterbacks during the campaign: Kitna, Dan Orlovsky, Daunte Culpepper, Drew Stanton and Drew Henson.
Rod Marinelli, who could lose his job in the coming days, and his club have not won a game since a home win over the Kansas City Chiefs last Dec. 23rd, and are 1-23 in their past 24 games overall, in addition to a a 12-game losing streak as the visitor since notching a win at Chicago last Oct. 28.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Favre gives Jets a chance in AFC
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/don_banks/09/07/banks.insider.jets.dolphins/Sunday September 7, 2008
Don Banks
INSIDE THE NFL
Favre gives Jets a chance in AFC
Story Highlights
Despite the win, Favre is clearly still adjusting to the Jets
He made the same kind of plays we've seen him make for years
Favre sounds like he knows that he is still far from his best
Brett Favre made some of his signature throws -- and celebrations -- in his debut.
Bob Rosato/SI
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- After 16 seasons in Green Bay, Brett Favre admits there are still times he walks into the New York Jets huddle and has his mind go blank as he's grasping for the necessary terminology required to make the next call.
Rather than seem indecisive or, worse yet, lost, Favre has already developed a go-to fallback for just such an occurrence.
"A couple of times I just winged it and told the guys, 'Same play,' and then I said, 'OK, ready, break,' '' said Favre after making his Jets regular-season debut at Dolphin Stadium a winning one, 20-14 over Miami. "And they were like, 'Same play what?' ''
Best I can tell from watching on Sunday, it's the same play all right. In every way. The uniform might be a slightly different shade of green, but it's the same old Brett Favre, making the same old Brett Favre-type plays. Some great, some ugly, and some entirely unconventional and ill-advised. Like that 22-yard, fourth-and-13 touchdown pass that Favre lobbed up there to Jets receiver Chansi Stuckey in the second quarter, putting enough air under the ball to invite a fair catch call and just maybe draw a delay of game penalty.
"I didn't think he had a chance in hell of catching it,'' Favre said of Stuckey, who went up for it like it was a jump ball in basketball, pulling it down uncontested a half yard into the end zone. "The throw, I don't know what it looked like. It was like a shot put. I can't believe it went as far as it did. I tried to throw it to where somebody was and just give someone a chance.''
But what we really all walked away with Sunday after watching Favre is the realization that he indeed does give his Jets a chance. A chance to win in the AFC East, especially now that the mighty Patriots might be without reigning NFL MVP Tom Brady. A chance to resurrect head coach Eric Mangini's third-year program, which nosedived to 4-12 last year after such a promising beginning in 2006.
As long as Favre is here, and he's making the same kind of plays we've been watching him make since the first Clinton administration, the Jets are going to believe they have a chance. Let's face it: Ugly as it was at times, this was the biggest victory for a Jets quarterback in Miami since Joe Namath backed up his mouth in Super Bowl III. The Jets-Dolphins haven't meant too much lately, but Favre's presence made this one memorable.
"He has the ability to make some things happen down the field that are impressive,'' said Mangini after getting his initial four-quarter firsthand look at the high-wire act that Favre's game can be at times. "Sometimes the pocket is really firm and he's able to sit back and let it go. And there are times when he creates, and other people have to respond to that creation.''
Favre's first real creation as a Jet came not even seven minutes into the season, when his exquisite play-action fake hoodwinked the Miami defense and gave receiver Jerricho Cotchery time to get behind everyone in the Dolphins secondary while waiting to pull down his 56-yard touchdown reception. That play gave New York the early 7-0 lead and was the biggest play of Favre's 15-of-22, 194-yard passing day.
"I thought I overthrew him, but obviously I didn't,'' Favre said of Cotchery, who had to slow up to catch the ball in stride inside the Miami 10. "He's a deceptive player. He's always around the ball and the guy can make plays. He's got deceptive speed and I hope he keeps deceiving people.''
Listening to Favre in the postgame, I got the sense that he feels like he's deceiving people a bit of late. He knows he's far from at his best, and his struggle to master the offense is wearisome at times. But he's 1-0, and that makes his tortuous unretirement process worth it all. At least for now.
"It was ugly at times, but a win is a win,'' said Favre, who did not throw an interception, lost one of his two fumbles and wound up with those two touchdown passes and a 125.9 passer rating on the day. "I'd be lying if I stood here and told you that I feel confident in the passing offense right now. It's from my end and what I need to study. We made some mistakes that I think were a result of newness. But it's a big win.''
The newness factor, of course, will eventually wear off for Favre. And when it does, his Jets just might find themselves in the thick of things in their division. What a difference 48 hours has made in the AFC East, with Brady going down with a potential season-ending knee injury and the Bills getting Pro Bowl left offensive Jason Peters to finally report back to work.
Everything that we thought we knew when Brady was the one constant in the division now must be recalibrated. And who is better to take advantage of this unexpected opening than Favre and his Jets?
"I just found out about [Brady],'' Favre said. "That's terrible. I guess it's an ACL or something. They've always overcome injuries and things like that, but that's pretty difficult.''
Suddenly we're looking at Favre and the Jets as potentially more than just a nuisance to the feared Patriots. Oh, and did we mention who New York plays in its Week 2 home-opener at Giants Stadium? That would be New England, which overcame its shock on Sunday to squeeze past the Chiefs 17-10 in Foxboro.
Let the Jets handle the Matt Cassel-led Patriots next week, snapping their NFL-record 20-game regular-season winning streak, and Favre-mania will really take off in New York. A Week 3 trip to San Diego looms, but with a home game against Arizona awaiting them in Week 4, the Jets very possibly could hit their Week 5 bye at 3-1 with a head of steam.
That's getting ahead of ourselves, of course. But Favre brings an undeniable swagger to a Jets team hungry to build an identity for itself. This was only the first step in that process, but it was an important one, even if the host Dolphins were 1-15 last year. Now that we've seen Favre play a real game as a Jet, the whole nasty business of how he left Green Bay is a little further away in our memories.
The last time we saw Favre play a meaningful game before Sunday, he was throwing an game-turning overtime interception to doom the Packers' Super Bowl chances, against the storybook New York Giants. Not quite nine months later, Favre was helping New York win it this time too, but as a member of the Jets. Which is why he came back to the NFL in the first place, he said, to help a team win again.
"Tomorrow morning I'll probably be going that I don't want to play, but I know that I've said that this is what it's all about,'' Favre said. "I've said from day one that I know I've made the right decision. I enjoy these guys. There's no guarantee what's going to happen for the rest of the year. But I hope can bring something to this team that I've brought to every team that I've played with. Whatever that may be, as long as it helps us win.''
On Sunday in sunny South Florida, Favre helped the Jets win the first game of their new and hopeful Favre era. With the same play we've always seen from No. 4. Some good, some bad, and some things we've never seen before.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Packers trade Brett Favre to N.Y. Jets
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2008-08-07-favre-traded_N.htm
Headed to Broadway: Packers trade Brett Favre to N.Y. Jets
8-7-8
The Brett Favre era is officially over in Green Bay.
The Green Bay Packers have confirmed they have traded the quarterback to the New York Jets. Favre had started the past 253 consecutive games for the Green Bay Packers.
The Packers did not release the terms of the trade. The Jets are believed to be sending a draft pick to the Packers, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, USA TODAY's sister publication.
Favre and the Packers have experienced a bitter divorce in the past two months since the quarterback, who retired in March, decided to unretire. The team was reluctant to take him back after it had embraced Aaron Rodgers as its next quarterback.
Headed to Broadway: Packers trade Brett Favre to N.Y. Jets
8-7-8
The Brett Favre era is officially over in Green Bay.
The Green Bay Packers have confirmed they have traded the quarterback to the New York Jets. Favre had started the past 253 consecutive games for the Green Bay Packers.
The Packers did not release the terms of the trade. The Jets are believed to be sending a draft pick to the Packers, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, USA TODAY's sister publication.
Favre and the Packers have experienced a bitter divorce in the past two months since the quarterback, who retired in March, decided to unretire. The team was reluctant to take him back after it had embraced Aaron Rodgers as its next quarterback.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Brett Favre's daring, dangerous brand of football
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/2008-03-04-1901653630_x.htm
Brett Favre's daring, dangerous brand of football
By Dave Goldberg, AP Football Writer
3-4-8
Maybe Brett Favre wasn't the best quarterback in NFL history, although he was pretty close.
There was always a sense of danger - both to his Green Bay Packers and opponents - when Favre dropped back to pass, the ball often held in one hand while dodging defenders. "Gunslinger" was the word many coaches and players used upon hearing of his retirement Tuesday.
"You knew he was having fun when he played, and that made him fun to watch," said Dallas quarterback Tony Romo, who grew up in Wisconsin watching Favre.
Favre would throw across his body or underhanded - left- or right-handed to a receiver. His first completion as a Packer was to himself - deflected off an onrushing lineman.
Even last season, when at age 38 he threw for 4,155 yards and led the Packers to a 13-3 regular season and a berth in the NFC championship game, he could do those things that would make even his most ardent fans cringe.
In a loss to Chicago, Favre threw a game-turning interception that was all too typical: a toss across his body toward the inside of the field instead of out of bounds. It landed in the hands of the Bears' Brian Urlacher.
"I was trying to make something out of nothing," he said at the time, one reason why he retired with the career records both for touchdown passes (442) and interceptions (288).
In fact, his last NFL pass was an interception by the Giants' Corey Webster that set up the winning field goal in the NFC championship game. That sent New York, rather than Favre and the Packers, to the Super Bowl.
Favre played as if he were still a kid. He jumped up and down at a touchdown, hugging teammates. He even honored opponents, as he did in the final minutes of the final game of the 2001 season, taking a dive for Michael Strahan that gave Strahan the single-season sack record.
Most of all, he never forgot that for all the money and the accolades football is just a game.
"I would hope 20, 30 years from now, I'm remembered for something else besides records," Favre told The Associated Press last summer. "Whether I have them or don't have them. If that's the only way I'm remembered, apparently I didn't do something right or leave a good enough impression on the fans. ...
"I've never looked at myself as being a superstar or better than anyone else. Regardless of how much success I've had, it's never - to me, I've always looked at it and I tell some of these guys sometimes, I've always looked at it as such a bonus. I feel like my personality is my personality. Whether it's on the field or off the field, I really feel they're one in the same. To me it's just normal."
Where does Favre fit in history? The records say top 10.
His 253 consecutive starts are a record for quarterbacks - they extend to 275 counting the postseason and his two Super Bowl appearances. Many were played in pain, including a full season with what was probably a broken thumb.
He's also the only player to win three consecutive NFL MVP awards (1995-97). Among his contemporaries in an era of superb QBs, Joe Montana had two straight and so did Peyton Manning. Steve Young and Kurt Warner had two. John Elway won once, Tom Brady won for the first time last season and Troy Aikman had none.
Playing in an era of free agency and a salary cap, Favre never had anything like the crew Montana had with the 49ers team that won four titles between 1981 and 1990. Although he did benefit from the arrival in Green Bay of Reggie White, the first superstar free agent.
But White was defensive end. Favre had a revolving door of receivers: from Sterling Sharpe and Robert Brooks to Antonio Freeman and Mark Chmura through Driver, the best by far of a nondescript crew in the early part of this decade that had him contemplating retirement annually.
The irony of his retirement is that last season's group was the best in a decade: Driver augmented by second-year man Greg Jennings and rookie James Jones.
Back to those rankings: How to compare Favre to a John Unitas, let alone a Sammy Baugh or Sid Luckman from the prehistoric era? How to compare him to Manning or Aikman, straight dropback passers in different offenses? Or to Elway, probably the best athlete to play quarterback?
"You're judged by winning, and (Favre's) won more games than any other quarterback who has ever played," said Denver's Mike Shanahan, Elway's last coach.
The closest to Favre may be Montana and Young. They, like Favre, played in West Coast offenses. Mike Holmgren, Favre's first coach in Green Bay, mentored all three and is a disciple of Bill Walsh, who perfected a system invented by Sid Gillman.
Montana was the purest of the three, accurate to a fraction of an inch on his passes. Young was a scrambler with the skills of a running back. Favre had the strongest arm, but his scrambling was less to run than to escape and find someone to throw to: sidearm, underhand, left-handed, whatever.
But like all of them, he was a competitor most of all.
"Brett's enthusiasm and pure enjoyment of doing what he loved is what we will all remember," Steve Mariucci, one of his first quarterbacks coaches, said Tuesday.
Favre?
"I know when I leave the game, I'm going to miss it. I know that. I'm not going to sit here and say, when I leave, it's over and I felt like I've done everything there is to do," he said last summer. "I feel like I've given every ounce of energy I can give every single time I stepped on the field."
It's the best way to be remembered.
---
AP National Writer Nancy Armour contributed to this report.
Brett Favre's daring, dangerous brand of football
By Dave Goldberg, AP Football Writer
3-4-8
Maybe Brett Favre wasn't the best quarterback in NFL history, although he was pretty close.
There was always a sense of danger - both to his Green Bay Packers and opponents - when Favre dropped back to pass, the ball often held in one hand while dodging defenders. "Gunslinger" was the word many coaches and players used upon hearing of his retirement Tuesday.
"You knew he was having fun when he played, and that made him fun to watch," said Dallas quarterback Tony Romo, who grew up in Wisconsin watching Favre.
Favre would throw across his body or underhanded - left- or right-handed to a receiver. His first completion as a Packer was to himself - deflected off an onrushing lineman.
Even last season, when at age 38 he threw for 4,155 yards and led the Packers to a 13-3 regular season and a berth in the NFC championship game, he could do those things that would make even his most ardent fans cringe.
In a loss to Chicago, Favre threw a game-turning interception that was all too typical: a toss across his body toward the inside of the field instead of out of bounds. It landed in the hands of the Bears' Brian Urlacher.
"I was trying to make something out of nothing," he said at the time, one reason why he retired with the career records both for touchdown passes (442) and interceptions (288).
In fact, his last NFL pass was an interception by the Giants' Corey Webster that set up the winning field goal in the NFC championship game. That sent New York, rather than Favre and the Packers, to the Super Bowl.
Favre played as if he were still a kid. He jumped up and down at a touchdown, hugging teammates. He even honored opponents, as he did in the final minutes of the final game of the 2001 season, taking a dive for Michael Strahan that gave Strahan the single-season sack record.
Most of all, he never forgot that for all the money and the accolades football is just a game.
"I would hope 20, 30 years from now, I'm remembered for something else besides records," Favre told The Associated Press last summer. "Whether I have them or don't have them. If that's the only way I'm remembered, apparently I didn't do something right or leave a good enough impression on the fans. ...
"I've never looked at myself as being a superstar or better than anyone else. Regardless of how much success I've had, it's never - to me, I've always looked at it and I tell some of these guys sometimes, I've always looked at it as such a bonus. I feel like my personality is my personality. Whether it's on the field or off the field, I really feel they're one in the same. To me it's just normal."
Where does Favre fit in history? The records say top 10.
His 253 consecutive starts are a record for quarterbacks - they extend to 275 counting the postseason and his two Super Bowl appearances. Many were played in pain, including a full season with what was probably a broken thumb.
He's also the only player to win three consecutive NFL MVP awards (1995-97). Among his contemporaries in an era of superb QBs, Joe Montana had two straight and so did Peyton Manning. Steve Young and Kurt Warner had two. John Elway won once, Tom Brady won for the first time last season and Troy Aikman had none.
Playing in an era of free agency and a salary cap, Favre never had anything like the crew Montana had with the 49ers team that won four titles between 1981 and 1990. Although he did benefit from the arrival in Green Bay of Reggie White, the first superstar free agent.
But White was defensive end. Favre had a revolving door of receivers: from Sterling Sharpe and Robert Brooks to Antonio Freeman and Mark Chmura through Driver, the best by far of a nondescript crew in the early part of this decade that had him contemplating retirement annually.
The irony of his retirement is that last season's group was the best in a decade: Driver augmented by second-year man Greg Jennings and rookie James Jones.
Back to those rankings: How to compare Favre to a John Unitas, let alone a Sammy Baugh or Sid Luckman from the prehistoric era? How to compare him to Manning or Aikman, straight dropback passers in different offenses? Or to Elway, probably the best athlete to play quarterback?
"You're judged by winning, and (Favre's) won more games than any other quarterback who has ever played," said Denver's Mike Shanahan, Elway's last coach.
The closest to Favre may be Montana and Young. They, like Favre, played in West Coast offenses. Mike Holmgren, Favre's first coach in Green Bay, mentored all three and is a disciple of Bill Walsh, who perfected a system invented by Sid Gillman.
Montana was the purest of the three, accurate to a fraction of an inch on his passes. Young was a scrambler with the skills of a running back. Favre had the strongest arm, but his scrambling was less to run than to escape and find someone to throw to: sidearm, underhand, left-handed, whatever.
But like all of them, he was a competitor most of all.
"Brett's enthusiasm and pure enjoyment of doing what he loved is what we will all remember," Steve Mariucci, one of his first quarterbacks coaches, said Tuesday.
Favre?
"I know when I leave the game, I'm going to miss it. I know that. I'm not going to sit here and say, when I leave, it's over and I felt like I've done everything there is to do," he said last summer. "I feel like I've given every ounce of energy I can give every single time I stepped on the field."
It's the best way to be remembered.
---
AP National Writer Nancy Armour contributed to this report.
Favre decides to call it a career
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7870944/Favre-decides-to-call-it-a-career
Favre decides to call it a career
Associated Press
March 4, 2008
After flirting with retirement for years, Brett Favre means it this time. The Green Bay Packers quarterback quit after a 17-season career in which he dazzled fans with his grit, heart and rocket of an arm.
Hanging them up
Brett Favre
Green Bay Packers
Quarterback
G GS Comp Att Yds TD Int
257 253 5,377 8,758 61,655 442 288
The retirement was first reported by FOXSports.com's Jay Glazer.
"I know I can still play, but it's like I told my wife, I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired," Favre said.
Tuesday's surprise move comes after the 38-year-old three-time MVP set several league records, including most career touchdown passes, in one of his most successful seasons.
Coach Mike McCarthy said Favre informed him of the decision by telephone Monday night.
"He said it was time for him to hang up the cleats," McCarthy said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. "He's mentally tired, with all the little things that go into everyday preparation."
Favre's agent, Bus Cook, also learned of his decision Monday night.
"Nobody pushed Brett Favre out the door, but then nobody encouraged him not to go out that door, either," Cook told The Associated Press by phone from his Hattiesburg, Miss., office.
Packers general manager Ted Thompson thanked Favre for 16 years of wonderful memories with the team.
"His accomplishments are legendary," Thompson said. "And it's the passion with which he played that made everyone a Brett Favre fan."
The team hasn't said when Favre might address the media.
Favre led the Packers to the NFC championship game in January, but his interception in overtime set up the New York Giants' winning field goal.
"If I felt like coming back — and Deanna (Favre's wife) and I talked about this — the only way for me to be successful would be to win a Super Bowl," Favre said. "To go to the Super Bowl and lose, would almost be worse than anything else. Anything less than a Super Bowl win would be unsuccessful."
Last season, Favre broke Dan Marino's career records for most touchdown passes and most yards passing and John Elway's record for most career victories by a starting quarterback.
He retires with 5,377 career completions in 8,758 attempts for 61,655 yards, 442 touchdowns and 288 interceptions.
"He was the prototypical gun-slinger type," said Marv Levy, Pro Football Hall of Fame coach. "He's the type of guy where, 'Oh, what's he throwing into that crowd for?' But he had intuition, toughness, resilience."
Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman wondered if Favre's decision was final.
"As the season gets closer, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he changes his mind," said Aikman, a Fox analyst who played 12 years with the Dallas Cowboys.
The news stunned many.
"I was surprised when I heard it this morning," former Packers general manager Ron Wolf said. "He played with such a great passion. He must have figured he no longer had that passion, and it was time to get out."
Even Favre's teammates didn't see it coming.
"I just saw it come across the TV," Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson said, when reached on his cell phone by The Associated Press.
In his final season, Favre also extended his quarterback-record streak of consecutive regular-season starts to 253 games - illustrating his trademark toughness. Add the playoffs, and Favre's streak stands at 275.
In the past several offseasons, Favre's indecision about his football future became a winter tradition in Wisconsin, with Cheeseheads hanging on his every word.
Unlike after the 2006 season — when Favre choked up in a television interview as he walked off the field in Chicago, only to return once again — nearly everyone assumed he would be back next season.
It was a remarkable turnaround from 2005, Favre's final season under former head coach Mike Sherman, when he threw a career-worst 29 interceptions as the Packers went 4-12.
Surrounded by an underrated group of wide receivers who proved hard to tackle after the catch, Favre had a career-high completion percentage of 66.5. He threw for 4,155 yards, 28 touchdowns and only 15 interceptions.
Before the Packers' Jan. 12 divisional playoff game against Seattle, Favre told his hometown newspaper that he wasn't approaching the game as if it would be his last and was more optimistic than in years past about returning.
"For the first time in three years, I haven't thought this could be my last game," Favre told the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald. "I would like to continue longer."
But Favre finished the season on a sour note, struggling in subzero temperatures in a 23-20 overtime loss to the New York Giants in the NFC championship game.
Afterward, Favre was noncommittal on his future. McCarthy said he wanted Favre to take a step back from the season before making a decision.
Now he has — to walk away.
"The Packers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude," Thompson said. "The uniqueness of Brett Favre his personality, charisma and love of the game - undoubtedly will leave him as one of the enduring figures in NFL history."
Favre decides to call it a career
Associated Press
March 4, 2008
After flirting with retirement for years, Brett Favre means it this time. The Green Bay Packers quarterback quit after a 17-season career in which he dazzled fans with his grit, heart and rocket of an arm.
Hanging them up
Brett Favre
Green Bay Packers
Quarterback
G GS Comp Att Yds TD Int
257 253 5,377 8,758 61,655 442 288
The retirement was first reported by FOXSports.com's Jay Glazer.
"I know I can still play, but it's like I told my wife, I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired," Favre said.
Tuesday's surprise move comes after the 38-year-old three-time MVP set several league records, including most career touchdown passes, in one of his most successful seasons.
Coach Mike McCarthy said Favre informed him of the decision by telephone Monday night.
"He said it was time for him to hang up the cleats," McCarthy said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. "He's mentally tired, with all the little things that go into everyday preparation."
Favre's agent, Bus Cook, also learned of his decision Monday night.
"Nobody pushed Brett Favre out the door, but then nobody encouraged him not to go out that door, either," Cook told The Associated Press by phone from his Hattiesburg, Miss., office.
Packers general manager Ted Thompson thanked Favre for 16 years of wonderful memories with the team.
"His accomplishments are legendary," Thompson said. "And it's the passion with which he played that made everyone a Brett Favre fan."
The team hasn't said when Favre might address the media.
Favre led the Packers to the NFC championship game in January, but his interception in overtime set up the New York Giants' winning field goal.
"If I felt like coming back — and Deanna (Favre's wife) and I talked about this — the only way for me to be successful would be to win a Super Bowl," Favre said. "To go to the Super Bowl and lose, would almost be worse than anything else. Anything less than a Super Bowl win would be unsuccessful."
Last season, Favre broke Dan Marino's career records for most touchdown passes and most yards passing and John Elway's record for most career victories by a starting quarterback.
He retires with 5,377 career completions in 8,758 attempts for 61,655 yards, 442 touchdowns and 288 interceptions.
"He was the prototypical gun-slinger type," said Marv Levy, Pro Football Hall of Fame coach. "He's the type of guy where, 'Oh, what's he throwing into that crowd for?' But he had intuition, toughness, resilience."
Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman wondered if Favre's decision was final.
"As the season gets closer, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he changes his mind," said Aikman, a Fox analyst who played 12 years with the Dallas Cowboys.
The news stunned many.
"I was surprised when I heard it this morning," former Packers general manager Ron Wolf said. "He played with such a great passion. He must have figured he no longer had that passion, and it was time to get out."
Even Favre's teammates didn't see it coming.
"I just saw it come across the TV," Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson said, when reached on his cell phone by The Associated Press.
In his final season, Favre also extended his quarterback-record streak of consecutive regular-season starts to 253 games - illustrating his trademark toughness. Add the playoffs, and Favre's streak stands at 275.
In the past several offseasons, Favre's indecision about his football future became a winter tradition in Wisconsin, with Cheeseheads hanging on his every word.
Unlike after the 2006 season — when Favre choked up in a television interview as he walked off the field in Chicago, only to return once again — nearly everyone assumed he would be back next season.
It was a remarkable turnaround from 2005, Favre's final season under former head coach Mike Sherman, when he threw a career-worst 29 interceptions as the Packers went 4-12.
Surrounded by an underrated group of wide receivers who proved hard to tackle after the catch, Favre had a career-high completion percentage of 66.5. He threw for 4,155 yards, 28 touchdowns and only 15 interceptions.
Before the Packers' Jan. 12 divisional playoff game against Seattle, Favre told his hometown newspaper that he wasn't approaching the game as if it would be his last and was more optimistic than in years past about returning.
"For the first time in three years, I haven't thought this could be my last game," Favre told the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald. "I would like to continue longer."
But Favre finished the season on a sour note, struggling in subzero temperatures in a 23-20 overtime loss to the New York Giants in the NFC championship game.
Afterward, Favre was noncommittal on his future. McCarthy said he wanted Favre to take a step back from the season before making a decision.
Now he has — to walk away.
"The Packers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude," Thompson said. "The uniqueness of Brett Favre his personality, charisma and love of the game - undoubtedly will leave him as one of the enduring figures in NFL history."
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
2007 Sportsman of the Year
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/magazine/specials/sportsman/2007/12/03/sportsman.2007/
2007 Sportsman of the Year
At 38, Brett Favre is having one of his finest seasons. But that is far from the Green Bay QB's best attribute
Posted: Tuesday December 4, 2007
By Alan Shipnuck
There is no happier place than Green Bay, Wis., on a Sunday evening after the Packers have won. The beer tastes better, the girls are even prettier, and few seem to notice the bite in the air. In a town defined by its team, civic temperament can be quantified on a scoreboard. A few weeks ago, in the moments after the Packers had defeated the Carolina Panthers 31-17 at Lambeau Field, the parking lot was alive with merriment. Kids in number 4 jerseys and GOT BRETT? sweatshirts chased footballs with reckless abandon, tailgaters handed out bratwurst right off the grill, and one optimistic gent tried to sweet-talk the more attractive passersby into adding to the impressive collection of donated bras he had strung up on a flagpole.
The epicenter of Green Bay's game-day good cheer is adjacent to Lambeau, just across Holmgren Way, a block over from Lombardi Avenue: Brett Favre's Steakhouse, located at 1004 Brett Favre Pass. The restaurant ("Where you are the MVP!") is a 20,000-square-foot temple to the Packers' quarterback, and following the Panthers game Favre's extended family had gathered in a private back room for a celebration of its own.
Brett's wife, Deanna, was there, looking glamorous in a long coat and high-heeled boots. Even before her memoir about beating breast cancer hit The New York Times's best-seller list, she was the second-biggest celebrity in Green Bay. Favre's mother, Bonita, was holding court at one of the half-dozen tables, her throaty laugh audible over the din. Brett's sister, Brandi, was cooing over her newborn daughter, Myah, while his brothers, Scott and Jeff, were busy refereeing their young sons, who were creating a ruckus by playing tackle football with an empty water bottle. Also enjoying the spread of steak and crawfish and all the fixings were various cousins, neighbors and hangers-on. In this loud, lively gathering only one person was missing -- the man for whom the restaurant and the street are named.
In his 16th winter in Green Bay, Favre has turned into Gatsby, throwing a party he no longer enjoys. While his family and friends were reliving every detail of his three-touchdown performance against Carolina, Favre was at home a couple of miles away, stretched out on his couch, watching that day's NFL highlights and cuddling with his lapdog, Charlie. By the ostentatious standards of modern-day celebrity, Favre's house is modest, but it suits him fine. On this Sunday evening it was dark and quiet, giving him some precious hours to decompress. There was a time when Favre never skipped a chance to celebrate -- "Hell, I always had to be the life of the party," he says -- but now solitude is what he thirsts for.
"As I've gotten older, I've become more of a loner," Favre says. "You've just been out there in front of 80,000 screaming people, everyone watching every move you make, the pressure of all that -- it's fine and dandy for three hours, but afterward...." Here Favre takes a big, billowing breath. "I used to thrive on that adrenaline. I never wanted it to end. Now I need to get back to reality. Like sitting on the couch with Charlie."
If Favre is weary, it's only because he has given so much of himself to Green Bay through the years. "He means everything to these people," says Donald Driver, who's in his ninth season catching Favre's passes. "He's not only our leader -- he's the symbol of the franchise, of the whole town. There's a generation of fans in Green Bay who don't know this team ever existed without Brett."
When Favre decided to return for the 2007 season, even die-hard Cheeseheads must have been hoping only that he would not tarnish his legacy. What no one expected was that Favre would reinvent himself yet again, enjoying one of his best years at age 38 while cajoling a talented but callow team to a stunning 10-2 record. Along the way he passed two significant milestones for quarterbacks, overtaking Dan Marino atop the alltime list in touchdown passes (436 at week's end) and victories by a starter (157). He trails Marino by 449 in passing yards, another mark that should soon fall.
But one record above all others speaks to what Favre is made of: his Ripkenesque streak of consecutive starts at quarterback, which stands at 249 -- more than five seasons ahead of the next player on the list, Peyton Manning. During last week's 37-27 loss at Dallas, Favre was knocked out of the game in the second quarter, when on the same play he separated his left shoulder and took a helmet to his right elbow, causing numbness in two fingers on his throwing hand. Afterward, to no one's surprise, Favre said he expected he would not miss a game. He has rarely been flawless (after all, he leads the NFL in lifetime interceptions, with 283), but he's always shown up. Through pills and booze, through cancer and car crashes and heart attacks, he has played on. Once reckless on and off the field, Favre has matured before our eyes while never losing his boyish love for the game.
It is for his perseverance and his passion that SI honors Favre with the 54th Sportsman of the Year award. But there is more to his story than on-field heroics. On game day the whole of Green Bay may live and die on Favre's rocket right arm, but his greatest legacy lies in how many people he has touched between Sundays.
The intensity of Favre's relationship with the Packers faithful goes far beyond mere longevity. He arrived in Green Bay in 1992 through a trade with the Atlanta Falcons, and in the third game of the season came off the bench to lead a madcap comeback against the Cincinnati Bengals, throwing the winning touchdown with 13 seconds left. He has refused to leave the starting lineup ever since, harnessing his hair-on-fire style to win an unprecedented three MVP awards (1995, '96, '97) and lead Green Bay to a Super Bowl triumph following the 1996 season.
But the success was leavened by personal setbacks and heartache. In 1996 the NFL sent him to rehab to kick an addiction to the painkiller Vicodin. Two months later Scott was involved in a car crash that killed his passenger, Mark Haverty, Brett's close childhood friend. Scott pleaded guilty to felony DUI and served a year of house arrest. Brett's own heavy drinking drove Deanna to consult divorce lawyers before Favre checked himself into rehab in 1999.
After Favre quit drinking, he settled into the comfortable second act of his career, during which life was quieter and his teams were good but not quite good enough. The drama, however, was far from over. In December 2003 Favre lost his father, Irvin, who suffered a heart attack at age 58. The day after Big Irv died, Favre summoned the defining performance of his career, passing for 399 yards and four touchdowns against the Oakland Raiders, and riveting a Monday Night Football audience. Grown men around Green Bay still tear up when recalling that game.
One dark week in 2004 set the Favres reeling all over again. In October, Deanna's younger brother, Casey Tynes, was killed when he crashed his all-terrain vehicle, leaving behind a girlfriend who was eight months pregnant. Four days after Casey's funeral, Deanna learned she had breast cancer. As always, the Favres were overwhelmed by the outpouring in Green Bay -- bags of letters, innumerable prayer circles and many kind wishes murmured in the grocery aisle.
"People here treat us like family, and I think they care for us like family," says Deanna. "Because of everything we've been through, they don't see Brett as untouchable or as some kind of superhero. And they've been through it with us. The fans here feel close to Brett because they've all had their own similar struggles. Nothing against Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but I'm not sure their fans relate to them in the same way."
Favre grew up in tiny Kiln, Miss., "the Kill" as it's known on the Gulf Coast, a place his coach at Southern Mississippi, Curley Hallman, would memorably describe as "like The Dukes of Hazzard, minus the demolition derby." In a typical anecdote from Favre's youth, he was tossing a football to Scott but led him too much, sending his brother through a bay window of the family house. When the Favre boys weren't shooting each other with BB guns or feeding Oreos to alligators from the back porch or sneaking pinches of chewing tobacco -- of baby brother Jeff, Favre once said, "That son of a bitch could chew and spit when he was three years old" -- they were tagging along to sporting events with their father, who coached high school football and American Legion baseball in Kiln. Under Big Irv's watchful eye, Brett developed into a standout athlete, but he was imbued with none of the aloofness that the star quarterback has in every teen movie.
Credit Bonita for that. During her 16 years as a special-education teacher, Brett was a regular visitor to her classroom -- and not just during the two years when Deanna was an aide and he wanted to flirt. (She and Brett met in catechism when they were seven; they began dating when she was a high school sophomore and he was a freshman.)
Of her students, whose conditions ranged from common learning disabilities to severe developmental problems, Bonita says, "There was a time when people like that were locked away, but they have value. They can be productive members of society. I always made it clear to my children they weren't any better than the kids I taught."
Around Kiln there was a developmentally disabled man named Ronnie Hebert, who served as an equipment manager on Brett's youth baseball team and helped out with Big Irv's squads. Sensing that the other players felt awkward about sitting next to Hebert on the bus or sharing a table at restaurants, Brett always made an effort to include him. The two forged a lasting friendship and remained close enough that a few years ago, Deanna surprised her husband by flying Hebert in to be the guest speaker at a fund-raising dinner for Favre's charitable foundation. Says Deanna, "That night is as emotional as I've ever seen Brett, aside from when his dad passed away."
Though Favre has never had difficulty connecting with people, he admits that early in his career he was too busy having a good time to reach out to others. Deanna had become pregnant when she was 19 and did much of the early parenting of daughter Brittany so that Brett could concentrate on football. Deanna and Brittany continued to live in Mississippi during Favre's first few seasons in Atlanta and Green Bay, leaving him unchaperoned. "It was out of control for a while," says Scott. "We'd go into a bar and just take over the place. Brett would be on top of the bar, pouring drinks. The people loved it, of course."
Favre's Vicodin addiction led to a 46-day stay at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kans. "I was able to see some things a little more clearly," Favre says of his time there. "I realized I had become sidetracked in a lot of important ways." In July 1996, shortly after he completed rehab, Brett and Deanna were married. That year he also started the Brett Favre Fourward Foundation, with a charter to provide aide to disabled and disadvantaged children in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Over the last decade the foundation has given out $4 million to dozens of charitable organizations, focusing its efforts on the kind of kids who remind Favre of Ronnie Hebert. One recent beneficiary was the Miracle League of Green Bay, to which Favre donated $100,000 to help build a baseball facility with a specialized wheelchair-friendly artificial surface. In addition to the field, Favre's money went toward a high-end public-address system and the retrofitting of the playground equipment to make it more accessible to those with disabilities. "These kids always had to sit and watch before," says Bruce Willems, whose 16-year-old daughter, Kyla, is a regular in the Miracle League. "Now they get to play, and you can't believe what it is does for their self-esteem."
In fact, some of the kids have developed big league attitude. Eleven-year-old Jacob Van Den Berg "won't go to bat until his name is announced on the P.A. system," says his father, Jeff. "The fact that Brett Favre helped build this place, that's a big deal to him."
Kids like Kyla and Jacob are kindred spirits with the children of Kiln's Gaits to Success, which provides therapeutic horseback riding for the disabled. With a stable of horses and 10 lush acres, it is not an inexpensive operation, and Carolyn Rhodes, the program's director, says simply, "Without Brett, we would not exist."
The link between Kiln and Green Bay became more explicit after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi coast in 2005. Bonita's house was flooded by the storm surge and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. (Since 1997, Brett and Deanna have spent their off-seasons in Hattiesburg, Miss., 70 miles inland, and their house was unaffected.) In the aftermath of the storm, Favre used a couple of Packers press conferences to appeal for help for his home state. An account was set up in Green Bay for contributions, and within eight weeks upwards of a million dollars had poured in. Says Mike Daniels, president of Nicolet Bank, which administered the account, "We had packages arriving full of change, with letters in crayon that said, 'Dear Mr. Favre, this is from my piggybank. Your friends need it more than I do.' "
The Door County Gulf Coast Relief Fund was also born in the wake of Katrina, though its roots could be traced to Super Bowl XXXI, when the Packers beat the New England Patriots at the Superdome in New Orleans, about an hour's drive from Kiln. During the week of the game, many of the Green Bay faithful made the pilgrimage to Favre's boyhood home, and the Broke Spoke, Kiln's main bar, became a sort of down-market Graceland. It was there that Pete D'Amico of Green Bay first met Big Irv, and a long-standing kinship with Kiln was born. Three days after Katrina struck land, D'Amico and his friend Tony Anheuser were in a borrowed truck, making the 22-hour drive to Mississippi, packing donated clothes, food, water and a couple of hundred steaks, which they cooked up every night in front of the Broke Spoke and handed out to whoever was hungry.
Since then, the relief efforts have continued to grow in scope; Green Bay volunteers -- electricians, roofers and other skilled tradesmen in strong demand on the Gulf Coast -- have made more than 20 trips to Kiln to help rebuild damaged homes. Just this October, during the Packers' bye week, 26 Cheeseheads traveled to Kiln. "My whole life has become about giving back the blessings I've been given," says the 66-year-old Anheuser, a retired home-furnishings retailer. "It's through Brett and the connection we have to Kiln that I've found my purpose."
When Favre hears these stories, he can only shake his head. "It's pretty hard to fathom," he says of his impact. But he does much more than just raise money and inspire others from afar. At a fund-raiser for Green Bay's Brian LaViolette Scholarship Foundation, Favre came on stage to play drums with the house band. "When that happened, a bunch of us old ladies in the crowd started screaming," says Sue LeTourneau, who helps run the scholarship program named for her late nephew, who died in a swimming accident.
Many athletes give time to the Make-A-Wish Foundation; for Favre it's a regular part of his workweek. So strong is the demand to meet the Packers' quarterback among Make-A-Wish kids with life-threatening medical conditions that Favre schedules a visit nearly every Friday when the Packers are not playing an away game. "It's an honor to be asked," he says, "but I'm not going to lie -- it's hard. There are times when it takes a lot out of me. These kids are so cool, but you can't ignore what they're up against and what their families are going through."
In September 2004 Favre met with a six-year-old from Neenah, Wis., named Anna Walentowski. She was suffering from Alexander disease, an extremely rare type of the degenerative brain disorder called leukodystrophy, for which there is no known cure. By the time her visit was arranged, Anna was on a feeding tube for 20 hours a day. In the preceding months she had repeatedly been rushed to the hospital with spasms of her upper respiratory system, which made breathing nearly impossible. "It was a dark, dark time in our lives," says Anna's father, Jeff. "Our little girl was deteriorating pretty rapidly."
Anna's parents feared she would not be strong enough to make the trip to the Packers' practice facility, but she rallied for the big day. Favre had recently been banged up, and the first thing the little pixie in a Packers cheerleading outfit said to him was, "How's your thumb?" The two bonded instantly. Anna's mother, Jennifer, remembers Favre giving her daughter hug after hug and gently helping Anna get in and out of her stroller, so the two could play catch with a Nerf football and later eat lunch with the team.
Before saying goodbye, Anna gave Favre a prayer card with her picture on it. Unbeknownst to the Walentowskis, Favre taped it to his refrigerator door that night, and it stayed there for the rest of the season. "Every day we looked at that picture and prayed for Anna and her family," Deanna wrote in her book, Don't Bet Against Me!
In the years since Anna's visit her condition has improved dramatically. This is no doubt due to specialized care made possible by the evolving understanding of leukodystrophy. Anna's parents think the meeting with Favre also has had something to do with it. "That one day they spent together never really ended," says Jennifer. "We would often talk about the visit and look at the photos, and she would be asked all the time to tell the story. It became a big part of her life."
The tale took another turn when Deanna's book was published in September 2007, including the passage about Anna, a girl she knew only from the photo on the fridge and the effect she'd had on her husband. The Walentowskis were unaware of their cameo in the book until a friend called to tell them about it -- and to say that Deanna was in nearby Appleton at that moment for a book signing. The family hustled over to meet Deanna. Now nine, Anna still faces serious medical challenges, but against all odds she has continued to get better. "She looked so good, so happy," says Deanna. "I couldn't wait to go home and tell Brett. We had often wondered about Anna, about how she was doing. When I told Brett, it touched him. He didn't really have any words. He was pretty choked up."
Funny thing about the Favres is that Brett isn't even the hottest quarterback in the family. Dylan Favre is a high school phenom for the St. Stanislaus Rockachaws in Bay St. Louis, Miss., having just completed a sophomore season in which he threw 36 touchdown passes, a record for the southern Mississippi section. Brett has taken to mentoring his nephew, but they rarely discuss X's and O's. "That's probably for the better," says Dylan. "If I tried some of the things Uncle Brett does on the field, my coach would kill me!"
So what do they talk about?
"Leadership."
Pressed to define what that means, Uncle Brett says, "It's somehow getting 52 other guys to raise their level of play. To get them to believe in what we're trying to do. You do that by setting an example, by doing things the right way. I've always shown up, I've always been prepared, I practice every day. I practice hard. I study. No matter what happens on the field, I never point blame at anybody else. Everything I do comes back to leadership, the example I want to set."
Favre says he has not given a locker-room pep talk since the eve of the 2005 season. "And we went 4-12 that year," he adds with a chuckle, "so what does that tell you?"
Nonetheless, this season Favre has, by necessity, become more direct in his leadership. Green Bay is the youngest team in the league and especially green on offense; starting running back Ryan Grant is playing his first NFL season, and among the top six receivers only two have been in the league more than two full years. "[Brett's] become a lot more vocal, a lot more hands-on," says Favre's backup, Aaron Rodgers. "He's out there coaching the entire offense, from running back to wide receiver to tight end. In practice he'll break away from what [the quarterbacks] are doing to watch some of the other positions go through their reps. He's extremely engaged in everything that's happening."
The evolution began with a challenge from second-year coach Mike McCarthy, who in the preseason told the future Hall of Famer that he flat-out had to play better. In 2006 Favre threw just 18 touchdown passes, his fewest since his first year with the Packers, and his 56% completion rate was the worst of his career. Favre has always been as much a point guard as a quarterback, forever finding creative (if chancy) ways to deliver the ball. McCarthy's orders for this year were to make safer decisions and substantially improve his completion percentage. "I wish I could make the story better by telling you there was a big knockdown, drag-out fight, but Brett's a pro's pro," says McCarthy. "From Day One he has embraced what we're trying to accomplish."
While Favre can still revert to his freewheeling ways, he has torn through the league with the most controlled, efficient play of his career. Grant has begun to assert himself, but with the Packers' ground game still coalescing, Favre is completing a career-best 67.4% of his attempts and has thrown only 10 interceptions. On Thanksgiving Day he carved up the Detroit Lions with 20 straight completions, two short of the NFL record, and he has already tied his Packers mark with seven 300-yard games. "He is playing as well as I've seen him play," says Lions coach Rod Marinelli, "and I've [coached] against him since 1996."
With a game-breaking passing attack backed up by an athletic, aggressive defense, the Packers look capable of a deep playoff run. It is a measure of how far this unproven team has come that after last week's loss in Dallas, no one was claiming a moral victory for having played the Cowboys close into the fourth quarter, even with Favre out and injuries sidelining top cornerback Charles Woodson and sack specialist Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila. "Winning is the only thing that matters here, and that comes from number 4," says rookie receiver James Jones, whose soft hands and elusiveness have him third on the Packers, with 43 receptions. "A team takes on the mentality of its leader. And this guy is the ultimate warrior. That can't help but filter down."
Favre's influence is felt in many other ways. His improvisational skills belie an obsessive preparation that forces teammates to keep up. Following the Panthers game, after Favre had relaxed at home with his dog for a while, he sneaked back to a darkened Lambeau to watch game film for an hour and a half. Not that his dedication to his craft prevents Favre from cutting up. "You play your best football when you're loose and relaxed and having a good time," he says. Favre has tried to impart that notion to his teammates, though some of his methods would probably not impress Vince Lombardi. He's notorious for surreptitiously squirting heating ointment into colleagues' jockstraps, and his locker room flatulence is legendary -- though if you can believe Green Bay insiders, it is delivered with a purpose. "There have been many times before a game when you can see the guys are kind of tight," says Edgar Bennett, Green Bay's running backs coach and formerly Favre's teammate for five seasons. "Brett always knows how to loosen them up. I don't want to go into too many details, but let's just say that the guy has some unique talents."
While Favre simultaneously inspires and relaxes his teammates, he also forms a palpable brotherhood with them. No Packer has felt this more profoundly than receiver Koren Robinson, who has become Favre's personal reclamation project. A first-round pick of the Seahawks in 2001, Robinson has struggled with alcohol abuse for several years. As a Minnesota Viking in 2005 he was voted to the Pro Bowl as a kick returner, but in August 2006 the team cut ties with him after his second arrest for drunken driving. Green Bay took a chance and signed Robinson the next month, but four games into the 2006 season he was suspended by the NFL for a year because of a third violation of the league's substance-abuse policy, the fallout from one of his incidents in Minnesota. Robinson was banned not only from games but also from practicing with the Packers and using any team facilities. When the suspension was handed down, Favre blasted the NFL, accusing the league of turning its back on a player who he thought could clearly benefit from structure and support.
In the year that Robinson was out of football, Favre took it upon himself to provide that safety net, regularly calling Robinson to check up and lend an ear. "For a guy of his stature to reach out, he didn't have to do that," says Robinson, 27. "To know he cared so much for me, it was a huge motivation for me to better myself and correct the things in my life that needed to get right."
Favre's compassion was born of his own experiences. "From a substance-abuse standpoint I was probably worse off than Koren," he says. "People don't realize that, because I was never suspended. But I've done all kinds of drugs, I've drunk too much -- the only difference between me and Koren is that I didn't get caught. But I've been there, and I know how lonely it can be."
Robinson, who is married to his college sweetheart, Joy, and is the father of an 18-month-old son, K.J., was reinstated in October of this year, and in five games has already made an impact on the field. His 67-yard kickoff return against the Panthers was the longest of the season by a Packer, and Robinson has been featured in the new five-receiver set Green Bay unveiled last month. Against Detroit, Robinson gave Packers fans a glimpse of his playmaking ability, gaining 50 yards on only two catches. He has scraped off the rust with another assist from Favre. Says McCarthy, "I think sometimes Brett looks to Koren a little too much during practice, just trying to get him involved, get his confidence up."
An NFL locker room is among the most macho places in sports, but Robinson's voice catches when he talks about his quarterback. "I am so blessed to have a friend like Brett Favre," he says. "A lot of what keeps me going now is that I want him to be proud of me."
"I'm already proud of him," says Favre. "I couldn't care less if he ever catches another pass. The way he has put his life back together is much bigger than that."
On the vast expanse of Robinson's right biceps is tattooed matthew 28:20. That scripture appropriately captures Favre's relationship with Robinson and the rest of his teammates: "[Teach] them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
The Favre household is about as casual as they come, but there is one immutable rule. "We don't talk about retirement," says Deanna. "Ever. This whole town is obsessed about what Brett is going to do, so at home it's off-limits because he needs to get away from it."
There is no doubt that Favre has plenty left physically to keep playing, a point driven home during the Panthers game, when he was six years younger than the other starting quarterback, Vinny Testaverde. Ask Packers receiver Donald Driver if Favre has lost anything off his fastball, and Driver says with a laugh, "My fingers can answer that. There's times after practice they tingle a little bit. Guy hasn't lost a thing, except maybe a little hair."
At this point in his career Favre is used to the aches and pains. "Mentally, it's much more demanding," he says. "Now I dwell on the negative a lot more. I'm thrilled to death we're winning, but with each game I feel more pressure to play better, to keep it going. Next play's got to be better, next game's got to be better. The better you play, the higher the expectations become, not only of yourself, but what others expect. It can flat wear you out."
Even as Favre has brought so much joy to Green Bay this year, he has been in the familiar position of playing with a heavy heart. The Favres suffered another personal loss this summer when Deanna's stepfather, Rocky Byrd, died of a heart attack at age 56 while the Packers were in training camp. Rocky had helped to fill the void left by Big Irv's death. This year, for the first time in his career, Favre did not return to Mississippi during the Packers' bye week, choosing to stay alone in Green Bay. "It would have been his first time home since Rocky passed away," says Deanna, "and I don't think he wanted to face that."
Family matters were in the backdrop as Favre considered retirement in the past two off-seasons. In recent years he and Deanna have been separated from older daughter Brittany during the football season. From first through eighth grade she attended school in Green Bay in the fall, then finished the school year in Hattiesburg. Upon reaching high school, however, Brittany insisted she be allowed to stay in Mississippi year-round. She lived with Deanna's sister's family, seeing her father in the fall mostly when she traveled to Green Bay for Packers home games. Brittany is now a college freshman, but eight-year-old Breleigh is following the old routine, splitting time between schools in different states. "It hasn't been easy on the girls," Favre says, "which is not something the public ever factors in."
Favre also longs to spend more time at his 465-acre spread in Hattiesburg, where in the off-season he works the land, including his dozen deer plots. Then there are the two thriving charitable organizations to look after, his Fourward Foundation and the Deanna Favre Hope Foundation. The latter was founded in 2005 to raise breast-cancer awareness and provide assistance for those battling the disease. Deanna has since become a sought-after public speaker, commanding as much as $45,000 for a corporate engagement, all of the money going to the foundation. The pink Packers hats ubiquitous in Green Bay are another revenue stream. The foundation annually gives out dozens of grants for uninsured or underinsured women battling breast cancer.
As the Favres prepare for life after football, the people of Green Bay are also girding themselves for the inevitable. There is a funny feeling in the air around Lambeau this year: Every unexpected win is accompanied by a collective dread that it has inched Favre closer to retirement. Deanna doesn't exactly refute the notion. "He needed to go out like this," she says. "He deserved a year like this. I'm not saying he will or won't [retire after the season], and I don't know what I'd say if he asked me, but he's the kind of competitor who has to go out a winner. That's who he is."
Favre refuses to look beyond this week's game versus Oakland, but he does say, "Sure, I would love to go out with a trip to the Super Bowl, but it doesn't have to end that way. Had I left last year, or even the year before, it's been a great career. I'm content with it." Favre suddenly grows animated, leaning forward in his chair. "I don't know how it's going to end, but I do know this: Throwing a touchdown pass for the Green Bay Packers is pretty neat. I've thrown a ton, and every one of them was a helluva lot of fun."
Ask people around Green Bay for their favorite Favre memory, and you'll get countless anecdotes but rarely any hesitation. So many elite athletes captivate with their otherworldly physical gifts, but the common theme among the Favre highlights is the human element.
Jennifer Walentowski, Anna's mother: "In the Super Bowl against the Patriots, Brett threw a beautiful touchdown in the very beginning of the game, and he was so excited, he started running around the field. He had taken off his helmet, and he had both arms in the air, and there was such genuine joy on his face, such realness. Gosh, I'm tearing up right now just thinking about it."
Doug Phillips, whose daughter, Carley, participates in the Miracle League: "He hurt his ankle pretty bad against the Vikings [in 1995]. No one knew if he would play the next game [against Chicago]. He was on crutches all week, doubtful right up to kickoff. When he ran out of the tunnel at Lambeau, that was the loudest explosion I have ever heard in my life. And of course Brett threw five touchdowns that day."
Pete D'Amico, cofounder of the Door County Gulf Coast Relief Fund: "I lost my father a month before Brett's dad died. That Monday-night game against Oakland, the day after Big Irv died? I was crying that whole game. Just bawling. I know a lot of other people were too for their own reasons."
Donald Driver: "My favorite moment is from that Monday night against the Raiders, but it didn't happen on the field. Before the game I went to talk to Brett in his hotel room. He was hurting, obviously, but said he was going to play because we were his family too. It was pure love, pure brotherhood."
Sue LeTourneau of the Brian LaViolette Scholarship Foundation: "On his 30th birthday, I held up a sign in the stands here at Lambeau. When he ran onto the field, he looked at me and gave a thumbs-up. Oh, my God, I thought I was going to die right then and there!"
Mark Tauscher, Packers tackle: "My rookie year [2000] we were at Minnesota late in the year. Big game. At some point in the second half we were facing third down, and [center] Frank Winters misses a linebacker coming on a blitz. Brett gets sacked, but instead of jogging off the field he turns and chucks the ball at Frankie. And Frankie says, 'Well, get rid of the damn ball faster next time!' The whole team was laughing. It kind of loosened us up, and we went on to win."
Mike McCarthy: "In '99, when I was quarterbacks coach, three of the first four games were comebacks in the final couple of minutes. The one that stands out was against Tampa Bay. There's about a minute left, and we call this play where if the rush comes, Brett's supposed to check down to the back. Of course, Tampa comes with everything they've got, but Brett just stands in there and throws a strike to Antonio Freeman for the winning touchdown, just as John Lynch and half the defense hits him in the jaw. On the sideline Brett's a little woozy; he's on oxygen; and I go up to him and say, 'What happened to the check down?' He says, 'Dammit, I forgot all about that. But, hey, I made the throw.' That's Brett Favre in a nutshell -- he'll take the beating, but he'll always make the throw."
Ask Favre for his own favorite memory, and he is quiet for a moment. "I've got so many plays running through my mind," he says, finally. "The funny thing is, it's not only about the touchdowns and the big victories. If I were to make a list, I would include the interceptions, the sacks, the really painful losses. Those times when I've been down, when I've been kicked around, I hold on to those. In a way those are the best times I've ever had, because that's when I've found out who I am. And what I want to be."
2007 Sportsman of the Year
At 38, Brett Favre is having one of his finest seasons. But that is far from the Green Bay QB's best attribute
Posted: Tuesday December 4, 2007
By Alan Shipnuck
There is no happier place than Green Bay, Wis., on a Sunday evening after the Packers have won. The beer tastes better, the girls are even prettier, and few seem to notice the bite in the air. In a town defined by its team, civic temperament can be quantified on a scoreboard. A few weeks ago, in the moments after the Packers had defeated the Carolina Panthers 31-17 at Lambeau Field, the parking lot was alive with merriment. Kids in number 4 jerseys and GOT BRETT? sweatshirts chased footballs with reckless abandon, tailgaters handed out bratwurst right off the grill, and one optimistic gent tried to sweet-talk the more attractive passersby into adding to the impressive collection of donated bras he had strung up on a flagpole.
The epicenter of Green Bay's game-day good cheer is adjacent to Lambeau, just across Holmgren Way, a block over from Lombardi Avenue: Brett Favre's Steakhouse, located at 1004 Brett Favre Pass. The restaurant ("Where you are the MVP!") is a 20,000-square-foot temple to the Packers' quarterback, and following the Panthers game Favre's extended family had gathered in a private back room for a celebration of its own.
Brett's wife, Deanna, was there, looking glamorous in a long coat and high-heeled boots. Even before her memoir about beating breast cancer hit The New York Times's best-seller list, she was the second-biggest celebrity in Green Bay. Favre's mother, Bonita, was holding court at one of the half-dozen tables, her throaty laugh audible over the din. Brett's sister, Brandi, was cooing over her newborn daughter, Myah, while his brothers, Scott and Jeff, were busy refereeing their young sons, who were creating a ruckus by playing tackle football with an empty water bottle. Also enjoying the spread of steak and crawfish and all the fixings were various cousins, neighbors and hangers-on. In this loud, lively gathering only one person was missing -- the man for whom the restaurant and the street are named.
In his 16th winter in Green Bay, Favre has turned into Gatsby, throwing a party he no longer enjoys. While his family and friends were reliving every detail of his three-touchdown performance against Carolina, Favre was at home a couple of miles away, stretched out on his couch, watching that day's NFL highlights and cuddling with his lapdog, Charlie. By the ostentatious standards of modern-day celebrity, Favre's house is modest, but it suits him fine. On this Sunday evening it was dark and quiet, giving him some precious hours to decompress. There was a time when Favre never skipped a chance to celebrate -- "Hell, I always had to be the life of the party," he says -- but now solitude is what he thirsts for.
"As I've gotten older, I've become more of a loner," Favre says. "You've just been out there in front of 80,000 screaming people, everyone watching every move you make, the pressure of all that -- it's fine and dandy for three hours, but afterward...." Here Favre takes a big, billowing breath. "I used to thrive on that adrenaline. I never wanted it to end. Now I need to get back to reality. Like sitting on the couch with Charlie."
If Favre is weary, it's only because he has given so much of himself to Green Bay through the years. "He means everything to these people," says Donald Driver, who's in his ninth season catching Favre's passes. "He's not only our leader -- he's the symbol of the franchise, of the whole town. There's a generation of fans in Green Bay who don't know this team ever existed without Brett."
When Favre decided to return for the 2007 season, even die-hard Cheeseheads must have been hoping only that he would not tarnish his legacy. What no one expected was that Favre would reinvent himself yet again, enjoying one of his best years at age 38 while cajoling a talented but callow team to a stunning 10-2 record. Along the way he passed two significant milestones for quarterbacks, overtaking Dan Marino atop the alltime list in touchdown passes (436 at week's end) and victories by a starter (157). He trails Marino by 449 in passing yards, another mark that should soon fall.
But one record above all others speaks to what Favre is made of: his Ripkenesque streak of consecutive starts at quarterback, which stands at 249 -- more than five seasons ahead of the next player on the list, Peyton Manning. During last week's 37-27 loss at Dallas, Favre was knocked out of the game in the second quarter, when on the same play he separated his left shoulder and took a helmet to his right elbow, causing numbness in two fingers on his throwing hand. Afterward, to no one's surprise, Favre said he expected he would not miss a game. He has rarely been flawless (after all, he leads the NFL in lifetime interceptions, with 283), but he's always shown up. Through pills and booze, through cancer and car crashes and heart attacks, he has played on. Once reckless on and off the field, Favre has matured before our eyes while never losing his boyish love for the game.
It is for his perseverance and his passion that SI honors Favre with the 54th Sportsman of the Year award. But there is more to his story than on-field heroics. On game day the whole of Green Bay may live and die on Favre's rocket right arm, but his greatest legacy lies in how many people he has touched between Sundays.
The intensity of Favre's relationship with the Packers faithful goes far beyond mere longevity. He arrived in Green Bay in 1992 through a trade with the Atlanta Falcons, and in the third game of the season came off the bench to lead a madcap comeback against the Cincinnati Bengals, throwing the winning touchdown with 13 seconds left. He has refused to leave the starting lineup ever since, harnessing his hair-on-fire style to win an unprecedented three MVP awards (1995, '96, '97) and lead Green Bay to a Super Bowl triumph following the 1996 season.
But the success was leavened by personal setbacks and heartache. In 1996 the NFL sent him to rehab to kick an addiction to the painkiller Vicodin. Two months later Scott was involved in a car crash that killed his passenger, Mark Haverty, Brett's close childhood friend. Scott pleaded guilty to felony DUI and served a year of house arrest. Brett's own heavy drinking drove Deanna to consult divorce lawyers before Favre checked himself into rehab in 1999.
After Favre quit drinking, he settled into the comfortable second act of his career, during which life was quieter and his teams were good but not quite good enough. The drama, however, was far from over. In December 2003 Favre lost his father, Irvin, who suffered a heart attack at age 58. The day after Big Irv died, Favre summoned the defining performance of his career, passing for 399 yards and four touchdowns against the Oakland Raiders, and riveting a Monday Night Football audience. Grown men around Green Bay still tear up when recalling that game.
One dark week in 2004 set the Favres reeling all over again. In October, Deanna's younger brother, Casey Tynes, was killed when he crashed his all-terrain vehicle, leaving behind a girlfriend who was eight months pregnant. Four days after Casey's funeral, Deanna learned she had breast cancer. As always, the Favres were overwhelmed by the outpouring in Green Bay -- bags of letters, innumerable prayer circles and many kind wishes murmured in the grocery aisle.
"People here treat us like family, and I think they care for us like family," says Deanna. "Because of everything we've been through, they don't see Brett as untouchable or as some kind of superhero. And they've been through it with us. The fans here feel close to Brett because they've all had their own similar struggles. Nothing against Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but I'm not sure their fans relate to them in the same way."
Favre grew up in tiny Kiln, Miss., "the Kill" as it's known on the Gulf Coast, a place his coach at Southern Mississippi, Curley Hallman, would memorably describe as "like The Dukes of Hazzard, minus the demolition derby." In a typical anecdote from Favre's youth, he was tossing a football to Scott but led him too much, sending his brother through a bay window of the family house. When the Favre boys weren't shooting each other with BB guns or feeding Oreos to alligators from the back porch or sneaking pinches of chewing tobacco -- of baby brother Jeff, Favre once said, "That son of a bitch could chew and spit when he was three years old" -- they were tagging along to sporting events with their father, who coached high school football and American Legion baseball in Kiln. Under Big Irv's watchful eye, Brett developed into a standout athlete, but he was imbued with none of the aloofness that the star quarterback has in every teen movie.
Credit Bonita for that. During her 16 years as a special-education teacher, Brett was a regular visitor to her classroom -- and not just during the two years when Deanna was an aide and he wanted to flirt. (She and Brett met in catechism when they were seven; they began dating when she was a high school sophomore and he was a freshman.)
Of her students, whose conditions ranged from common learning disabilities to severe developmental problems, Bonita says, "There was a time when people like that were locked away, but they have value. They can be productive members of society. I always made it clear to my children they weren't any better than the kids I taught."
Around Kiln there was a developmentally disabled man named Ronnie Hebert, who served as an equipment manager on Brett's youth baseball team and helped out with Big Irv's squads. Sensing that the other players felt awkward about sitting next to Hebert on the bus or sharing a table at restaurants, Brett always made an effort to include him. The two forged a lasting friendship and remained close enough that a few years ago, Deanna surprised her husband by flying Hebert in to be the guest speaker at a fund-raising dinner for Favre's charitable foundation. Says Deanna, "That night is as emotional as I've ever seen Brett, aside from when his dad passed away."
Though Favre has never had difficulty connecting with people, he admits that early in his career he was too busy having a good time to reach out to others. Deanna had become pregnant when she was 19 and did much of the early parenting of daughter Brittany so that Brett could concentrate on football. Deanna and Brittany continued to live in Mississippi during Favre's first few seasons in Atlanta and Green Bay, leaving him unchaperoned. "It was out of control for a while," says Scott. "We'd go into a bar and just take over the place. Brett would be on top of the bar, pouring drinks. The people loved it, of course."
Favre's Vicodin addiction led to a 46-day stay at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kans. "I was able to see some things a little more clearly," Favre says of his time there. "I realized I had become sidetracked in a lot of important ways." In July 1996, shortly after he completed rehab, Brett and Deanna were married. That year he also started the Brett Favre Fourward Foundation, with a charter to provide aide to disabled and disadvantaged children in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Over the last decade the foundation has given out $4 million to dozens of charitable organizations, focusing its efforts on the kind of kids who remind Favre of Ronnie Hebert. One recent beneficiary was the Miracle League of Green Bay, to which Favre donated $100,000 to help build a baseball facility with a specialized wheelchair-friendly artificial surface. In addition to the field, Favre's money went toward a high-end public-address system and the retrofitting of the playground equipment to make it more accessible to those with disabilities. "These kids always had to sit and watch before," says Bruce Willems, whose 16-year-old daughter, Kyla, is a regular in the Miracle League. "Now they get to play, and you can't believe what it is does for their self-esteem."
In fact, some of the kids have developed big league attitude. Eleven-year-old Jacob Van Den Berg "won't go to bat until his name is announced on the P.A. system," says his father, Jeff. "The fact that Brett Favre helped build this place, that's a big deal to him."
Kids like Kyla and Jacob are kindred spirits with the children of Kiln's Gaits to Success, which provides therapeutic horseback riding for the disabled. With a stable of horses and 10 lush acres, it is not an inexpensive operation, and Carolyn Rhodes, the program's director, says simply, "Without Brett, we would not exist."
The link between Kiln and Green Bay became more explicit after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi coast in 2005. Bonita's house was flooded by the storm surge and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. (Since 1997, Brett and Deanna have spent their off-seasons in Hattiesburg, Miss., 70 miles inland, and their house was unaffected.) In the aftermath of the storm, Favre used a couple of Packers press conferences to appeal for help for his home state. An account was set up in Green Bay for contributions, and within eight weeks upwards of a million dollars had poured in. Says Mike Daniels, president of Nicolet Bank, which administered the account, "We had packages arriving full of change, with letters in crayon that said, 'Dear Mr. Favre, this is from my piggybank. Your friends need it more than I do.' "
The Door County Gulf Coast Relief Fund was also born in the wake of Katrina, though its roots could be traced to Super Bowl XXXI, when the Packers beat the New England Patriots at the Superdome in New Orleans, about an hour's drive from Kiln. During the week of the game, many of the Green Bay faithful made the pilgrimage to Favre's boyhood home, and the Broke Spoke, Kiln's main bar, became a sort of down-market Graceland. It was there that Pete D'Amico of Green Bay first met Big Irv, and a long-standing kinship with Kiln was born. Three days after Katrina struck land, D'Amico and his friend Tony Anheuser were in a borrowed truck, making the 22-hour drive to Mississippi, packing donated clothes, food, water and a couple of hundred steaks, which they cooked up every night in front of the Broke Spoke and handed out to whoever was hungry.
Since then, the relief efforts have continued to grow in scope; Green Bay volunteers -- electricians, roofers and other skilled tradesmen in strong demand on the Gulf Coast -- have made more than 20 trips to Kiln to help rebuild damaged homes. Just this October, during the Packers' bye week, 26 Cheeseheads traveled to Kiln. "My whole life has become about giving back the blessings I've been given," says the 66-year-old Anheuser, a retired home-furnishings retailer. "It's through Brett and the connection we have to Kiln that I've found my purpose."
When Favre hears these stories, he can only shake his head. "It's pretty hard to fathom," he says of his impact. But he does much more than just raise money and inspire others from afar. At a fund-raiser for Green Bay's Brian LaViolette Scholarship Foundation, Favre came on stage to play drums with the house band. "When that happened, a bunch of us old ladies in the crowd started screaming," says Sue LeTourneau, who helps run the scholarship program named for her late nephew, who died in a swimming accident.
Many athletes give time to the Make-A-Wish Foundation; for Favre it's a regular part of his workweek. So strong is the demand to meet the Packers' quarterback among Make-A-Wish kids with life-threatening medical conditions that Favre schedules a visit nearly every Friday when the Packers are not playing an away game. "It's an honor to be asked," he says, "but I'm not going to lie -- it's hard. There are times when it takes a lot out of me. These kids are so cool, but you can't ignore what they're up against and what their families are going through."
In September 2004 Favre met with a six-year-old from Neenah, Wis., named Anna Walentowski. She was suffering from Alexander disease, an extremely rare type of the degenerative brain disorder called leukodystrophy, for which there is no known cure. By the time her visit was arranged, Anna was on a feeding tube for 20 hours a day. In the preceding months she had repeatedly been rushed to the hospital with spasms of her upper respiratory system, which made breathing nearly impossible. "It was a dark, dark time in our lives," says Anna's father, Jeff. "Our little girl was deteriorating pretty rapidly."
Anna's parents feared she would not be strong enough to make the trip to the Packers' practice facility, but she rallied for the big day. Favre had recently been banged up, and the first thing the little pixie in a Packers cheerleading outfit said to him was, "How's your thumb?" The two bonded instantly. Anna's mother, Jennifer, remembers Favre giving her daughter hug after hug and gently helping Anna get in and out of her stroller, so the two could play catch with a Nerf football and later eat lunch with the team.
Before saying goodbye, Anna gave Favre a prayer card with her picture on it. Unbeknownst to the Walentowskis, Favre taped it to his refrigerator door that night, and it stayed there for the rest of the season. "Every day we looked at that picture and prayed for Anna and her family," Deanna wrote in her book, Don't Bet Against Me!
In the years since Anna's visit her condition has improved dramatically. This is no doubt due to specialized care made possible by the evolving understanding of leukodystrophy. Anna's parents think the meeting with Favre also has had something to do with it. "That one day they spent together never really ended," says Jennifer. "We would often talk about the visit and look at the photos, and she would be asked all the time to tell the story. It became a big part of her life."
The tale took another turn when Deanna's book was published in September 2007, including the passage about Anna, a girl she knew only from the photo on the fridge and the effect she'd had on her husband. The Walentowskis were unaware of their cameo in the book until a friend called to tell them about it -- and to say that Deanna was in nearby Appleton at that moment for a book signing. The family hustled over to meet Deanna. Now nine, Anna still faces serious medical challenges, but against all odds she has continued to get better. "She looked so good, so happy," says Deanna. "I couldn't wait to go home and tell Brett. We had often wondered about Anna, about how she was doing. When I told Brett, it touched him. He didn't really have any words. He was pretty choked up."
Funny thing about the Favres is that Brett isn't even the hottest quarterback in the family. Dylan Favre is a high school phenom for the St. Stanislaus Rockachaws in Bay St. Louis, Miss., having just completed a sophomore season in which he threw 36 touchdown passes, a record for the southern Mississippi section. Brett has taken to mentoring his nephew, but they rarely discuss X's and O's. "That's probably for the better," says Dylan. "If I tried some of the things Uncle Brett does on the field, my coach would kill me!"
So what do they talk about?
"Leadership."
Pressed to define what that means, Uncle Brett says, "It's somehow getting 52 other guys to raise their level of play. To get them to believe in what we're trying to do. You do that by setting an example, by doing things the right way. I've always shown up, I've always been prepared, I practice every day. I practice hard. I study. No matter what happens on the field, I never point blame at anybody else. Everything I do comes back to leadership, the example I want to set."
Favre says he has not given a locker-room pep talk since the eve of the 2005 season. "And we went 4-12 that year," he adds with a chuckle, "so what does that tell you?"
Nonetheless, this season Favre has, by necessity, become more direct in his leadership. Green Bay is the youngest team in the league and especially green on offense; starting running back Ryan Grant is playing his first NFL season, and among the top six receivers only two have been in the league more than two full years. "[Brett's] become a lot more vocal, a lot more hands-on," says Favre's backup, Aaron Rodgers. "He's out there coaching the entire offense, from running back to wide receiver to tight end. In practice he'll break away from what [the quarterbacks] are doing to watch some of the other positions go through their reps. He's extremely engaged in everything that's happening."
The evolution began with a challenge from second-year coach Mike McCarthy, who in the preseason told the future Hall of Famer that he flat-out had to play better. In 2006 Favre threw just 18 touchdown passes, his fewest since his first year with the Packers, and his 56% completion rate was the worst of his career. Favre has always been as much a point guard as a quarterback, forever finding creative (if chancy) ways to deliver the ball. McCarthy's orders for this year were to make safer decisions and substantially improve his completion percentage. "I wish I could make the story better by telling you there was a big knockdown, drag-out fight, but Brett's a pro's pro," says McCarthy. "From Day One he has embraced what we're trying to accomplish."
While Favre can still revert to his freewheeling ways, he has torn through the league with the most controlled, efficient play of his career. Grant has begun to assert himself, but with the Packers' ground game still coalescing, Favre is completing a career-best 67.4% of his attempts and has thrown only 10 interceptions. On Thanksgiving Day he carved up the Detroit Lions with 20 straight completions, two short of the NFL record, and he has already tied his Packers mark with seven 300-yard games. "He is playing as well as I've seen him play," says Lions coach Rod Marinelli, "and I've [coached] against him since 1996."
With a game-breaking passing attack backed up by an athletic, aggressive defense, the Packers look capable of a deep playoff run. It is a measure of how far this unproven team has come that after last week's loss in Dallas, no one was claiming a moral victory for having played the Cowboys close into the fourth quarter, even with Favre out and injuries sidelining top cornerback Charles Woodson and sack specialist Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila. "Winning is the only thing that matters here, and that comes from number 4," says rookie receiver James Jones, whose soft hands and elusiveness have him third on the Packers, with 43 receptions. "A team takes on the mentality of its leader. And this guy is the ultimate warrior. That can't help but filter down."
Favre's influence is felt in many other ways. His improvisational skills belie an obsessive preparation that forces teammates to keep up. Following the Panthers game, after Favre had relaxed at home with his dog for a while, he sneaked back to a darkened Lambeau to watch game film for an hour and a half. Not that his dedication to his craft prevents Favre from cutting up. "You play your best football when you're loose and relaxed and having a good time," he says. Favre has tried to impart that notion to his teammates, though some of his methods would probably not impress Vince Lombardi. He's notorious for surreptitiously squirting heating ointment into colleagues' jockstraps, and his locker room flatulence is legendary -- though if you can believe Green Bay insiders, it is delivered with a purpose. "There have been many times before a game when you can see the guys are kind of tight," says Edgar Bennett, Green Bay's running backs coach and formerly Favre's teammate for five seasons. "Brett always knows how to loosen them up. I don't want to go into too many details, but let's just say that the guy has some unique talents."
While Favre simultaneously inspires and relaxes his teammates, he also forms a palpable brotherhood with them. No Packer has felt this more profoundly than receiver Koren Robinson, who has become Favre's personal reclamation project. A first-round pick of the Seahawks in 2001, Robinson has struggled with alcohol abuse for several years. As a Minnesota Viking in 2005 he was voted to the Pro Bowl as a kick returner, but in August 2006 the team cut ties with him after his second arrest for drunken driving. Green Bay took a chance and signed Robinson the next month, but four games into the 2006 season he was suspended by the NFL for a year because of a third violation of the league's substance-abuse policy, the fallout from one of his incidents in Minnesota. Robinson was banned not only from games but also from practicing with the Packers and using any team facilities. When the suspension was handed down, Favre blasted the NFL, accusing the league of turning its back on a player who he thought could clearly benefit from structure and support.
In the year that Robinson was out of football, Favre took it upon himself to provide that safety net, regularly calling Robinson to check up and lend an ear. "For a guy of his stature to reach out, he didn't have to do that," says Robinson, 27. "To know he cared so much for me, it was a huge motivation for me to better myself and correct the things in my life that needed to get right."
Favre's compassion was born of his own experiences. "From a substance-abuse standpoint I was probably worse off than Koren," he says. "People don't realize that, because I was never suspended. But I've done all kinds of drugs, I've drunk too much -- the only difference between me and Koren is that I didn't get caught. But I've been there, and I know how lonely it can be."
Robinson, who is married to his college sweetheart, Joy, and is the father of an 18-month-old son, K.J., was reinstated in October of this year, and in five games has already made an impact on the field. His 67-yard kickoff return against the Panthers was the longest of the season by a Packer, and Robinson has been featured in the new five-receiver set Green Bay unveiled last month. Against Detroit, Robinson gave Packers fans a glimpse of his playmaking ability, gaining 50 yards on only two catches. He has scraped off the rust with another assist from Favre. Says McCarthy, "I think sometimes Brett looks to Koren a little too much during practice, just trying to get him involved, get his confidence up."
An NFL locker room is among the most macho places in sports, but Robinson's voice catches when he talks about his quarterback. "I am so blessed to have a friend like Brett Favre," he says. "A lot of what keeps me going now is that I want him to be proud of me."
"I'm already proud of him," says Favre. "I couldn't care less if he ever catches another pass. The way he has put his life back together is much bigger than that."
On the vast expanse of Robinson's right biceps is tattooed matthew 28:20. That scripture appropriately captures Favre's relationship with Robinson and the rest of his teammates: "[Teach] them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
The Favre household is about as casual as they come, but there is one immutable rule. "We don't talk about retirement," says Deanna. "Ever. This whole town is obsessed about what Brett is going to do, so at home it's off-limits because he needs to get away from it."
There is no doubt that Favre has plenty left physically to keep playing, a point driven home during the Panthers game, when he was six years younger than the other starting quarterback, Vinny Testaverde. Ask Packers receiver Donald Driver if Favre has lost anything off his fastball, and Driver says with a laugh, "My fingers can answer that. There's times after practice they tingle a little bit. Guy hasn't lost a thing, except maybe a little hair."
At this point in his career Favre is used to the aches and pains. "Mentally, it's much more demanding," he says. "Now I dwell on the negative a lot more. I'm thrilled to death we're winning, but with each game I feel more pressure to play better, to keep it going. Next play's got to be better, next game's got to be better. The better you play, the higher the expectations become, not only of yourself, but what others expect. It can flat wear you out."
Even as Favre has brought so much joy to Green Bay this year, he has been in the familiar position of playing with a heavy heart. The Favres suffered another personal loss this summer when Deanna's stepfather, Rocky Byrd, died of a heart attack at age 56 while the Packers were in training camp. Rocky had helped to fill the void left by Big Irv's death. This year, for the first time in his career, Favre did not return to Mississippi during the Packers' bye week, choosing to stay alone in Green Bay. "It would have been his first time home since Rocky passed away," says Deanna, "and I don't think he wanted to face that."
Family matters were in the backdrop as Favre considered retirement in the past two off-seasons. In recent years he and Deanna have been separated from older daughter Brittany during the football season. From first through eighth grade she attended school in Green Bay in the fall, then finished the school year in Hattiesburg. Upon reaching high school, however, Brittany insisted she be allowed to stay in Mississippi year-round. She lived with Deanna's sister's family, seeing her father in the fall mostly when she traveled to Green Bay for Packers home games. Brittany is now a college freshman, but eight-year-old Breleigh is following the old routine, splitting time between schools in different states. "It hasn't been easy on the girls," Favre says, "which is not something the public ever factors in."
Favre also longs to spend more time at his 465-acre spread in Hattiesburg, where in the off-season he works the land, including his dozen deer plots. Then there are the two thriving charitable organizations to look after, his Fourward Foundation and the Deanna Favre Hope Foundation. The latter was founded in 2005 to raise breast-cancer awareness and provide assistance for those battling the disease. Deanna has since become a sought-after public speaker, commanding as much as $45,000 for a corporate engagement, all of the money going to the foundation. The pink Packers hats ubiquitous in Green Bay are another revenue stream. The foundation annually gives out dozens of grants for uninsured or underinsured women battling breast cancer.
As the Favres prepare for life after football, the people of Green Bay are also girding themselves for the inevitable. There is a funny feeling in the air around Lambeau this year: Every unexpected win is accompanied by a collective dread that it has inched Favre closer to retirement. Deanna doesn't exactly refute the notion. "He needed to go out like this," she says. "He deserved a year like this. I'm not saying he will or won't [retire after the season], and I don't know what I'd say if he asked me, but he's the kind of competitor who has to go out a winner. That's who he is."
Favre refuses to look beyond this week's game versus Oakland, but he does say, "Sure, I would love to go out with a trip to the Super Bowl, but it doesn't have to end that way. Had I left last year, or even the year before, it's been a great career. I'm content with it." Favre suddenly grows animated, leaning forward in his chair. "I don't know how it's going to end, but I do know this: Throwing a touchdown pass for the Green Bay Packers is pretty neat. I've thrown a ton, and every one of them was a helluva lot of fun."
Ask people around Green Bay for their favorite Favre memory, and you'll get countless anecdotes but rarely any hesitation. So many elite athletes captivate with their otherworldly physical gifts, but the common theme among the Favre highlights is the human element.
Jennifer Walentowski, Anna's mother: "In the Super Bowl against the Patriots, Brett threw a beautiful touchdown in the very beginning of the game, and he was so excited, he started running around the field. He had taken off his helmet, and he had both arms in the air, and there was such genuine joy on his face, such realness. Gosh, I'm tearing up right now just thinking about it."
Doug Phillips, whose daughter, Carley, participates in the Miracle League: "He hurt his ankle pretty bad against the Vikings [in 1995]. No one knew if he would play the next game [against Chicago]. He was on crutches all week, doubtful right up to kickoff. When he ran out of the tunnel at Lambeau, that was the loudest explosion I have ever heard in my life. And of course Brett threw five touchdowns that day."
Pete D'Amico, cofounder of the Door County Gulf Coast Relief Fund: "I lost my father a month before Brett's dad died. That Monday-night game against Oakland, the day after Big Irv died? I was crying that whole game. Just bawling. I know a lot of other people were too for their own reasons."
Donald Driver: "My favorite moment is from that Monday night against the Raiders, but it didn't happen on the field. Before the game I went to talk to Brett in his hotel room. He was hurting, obviously, but said he was going to play because we were his family too. It was pure love, pure brotherhood."
Sue LeTourneau of the Brian LaViolette Scholarship Foundation: "On his 30th birthday, I held up a sign in the stands here at Lambeau. When he ran onto the field, he looked at me and gave a thumbs-up. Oh, my God, I thought I was going to die right then and there!"
Mark Tauscher, Packers tackle: "My rookie year [2000] we were at Minnesota late in the year. Big game. At some point in the second half we were facing third down, and [center] Frank Winters misses a linebacker coming on a blitz. Brett gets sacked, but instead of jogging off the field he turns and chucks the ball at Frankie. And Frankie says, 'Well, get rid of the damn ball faster next time!' The whole team was laughing. It kind of loosened us up, and we went on to win."
Mike McCarthy: "In '99, when I was quarterbacks coach, three of the first four games were comebacks in the final couple of minutes. The one that stands out was against Tampa Bay. There's about a minute left, and we call this play where if the rush comes, Brett's supposed to check down to the back. Of course, Tampa comes with everything they've got, but Brett just stands in there and throws a strike to Antonio Freeman for the winning touchdown, just as John Lynch and half the defense hits him in the jaw. On the sideline Brett's a little woozy; he's on oxygen; and I go up to him and say, 'What happened to the check down?' He says, 'Dammit, I forgot all about that. But, hey, I made the throw.' That's Brett Favre in a nutshell -- he'll take the beating, but he'll always make the throw."
Ask Favre for his own favorite memory, and he is quiet for a moment. "I've got so many plays running through my mind," he says, finally. "The funny thing is, it's not only about the touchdowns and the big victories. If I were to make a list, I would include the interceptions, the sacks, the really painful losses. Those times when I've been down, when I've been kicked around, I hold on to those. In a way those are the best times I've ever had, because that's when I've found out who I am. And what I want to be."
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