MoveitMister
08-15-2005, 01:33 PM
As crowds adore him, Favre yearns for quiet (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/packers/2005-08-11-favre-cover-story_x.htm)
As crowds adore him, Favre yearns for quiet
By Larry Weisman, USA TODAY
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The unexamined life is not worth living. So said Socrates. He would have loved Brett Favre.
No NFL player over the past few seasons has had his life, his family and his personal pain exposed to the world in the way Favre has. The Green Bay Packers quarterback, turning 36 on Oct. 10 and preparing for his 15th professional season, enjoys an iconic status built on years of top performance, a streak of durability unsurpassed at his position and a willingness to openly share the suffering dealt to him and his family by death and disease.
"If you just handpick 10 people off the street, probably half of them had some type of tragedy in their life," Favre says, seated in an armchair in the depths of Lambeau Field. "The difference in my case is that everyone knows about it."
They only love him more for his perseverance and grit.
In Harris Polls over the past three years, Favre has twice been named the nation's favorite football player, finishing second once. Men's Journal magazine named him the "Toughest Guy in America" last spring. When the Discovery Channel compiled its "100 Greatest Americans," he ranked 89th.
All of this has come against the backdrop of his father's death, the loss of his brother-in-law in an accident with an all-terrain vehicle and his wife's fight against breast cancer, a series of traumas that began just before Christmas 2003. He has grieved inwardly and outwardly, and fans have choked up with him. They have cheered the way he has soldiered on, shared his agony and felt even closer to this scruffy scamp known among coaches and teammates for his practical jokes.
They've hugged him, pulled him close, squeezed him tight. He has grown up before their eyes, a rebellious kid with a terrific arm who won a Super Bowl and eventually put the wild times behind him as he donned the mantle of a legend. He has lived not in a fishbowl but in an aquarium, where the sharks lurk on the outside and faces press endlessly against the glass, always eager for feeding time.
Now, in the latter stages of his career, he senses he's offering a little less to a public that is rarely sated. The well isn't dry, but the pump needs more priming. In solitude lies solace. His current mind-set, he says, is "antisocial."
Not in the sense of a destructive delinquent. What he suggests is what Greta Garbo so famously desired: "I want to be alone." Baked by the spotlight, he seeks the shadows and the quiet places that offer a respite while demanding nothing.
"Maybe it's off-the-field issues. Maybe it's just because I've gotten a little bit older and some of the things that did turn me on don't turn me on as much," he says. "Quitting drinking will make anyone antisocial if it was the reason you were social to begin with. I knew that from the start, and I haven't drank in seven years.
"I got to where I quit going to play golf. I probably played 20 times this offseason. I normally would play or go hit balls every day. It's kind of a hobby. But I just got to where I hated to go out there because I had to play with a group. And I didn't dislike the guys I played with; I just felt like the walls were caving in on me."
Winter dreams
He was golfing with some teammates that December day two years ago when he learned his father, Irvin, had died. His dad had been his coach at North H-a-n-c-o-c-k Central High in Kiln, Miss., and a constant presence throughout his career. One day after Irvin's death, his son took the field with the Packers on a Monday night in Oakland. Raiders fans, known for their garish garb and their hatred of opponents, uncharacteristically cheered Favre as he passed for 399 yards and four touchdowns in a smashing victory on national television that helped his streaking club to the playoffs.
"Oakland gave me a standing ovation — they don't do that for the home players," Favre says, marveling still. "It made me feel great. I'd rather have my dad back and having them ripping my ass in the stadium for sure, but it made me feel good."
Last season played out under the cloud of his wife Deanna's battle with breast cancer. Twice she missed Packers home games, which Favre says is "unheard of up here," because of fatigue. When the Packers fell to the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs, Favre, who has wrestled with retirement for several years, again thought seriously about giving up the game and permanently escaping to the family's home in Hattiesburg, Miss.
"For three months I was 100% sure I was not coming back," he says. "My wife was still going through her treatments, and I was more concerned about that than she was. It was making her sick, but she was saying, 'You need to go back. You don't want to finish on a note like that.' I said, 'Well, I don't think one game will define my career, good or bad. Should I come back just to change that?' Then the truth came out."
Deanna, who says she received a clean bill of health from her doctors in June, wanted to be there to see him play.
"I told him it was his decision ... but selfishly I would like you to go back," she says by phone from Hattiesburg. "After losing his dad and losing my brother, it just seemed we hadn't enjoyed those two seasons, and I would like to enjoy at least one more year."
Serenity argued against it. Seated on his tractor, patrolling 465 fenced acres, the NFL's three-time MVP rode the property with no aim in mind. And there he sat, content and unhurried, beneath the pine trees.
With all the 'me first' TO drivel that's being spawned in the media, it's cool to see that a man, who deserves the type of media attention that TO obviously craves, has spurred the circus and finds peace with his family, friends and homelife.
As crowds adore him, Favre yearns for quiet
By Larry Weisman, USA TODAY
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The unexamined life is not worth living. So said Socrates. He would have loved Brett Favre.
No NFL player over the past few seasons has had his life, his family and his personal pain exposed to the world in the way Favre has. The Green Bay Packers quarterback, turning 36 on Oct. 10 and preparing for his 15th professional season, enjoys an iconic status built on years of top performance, a streak of durability unsurpassed at his position and a willingness to openly share the suffering dealt to him and his family by death and disease.
"If you just handpick 10 people off the street, probably half of them had some type of tragedy in their life," Favre says, seated in an armchair in the depths of Lambeau Field. "The difference in my case is that everyone knows about it."
They only love him more for his perseverance and grit.
In Harris Polls over the past three years, Favre has twice been named the nation's favorite football player, finishing second once. Men's Journal magazine named him the "Toughest Guy in America" last spring. When the Discovery Channel compiled its "100 Greatest Americans," he ranked 89th.
All of this has come against the backdrop of his father's death, the loss of his brother-in-law in an accident with an all-terrain vehicle and his wife's fight against breast cancer, a series of traumas that began just before Christmas 2003. He has grieved inwardly and outwardly, and fans have choked up with him. They have cheered the way he has soldiered on, shared his agony and felt even closer to this scruffy scamp known among coaches and teammates for his practical jokes.
They've hugged him, pulled him close, squeezed him tight. He has grown up before their eyes, a rebellious kid with a terrific arm who won a Super Bowl and eventually put the wild times behind him as he donned the mantle of a legend. He has lived not in a fishbowl but in an aquarium, where the sharks lurk on the outside and faces press endlessly against the glass, always eager for feeding time.
Now, in the latter stages of his career, he senses he's offering a little less to a public that is rarely sated. The well isn't dry, but the pump needs more priming. In solitude lies solace. His current mind-set, he says, is "antisocial."
Not in the sense of a destructive delinquent. What he suggests is what Greta Garbo so famously desired: "I want to be alone." Baked by the spotlight, he seeks the shadows and the quiet places that offer a respite while demanding nothing.
"Maybe it's off-the-field issues. Maybe it's just because I've gotten a little bit older and some of the things that did turn me on don't turn me on as much," he says. "Quitting drinking will make anyone antisocial if it was the reason you were social to begin with. I knew that from the start, and I haven't drank in seven years.
"I got to where I quit going to play golf. I probably played 20 times this offseason. I normally would play or go hit balls every day. It's kind of a hobby. But I just got to where I hated to go out there because I had to play with a group. And I didn't dislike the guys I played with; I just felt like the walls were caving in on me."
Winter dreams
He was golfing with some teammates that December day two years ago when he learned his father, Irvin, had died. His dad had been his coach at North H-a-n-c-o-c-k Central High in Kiln, Miss., and a constant presence throughout his career. One day after Irvin's death, his son took the field with the Packers on a Monday night in Oakland. Raiders fans, known for their garish garb and their hatred of opponents, uncharacteristically cheered Favre as he passed for 399 yards and four touchdowns in a smashing victory on national television that helped his streaking club to the playoffs.
"Oakland gave me a standing ovation — they don't do that for the home players," Favre says, marveling still. "It made me feel great. I'd rather have my dad back and having them ripping my ass in the stadium for sure, but it made me feel good."
Last season played out under the cloud of his wife Deanna's battle with breast cancer. Twice she missed Packers home games, which Favre says is "unheard of up here," because of fatigue. When the Packers fell to the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs, Favre, who has wrestled with retirement for several years, again thought seriously about giving up the game and permanently escaping to the family's home in Hattiesburg, Miss.
"For three months I was 100% sure I was not coming back," he says. "My wife was still going through her treatments, and I was more concerned about that than she was. It was making her sick, but she was saying, 'You need to go back. You don't want to finish on a note like that.' I said, 'Well, I don't think one game will define my career, good or bad. Should I come back just to change that?' Then the truth came out."
Deanna, who says she received a clean bill of health from her doctors in June, wanted to be there to see him play.
"I told him it was his decision ... but selfishly I would like you to go back," she says by phone from Hattiesburg. "After losing his dad and losing my brother, it just seemed we hadn't enjoyed those two seasons, and I would like to enjoy at least one more year."
Serenity argued against it. Seated on his tractor, patrolling 465 fenced acres, the NFL's three-time MVP rode the property with no aim in mind. And there he sat, content and unhurried, beneath the pine trees.
With all the 'me first' TO drivel that's being spawned in the media, it's cool to see that a man, who deserves the type of media attention that TO obviously craves, has spurred the circus and finds peace with his family, friends and homelife.