Farewell to Brett Favre

I cried like a baby today and I am not ashamed to say that. After all, a football hero has decided to hang up his helmet. For those of us who have watched Number 4 grow, both as a person, and an incredible quarterback, we are saddened by the recently announced news of his retirement.

He always made games interesting.

From the early days when you’d want to throw things at the TV when he made one of his now-famous interceptions, through the return-to-glory years of our Super Bowls, to the Oakland game when he played his heart out for his father, Erv, who had just passed away, to the last playoff game against the New York Giants, when we watched a very traumatic loss, he has made it exciting.

My daughter and her husband were fortunate enough to go to that game. She called the next day to say it was so hard to take, his last play being an interception that regrettably led to a Giants’ victory. She lamented that it was a tough way to end the year. We talked yesterday and she said she now will only remember it as “Brett’s last game.”

I wrote a blog a while back on my affection for the Green Bay Packers, and that love affair has been going on since the 1950s when Starr, Taylor, Hornung, McGee, Kramer, Nitschke, and the rest, who were stars that shone under the super-coach, Vince Lombardi. My love for the team will continue and I will, of course, never miss a game (much to hubby’s chagrin at times.)

But there will be an empty place for years to come. In Favre’s one hour farewell speech, he wished Aaron Rodgers the best of luck and said he was very talented, and his ‘own man’, with his own style. He felt confident Rodgers will do a great job for the team. That may well be the case and we all will be supportive. But it will not be the same.

Brett had a very difficult time giving his speech. In the beginning, he broke down several times, saying he had ‘promised not to be emotional.’ Well, he is a far better person than I am if he could walk away after 17 years without a tear. They did not show the faces in the audience but you could hear sniffling and clearing of throats.

As has always been his style, he gave credit to the managers and coaching staff, trainers and team mates, saying he dislikes it when the media says “he won 160 games.” He emphasized the team won them, not just the q-back.

He talked about his tragedies that seemed to bring his family closer together and how the love and support of fans and players helped them through it. He talked about his charity involvement and felt it was amazing, not how much he had given them, but what these people had given him. Another hanky please.

When you consider all the the negativities in sports today, players with possible chemical abuse, some gambling, cruelty to animals and such, you know for sure that Old Number 4 was a terrific role model for the youth of today. He came from a ‘blue-collar’ background, just one of the guys in a pick-up truck, drinking a brew on a Saturday night.

Played football through childhood, finished college and got picked in the NFL draft. His first experience was not so hot, he was “over-served” on occasion and slept too late for meetings and even missed the team photo. Then the Packers took him on and he felt at home.

He mentioned several times in his “farewell speech” that he loved the people of Green Bay, Wisconsin and what they had meant to him and his family. They supported him, loved him, and were there for him. He also expressed feelings for the love of his life, Deanna, childhood sweetheart, wife, mother of his two daughters. She has been with Brett since high school, saw him score his first touchdown, and always at his side for this incredible ride.

Through the course of his speech, he stated over and over again that this was a rough and final decision. He believes he will take some time off and do simply “nothing” until there is something he’d like to do. He was not sure if it would be in football; he has never had another career.

He certainly touched all of us with his sincerity, honesty, and still-boyish charm. He will be missed. But I, for one, am thankful for all the fantastic memories, the ups and downs and in-betweens. He was and is a class act.

Thank You Brett

(I understand that Brett’s memorabilia is in super-hot demand. There may be some folks who will take advantage of the desire for these sporting collectibles and I urge caution when purchasing any sports item; be sure the dealer is reputable to insure the articles are legitimate.)

When I moved to North Dakota from Wisconsin I experienced some culture shock. Following the Green Bay Packers is nearly a religion, so moving to a state without an NFL team felt strange. What do people do without it? I wondered.

Soon I had my answer: Local school sports.

In fact, people here are so devoted to their college and even high school sports that prime-time television shows are bumped for coverage of local games. At first this seemed crazy — and annoying. I hated it when I had to wait until after the 10 o’clock news to see my show — why didn’t the moms, dads, grandparents and other family folks get off their butts and go see the teams play live? And then it clicked. The high school teams have more fans than just the families of the players and the current student population; nearly everyone in the community is a fan.

I knew what football meant to me and my family; now I was discovering what it meant to this community. The shared love of football made me feel more at home here.

I’m such a football fan that when I attended the MPMA conference I sat in on a session called Grabbing Gridiron Glory. In that session curators of the Kansas State Historical Society, Laura Vannorsdel and Murl Riedel, discussed how they used sports memorabilia to illustrate cultural concepts.

Curators are generally concerned with the overall quality of their collection, and in this case the subject of sports came up. I’m not sure which came first in this ‘chicken or the egg’ scenario, and it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the museum staff saw a connection between sports and community — and that they set out to document it.

This exhibit (on display at the Kansas Museum of History) is called Game Faces, and part of it focuses on high school football. The simple story behind the high school football part of the exhibit is that in Kansas, like many areas in our country, folks are moving from rural areas to the cities for jobs and whatnot, leaving many schools without enough students for traditional 11-man football teams. However, the passion for football will not be denied.

Schools (either as individual schools or several schools coming together to form a team) have adapted to the lower student population by playing football with less players. Eight players, to be exact, hence the name 8-man football.

Eight-man (and it’s relative, 6-man football) date back to the Great Depression but there’s nothing depressing or less-than about the game. Sure, communities don’t like to close or combine their schools, and yes, college coaches aren’t absolutely thrilled to re-train new players in the proper practice of 11-man football — but in 8-man football not only do the kids get to play, but all the glory (cheering), pageantry (tailgating), and pride (gloating) are intact.

This means the collecting of local sports memorabilia is alive and well too and that’s what makes the Kansas Historical Society’s exhibit fascinating and exciting. It’s great that the historical society is looking at the issues of geography, economics and Rural Depopulation; but what’s really cool for me to see is that this ’stuff’ is collected and preserved.

The collection includes uniforms, programs, game souvenirs, photographs, and audio recordings, which, due to it’s local community nature, isn’t what most of us would call ‘valuable artifacts’. But there is importance in these things, no matter how small or new the objects may seem. As Murl Riedel, Assistant Curator of the Kansas State Historical Society said, “This is history; it’s happened.” And as collectors, we know that the value of all these things will increase with the passing of time.

It’s true that the few items from a couple of local schools may not compel folks from Los Angeles to hop on a plane to Topeka *, but that’s not quite the point. These shouldn’t just be valued as individual objects, but rather evaluated as a whole collection. Together these objects do more than speak of Kansas. They do more than preserve the game of football, traditions, and the sense of community. I say the collection preserves our identity as Americans.

Just as I’ve adapted my love of the Green Bay Packers into support for my local school football teams, fostering a sense of belonging in my new community, so the adaptation of 8-man football by rural communities illustrates their desire to continue to feel at home as their communities change.

The economy can suck, we can feel separated by our differences &/or geography, and we can even feel that we are reduced to just a color on a demographic pie chart; but we’re adaptive Americans. We’re football fans.

* The Game Faces exhibit also includes items from famous Kansas sports figures, such as footballs signed by Barry Sanders and John Riggins, an NFL helmet and jacket worn by Jack Christiansen, and Wilt Chamberlain’s basketball jersey; so if you are near Topeka before the end of the year, check it out. If not, check out your local museum and see what nifty exhibits await you.

All images copyright Kansas State Historical Society; used with permission.

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A review, by Hunter.

The other weekend when we went rummaging, Hunter, the huge sports nut, found a vintage football game. Lured, no doubt, by the image of his beloved Green Bay Packers on the box lid, he had to have it.

The game was NFL All-Pro Football, an official National Football League game, made by Ideal, game # 2520-5, from 1967.

Since vintage games often do not have recommended ages listed on the boxes, I was a bit concerned this game would be too complicated and if all the original pieces were inside the box, that they’d only become ‘food’ for the vacuum or lost at the bottom of his toy bins — and though only $3, that’s a rather large sum for a a boy who usually is satisfied with 50 cent cars, baseball caps and action figures. So I did my best to caution him.

“That’s a 40 year old board game, a real collectible,” I told him. “Your daddy has one of these,” I continued, “maybe you and he could play his? Three dollars is most of your money for the day…”

But Hunter had to have it.

He then had to wait until the next day for a grown-up to help him establish if all the pieces were there, and to help him with the rules. This would be the moment of truth…

After discovering that all the pieces were there, he and Derek set about learning how to play the game. They played for about an hour and had a really good time. Here’s what Hunter had to say about the vintage All-Pro Football game.

Why did you want to buy it so badly?

Cuz it looked cool — with the football field and I like football. And it’s old.

What about the game being old is cool?

Well, you can’t just go find one anywhere. Not many people have it. My dad has one, and now I have one.

Now that you’ve played it, do you like it?

Yeah!

Was it hard to play?

A little. I was glad to have Derek help me — we helped each other, really. Then we had lots of fun.

I heard at first you were a little disappointed that the checker-like pieces didn’t have team logos on them; were you?

Yeah.

I bet I know this, but what team logo did you really want to see on the pieces most of all?

THE PACKERS!

I knew that! But now that you’ve played the game, does it bother you that the pieces aren’t marked with specific teams?

No, it’s really cool that you can pretend to be any team you want to be — at least that’s what I do when I make my own rules.

(The game rules set the team match-ups, so when Hunter was the Packers that meant Derek had to be the Vikings.)

Is there anything that you don’t like about the game?

That you can only move three spaces.

You want to move more spaces?

Yeah. But I mean it’s OK. Just when I play by myself, with my own rules, I let them move more.

What other rules have you made up?

I let my guys actually tackle. (Hunter then demonstrates one white checker tackling a red checker.) But you can mess up the game that way, so it wouldn’t really be a good way to play with others. I mean you could bump guys you didn’t mean to. Tackling is how the players play, but on the board you have to worry about the squares.

So, you really like the game then?

Oh yeah!

Because like I said, you could take this game that you bought for $3 and sell it for more and make money… I bet you could sell it for at least $10.

But I don’t have to, do I?

Oh no, I just meant that if you didn’t like it that much you could make money. Money you could spend on something else you’d like more. And I’m sure if you ask dad, he’d share his game with you.

No, I think I’m gonna keep this game my whole life.

He pauses.

You never know… I could want something else later. But I really think I want to save this one forever. It’s fun.