My regret about Brett

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  Coogee, Australia
Friday, March 14, 2008

With the recent announcement of the retirement of my FAVorite football player, Green Bay Packers quarterback, #4, Brett Favre, which so many people kindly informed me of, I would be remiss if I did not respond.  This is a blog, afterall.  So, I've taken some time to reflect on what Brett Favre's retirement means to me, but also, about my ever increasing love for the game of football. 

I grew up in Chicagoland, as a Bears fan.  I have grown to truly love the game of football.  My parents always had it on, every Sunday, most Mondays.  I liked to bellow "ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?!" on Monday nights to the amusement (sometimes) of my family. The sound of football has a certain comforting quality to me, like nothing else.  One cannot forget the excitement leading up to Super Bowl XX, thanks to the "Super Bowl Shuffle"!  My brother, sister, and I had posters in our rooms of the players.  Walter Payton was my favorite!  I also loved Willie Gault.  We took a couple of family trips to Platville, Wisconsin, where the Bears had training camp.  We stayed one night at this little motel with a swimming pool and a rusty swingset out back.  I sat on that swingset and saw my first shooting star.  I also flooded the bathroom in the motel because I didn't know how a shower curtain worked.  During training camp, the players would sign autographs as they walked off the field.  I chased after Walter Payton, along with about 100 other fans, and wormed my way up to him, only to have some bigger kid elbow me hard in the stomach.  Walter Payton moved the boy aside, patted me on the head, and signed the autograph.  Sadly, being only 7 or 8, I lost the autograph.  That is still one of my fondest football memories, but many more would follow. 

As I got older and went to high school, Friday nights we'd go to football games.  Everyone would sit on the cold metal bleachers flirting with each other, or in my case, unsuccessfully trying, and not paying any attention to what was going on on the field.  Reminders of my high school insecurities well up as I think back to those days.  By junior year, I had more of a vested interest in the game -- the players were my friends, I'd watch my sister at halftime perform her pom pon routine, and everyone would go to the dances after home games. The dances were casual and ridiculously fun because everyone was on the dance floor. Those of us on the cross country team would be careful not to jump around too much because we needed to save our legs for the meets on Saturday mornings.  By senior year, I was dating the quaterback...maybe that's where my QB interest began. 

When I was looking at where to go to college, I had visited my brother a few times at the University of Illinois and enjoyed the atmosphere of Division I football and wanted that to be part of my experience.  I got very lucky in choosing Arizona State University.  Sun Devil Stadium is built into two buttes and I still love the sight of it.  My freshman roommate was from Wisconsin.  She hated the Bears and I hated the Packers. We'd have Packers/Bears debates frequently, though the Packers were doing much better in those days -- probably because of their quarterback. My sophomore year at ASU was truly amazing.  Excitement mounted as the season progressed and we kept winning.  I almost skipped the Nebraska game, though, because that early in the season, many thought ASU didn't have a chance.  My roommates and I decided to go anyways. Not only all of Sun Devil Stadium was covered in red, but so was Tempe. Nebraska fans were everywhere.  Standing room only tickets were sold and ASU shut out Nebraska 19-0.  Everyone stormed the field after the game and the goal posts came down and ended up on Mill Avenue. Like me, so many Sun Devils who attended that game will tell you that is their most memorable ASU sports moment.  I made it to every game there after and even traveled down to Tucson for the University of Arizona game, which sealed our trip to the Rose Bowl.  College football - I was hooked.

I've only been to three professional football games in my life, countless college games around the country, but only three pro.  I really can't complain.  The first was an Arizona Cardinals game my freshman year of college.  I worked for Stadium Management just one game, checking tickets on the lower level of Sun Devil Stadium, when the Cardinals were still playing there. The hope was, if you worked those games, you might be able to help that January when the Super Bowl came to Tempe.  I was able to watch most of the game, but can't tell you who the Cardinals played.  The next NFL game was Super Bowl XXX at Sun Devil Stadium.  Like I said, I cannot complain.  I was very lucky that day, having worked only one Cardinals game, and a handful of times, taking tickets at the NFL Experience (in the outskirts of Lot 59), I was lucky I didn't get stuck in one of the satellite parking lots all day.  We had to show up that Sunday morning at some ridiculous hour, 6am maybe, to find out where we'd be posted for the day.  I was sitting on the ground with my back against a fence, chatting with the guy next to me when they came around assigning workers for the day.  My new friend and two others were chosen for locker room security.  They needed one more.  My new friend said, "Hey, how about her?" and pointed to me, and there you have it.  All 5'2 of me, Super Bowl XXX, locker room "security."  This task entailed checking press credentials and watching the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers walk by all day.  The officials locker room as at the end of the hallway, where my friend was posted, and is where the Vince Lombardi Trophy, which I only recently learned was made my Tiffany, (the ultimate "little blue box") remained until it was presented after the game. At one point during the game, I was able to sneak down and have my picture taken with the trophy.  We had breaks throughout the course of the day, which we were able to take in the stadium.  I caught glimpses of the game.  At halftime, the players paraded back to the locker rooms and we had to stand around ready to check press credentials.  As the Cowboys, who were winning, came in, Deion Sanders walked in first, head held high, as if he was a Greek god or something, followed by the rest of his team, including Emmitt Smith.  Commentators Ahmad Rashad and a retired Joe Montana stopped by as well.  Joe Montana left me completely star struck!  It was an absolutely amazing experience for a freshman in college.

My third pro game was just a year and a half ago with SueAnne, Roy, Kimberly, Kush, and Cam for a Washington Redskins pre-season game.  After seeing so many college games, and with our seats being really good - down, close to the field, you get an idea of how HUGE these guys really are. 

What does all of this have to do with Brett Favre?  Well, October 2001, I had gone mountain biking with a couple of friends.  We headed back home to eat pizza and watch football.  The Packers and playing somebody, I don't even remember which team.  The Packers won, the sun was shining over Lambeau Field, but it was also raining in Green Bay.  Brett Favre had the nice five o'clock shadow going and he looked really happy.  I had noticed how he looked like a little kid while he was playing -- the excitement, the enthusiasm, it was infectious.  You could see how the rest of his team was responding to their teammate. 

A few days later, maybe a week, we had an event at the NGA and I was retelling this story there.  The next Monday, a picture of Brett Favre, clipped out of the newspaper, appears on my bulletin board at work.  I kind of laughed it off, found out who the culprit was, but left the picture there.  As the years went on, I become more and more engaged in college football and less in pro football, but still had a soft spot for Brett Favre in my heart.  I didn't really tell anyone in my family at first.  We are Bears fans afterall. Somehow the secret started to slip out.  My mom, who has always had Bears paraphanalia up in her 4th grade classroom, started sending me photos of Brett Favre, which I added to the corner of the bulletin board at work.  I'd have serious discussions with my dad (who loves that his two daughters can talk about football, baseball, and golf) about Brett Favre and would save articles from Sports Illustrated for me.  He vacations in Wisconsin with his friend Vicki where they picked up a little Brett Favre cutout/mirror for my desk from "PackerLand."  Colleauges at work would ask about Brett Favre and the Packers season all the time.  The collage grew.  Last year, my sister looked into tickets to see the Packers play the Bears on NYE 2006, but they were ridiculously expensive and I would have had to change flights and go to the game by myself.  This past fall, for my 30th birthday, my sister searched and bought me a child's size 5 Brett Favre jersey.  Sadly, we had to return it...I'm little but child's size 5 fits a 5 year old, specifically, one 5 year old named Sydney in Mesa, Arizona.  When my brother, her dad, saw her wearing the green and gold #4 jersey this past fall, (a little joke we were playing) he yelled so much, he had poor little Sydney in tears!  My brother is vehemently against my Brett Favre interest, because we are from Chicago, we are Bears fans.

There's been talk of Brett Favre's retirement for years.  I always thought it would be an amazing experience to go see the Packers play the Bears at Soldier Field - one of the coldest games of the year, (who would I root for?) but the timing never seemed to work out.  I've even considered making the trip up to Green Bay for a game to see Brett play.  I've defended Brett Favre when people have said he's washed up, he's no good, he needs to retire.  2006 was a terrible year, no doubt, but 2007 was amazing, there's no denying it.  He came within a touchdown of almost making the Super Bowl.  He was Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year this Year. 

My regret about Brett is that I never saw him play in person, Green Bay or Chicago.  Also, I regret that I cannot torment my brother with talk of Brett Favre anymore.  Not seeing Brett Favre play in person is one thing I wish now that I had made happen.  It has had me thinking a lot about regret.  We regret the things in life we don't do more than the things in life that we do.  I've been thinking a lot about the "what if." Sometimes, it's true, lack of time and resources make a fulfilling a dream seem impossible.  And of course, we have regrets about something we've done, and we can look at it as an opportunity to learn from our mistakes.  When it comes to missed opportunities though, there is often no going back.  It's an opportunity to learn, sure, but it's also the lingering question of "what if" that won't go away.  We're all afraid of stuff. We all have those things that we think we cannot do, for which we think we aren't smart enough, brave enough, beautiful enough, gutsy enough, have enough money, the list goes on.  Most of the time, that list is in our own heads.  It's more that just missing a game to me.  It's a missed opportunity, one of probably many. How many can I count? Sometimes those events don't live up to what we'd dreamed, but at least by taking that chance to make it happen, we know. I believe in dreaming big, in leaping when there is no net, even if I have to cover my eyes on the way down for just a second. Asking myself, "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"  I probably won't do this every time, but the Brett Favre reminder will always be there.  If I had chickened out and had not gone on this trip, I think of all I would have missed out on.  I have time and there will always be opportunities to make money. 

It's too bad that Brett Favre isn't playing another season, but perhaps there is a flag football game versus Brett Favre in my future...

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