On Legacy and a Gunslinger
posted in Scholar Athlete |
Now that the news is not only official but seems to have actually stuck, I have some words about the Brett Favre Soap Opera that has unfolded over the past month. In case you don’t care about sports, but are reading this article anyway, here’s a quick rundown of the important events that occurred: Brett Favre, much heralded quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, retired at the end of last season and the Packers then installed their back-up Aaron Rodgers (who they drafted four years ago with the express purpose of having him replace Favre one day) as their starter. Then Favre said he wanted to come back and the Packers offered him $20 million to stay retired.
After about forty little strategic moves and a full month of maneuvering, Favre ends up on the Jets in exchange for some draft picks, number and round determined by the success of the Jets’ season. Here’s a prediction: the Jets wont do that well and Favre will retire and stay retired at the end of this season. Kind of makes one wonder why he would even come back at all.
Retirement certainly seems a difficult thing for athletes. Sometimes they get out one year too early, like Tiki Barber last year, who decided to retire the year before his team had a magical run and won the Super Bowl. Sometimes, like another Giant Michael Strahan, they get out on top, right after they’ve helped their team win a championship. John Elway and Jerome Bettis also pulled this move and it really made them look smart. However, the sports world, particularly the NFL, is littered with careers that went too long. Or, more specific to Favre’s case, careers that went too long for the wrong team. Before Favre, Joe Montana ended his career with the Kansas City Chiefs. And though I wasn’t around to see it, I read one time that Colts great Johnny Unitas ended his career as a member of the Chargers.
The legacies of those two men wasn’t harmed at all by whatever it was that caused them to end their careers playing for teams that no one will ever associate them with. Maybe this is because they were all time greats whose resumes speak for themselves and no one in their right mind would argue against the caliber of player they were. Also, I think we all understand the unconscious need that these men have to compete and that sometimes it takes your body really breaking down to understand that it’s over. We understand that they don’t have an easy time adjusting to life after the game and we give them a break for giving it one more go.
It seems, then, that this paradigm should hold true for Favre. We should all just accept that he couldn’t let go and needs one more year. We should remember Montana donning the Chiefs’ red, remember that it didn’t change what he did for the 49ers, and do the same for Favre. In theory it’s exactly the same, except of course it’s not. Montana lost his starting job because of injury and never got it back in San Francisco, and there was no stand off between player and team. This is the thing that really becomes problematic for Favre. Where we once saw a wholesome everyman who had been through hell and back and let himself go gray before our eyes, now we see a wishy-washy teenage girl.
There’s no doubt that Favre is an incredible quarterback. He’s got the starts, the completions, the touchdowns and the Super Bowl victory to back him up. But, you have to think that in an age where information mongering is almost a competitive sport, this fracas will affect his legacy, if there is such a thing. Nothing will change the stats that he accumulated in Green Bay, but this last month will be an ever-present denouement to his career in a way that others’ last chapters wont be. Maybe that’s because we, as fans, have much more access now, maybe that’s because it played out in such unseemly fashion. There can be no doubt that this relationship, like many we’ve all experienced, has ended badly. Being offered by your former employer a ton of money to stay away certainly qualifies as something that, for the fan base, has soured the whole damn thing.
The question of legacy is pretty loaded at this point. What do we let ruin the feelings that we have for our heroes? I’m sure that fans of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have had to wrestle with this question a lot in the past few years. How does one reconcile the on-field performance with what someone does off the field? Whether it’s steroids, signing with a rival, or acting like a child, there’s no way that an athlete’s behavior doesn’t creep into our conception of them as a player. But that’s not because it’s important. It’s because we never thought of them as a player in the first place. We always thought of them, all of them, as living, breathing people who cared about us and were our friends. They weren’t just athletes doing their job for a tremendous amount of money, they were huge parts of our lives, important and full of meaning and weight.
This is especially true of Favre and it’s why this incident and this outcome are probably more damaging to him than anyone else. Brett Favre wasn’t just the quarterback of the local team to the people of Wisconsin, he was friend, a hero, a diety. He was more important than the team really, maybe the only time when a fan base didn’t root for laundry but rooted for a person they probably cared about more than their families. In a certain way, this is what makes Favre’s actions even more hurtful and by extension more stupid. He knew how beloved he was and while it was certainly deserved, he always seemed to carry that love with hubris. And in the end, like all Greek heroes the gods made him pay for it. Live by the sword, die by the sword, Brett. And by the way, welcome to New York, the Jets suck.
