Why We Like Brett Favre

When I first came to Chicago, a co-worker of mine referred to the state to the north as “The Peoples’ Republic of Wisconsin”.

This guy was from downstate (way downstate), and I haven’t heard that moniker since. Besides wondering what kind of tractor my co-worker drove as a kid, it made me wonder what the average Joe thinks about neighboring sports fans.

Why not ask?

So, a few days ago I asked a life-long born and bred Chicago Bears fan what he thought about Packers fans, our cheese headed friends up the lake. It could have been taken as a loaded question. After all, the Bears season is long over after a dull, dismal run.


After a soft pause, this mouthy Chicago Irishman said, “Actually I kind of like them”.

They’re friendly. They know their sport. Lambeau Field is a comforting, top quality sports venue. Lambeau has a great beer selection, which you would only expect if you have ever been to Wisconsin. When the Packers win, they aren’t obnoxious about it.

These were a few of the reasons that a Bears fan or any fan could like Packers fans and the Frozen Tundra. And it seems that Americans in general like the Packers too.

We’ve heard time and time again, to annoying degree, about how the Dallas Cowboys are supposedly “America’s Team”. This was thought up by a Dallas Cowboys marketer, I am convinced. If anything, it is more likely that America’s team, if you had to pick one from pro Football, would be the Green Bay Packers.

For one, they are the only small town team in a league with big city teams. Green Bay’s population is around 100,000, which is less than a third that of Cincinnati and one twelfth the size of San Diego.

The fact that Green Bay has had a major pro sports team for 80 years is a major anomaly. Sure, in the UK and Italy provincial cities have grown major sports teams, mostly in Soccer. But, this doesn’t usually happen in America. To top it off, Green Bay won the first two Super Bowls and holds 12 World championships, the NFL’s highest number.

The small town becoming the champ rings a bit like the film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”. The film, starring an aw-shucks Jimmy Stewart, reminds us that what we like best is the underdog –the little guy—who takes on adversity and a challenge, only to triumph enormously with a little effort and a good attitude. If a sports team could audition for that role, the Packers have already nailed it

And only a week ago, I walked into a business office, like many across America, with a framed picture of Vince Lombardi and a notable quote. I don’t see SkyMall or QVC selling any inspirational frames of Tom Landry or Bill Parcels.

But for all the motivational accolades that Lombardi may have inspired in many a business seminar, I think we’re seeing something equally inspiring in the Packers’ other marvel, Brett Favre. At age 40, the year old Packer legend, now with the Vikings, is knocking on the Super Bowl’s door again.

The last time the Vikings made it to the big one was in 1977, the last of four Super Bowls the club lost in a decade. Plus it hasn’t been since the 1970’s since we saw a forty-something --George Blanda, who was mostly a kicker then at age 48-- compete in the NFL semi-final round.

Favre has prepared to retire once or twice. No one is exactly sure of the details. Some of us joke year after year that this year he will retire, hopefully. But the fact that Favre has transformed the Vikings into a potent force this year says something.

This is a club with only one post-season in the last several years, despite having a good quarterback before his arrival. Yet after years of barely getting through the season, Favre’s Vikings had twelve wins before the post-season.

But stats and achievement aside, there is a lot to like about Favre in the context of today’s pro sports. His durability in the game over the years is especially inspiring, while being only one of five NFL quarterbacks to start 100 consecutive games. Favre has long been a committed top level team player and has never taken his stature as an opportunity to brag. Maybe that’s how is should be.

Consider what other pro Football players have been up to over the years:

-Michael Vick (Dog fighting felonies)
-Randy Moss (Bumping an old lady with his car, being generally obnoxious)
-Rae Carruth (Conspiracy to Murder)
-Billy Cannon(Counterfeiting $50 Million)

True, no player should be given special praise for not being a criminal.

But it is refreshing once again to see an apt player and true professional make it so long, and so successfully in NFL Football, a game not kind to or built for old men.

Certainly there are better quarterbacks than Favre and better teams than the Vikings. But none of the others playing this weekend have the experience and the staying power to draw on, one step from the Super Bowl. And its fair to say that along the way Favre may very well have the whole chilly Midwest behind him.

Frye writes weekly about sports and life. Updates can be found here at MySports/Complex, from Twitter and on the Facebook page of the same name. With a Leinenkugel in one hand and cheese in the other, he’s taking a crack at his first book.

A** Ball: Lessons for the Mind and Behind

CYA is one of my favorite acronyms. It means “cover your ass” and is a sentiment widely disseminated throughout the business world not only from boss to drone, but from one peer to another.



The mood behind CYA, most of the time, isn’t literal. Specifically, you don’t need to cover your behind like a quail during hunting season. But every day, many of us realize that life --whether in business, family affairs, conversations, or in dealing with humans in any capacity-- consists largely of taking responsibility for what’s yours and covering your back so that you don’t get blamed for messes that are not yours. Yes: CYA is life, basically.

Probably the only thing Sarah Palin ever said that I agree with (and I’m paraphrasing) is that many of the lessons we learn in life we can learn through participating in sports. This is particularly true, I believe, during our journey from childhood to adulthood.

This whole thing about CYA came back to my mind during a walk though the playground of my old elementary school in PA called Blair Mill.

Blair Mill was a great primary school. Teachers were good. The atmosphere was gentile and nurturing. We even had a puppy dog, The Blair Mill Beagle, as our mascot. But what I remembered first, passing by the broad arch-shaped wall of the school which faced the playground, was the treacherous daily game of CYA we school kids played, known as Assball.

More frequently we called it A-ball, for the simple fact that we didn’t want to tip off recess ladies to what we were doing. We didn’t want to risk the game being banned for the bad words inherent in its name. The truth is that they had no idea what we were doing, and probably didn’t care, even about the most violent parts.

As Upper Classmen of the school, the 4th and 5th graders got claim of the big wall for whatever suited them. Previously, kids might kick a rubber kickball off the wall without much of a competitive game in mind.

What started out as a simple activity of several boys throwing a ball against a wall and trying to win the next catch, transformed itself into a more cutthroat meta-sport that consumed the later years of my childhood. As such:

The rules of A-ball:
1) Whoever has the ball (usually a tennis ball) throws it against the wall.
2) Anyone one can attempt to catch it on the rebound.
a. If you catch the ball or gather it off the ground, you get the next throw.
b. If you touch the ball but fail to catch it, you must run to the wall and touch the wall before another player can gather the ball, throw it, and hit you.
3) If you get hit with the ball before touching the wall, that’s one strike
4) If you get three strikes, here’s what happens:
a. You must go to the wall.
b. Crouch down, head touching the wall, with your rear facing the area of play.
c. Every other player lines up, and, one at a time, gets a turn to beam you in the ass with the ball.
d. Sit tight. There are about 20 to 25 other boys playing this game.

A-ball must have blossomed out of either suburban boredom or our pre-adolescent need for competition and one-upps-manship on the way to middle school. I’m sure some social scientist out there might say the game had its own Darwinian significance.

Being both a risk taker and a poor athlete at the time didn’t suit me well. I would run and try to catch the ball but my hands weren’t very good for that.

I probably spent more time crouched at the wall with three strikes than any other boy on the playground. A few times I took the ball in the face thanks to the gifted guys who could use their baseball skills to land it accurately between my feet, under my torso and into my hidden face.

Playground games like these are probably one of the reasons some boys and many girls grow up to dislike sports or be indifferent altogether. Like those who are teased, school represents something a time and a place they wished to break away from. I certainly get this.

The Blair Mill Beagle, unofficial mascot of A-ball.

Nonetheless, I had fun playing A-ball, despite the minor pains and embarrassment. But I am not 100% sure why. Perhaps this game represented some thrill and danger in the lives of sheltered and protected youths like us. Maybe on those lucky days without three strikes, I enjoyed the achievement of eluding capture.

What I probably learned, to the best of my recollection and bruises, was the ability to adapt to any situation, even adverse one, like getting pelted 25 times in the rear with a tennis ball. More than anything, I learned the value of CYA; in this life experience the fundamental value of covering your ass in everything you do, for fear of unsavory consequences.

Also, I learned about the consequences of taking a risk; in this case the simple risk was playing a game for social acceptance or even enjoyment. All in all, good training for the greater problems with greater ramifications that one must face as an adult.

I like to think that our game of A-ball was unique. But I am certain kids elsewhere with a wall and a tennis ball might have played a similar game, learning similar lessons.

And, whether you like sports or not, care or don’t care about who’s in the next Super Bowl, it is hard to deny that our playful activities as children have as much to do with shaping us as people as our work activities do now a grown ups. Hopefully along the way our experiences shed on our character not only a little humor and humility, but some important things to take away for another day.

What the world has seen in the last year and a half seems to suggest that not enough of our leaders have had adequate tests of their character, or even their CYA skills, out on life's playground.

With the world economy in the balance, CEOs of financial giants like AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers threw up their hands amidst their failing companies as they walked off with fortunes.

We could criticize our governments too for their screw ups and not having the foresight to anticipate financial chaos borne from recklessness. It seemed, for a while that incompetence was spreading like H1N1.

Maybe looking back, we could have helped our leaders earlier with their journey through life. Or better yet, there are still lessons to be learned with the help of a little playground fun of pelting à la A-ball.

Frye writes weekly about sports and life. Updates can be found here at MySports/Complex and on his Facebook page of the same name. Just watch your behind.