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Copyright © 2010 Andrea Langworthy
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You probably know Brett Favre will play another season with the Vikings. I know and I don’t give a hoot about football. That’s because, ever since the former Packer signed with the Vikes last year, I have sent a Manila envelope stuffed with clippings about the quarterback to my Wisconsin brother-in-law, a Favre fan. I catch a headline here and there or a snippet of what sports’ experts say about the super star. Some think he was reluctant to commit to a second season because of recent surgery on his ankle. Others project he is too old, too tired, too comfy on his Mississippi estate. I don’t know why someone hasn’t asked my opinion. It’s plain as the stubble on Favre’s chin: All he wanted was to make sure the other players really, really wanted him. Favre plays the will-he-or-won’t-he game because he is as insecure as the rest of us. He didn’t want his team mates to trash-talk him for taking a younger, just as talented, player’s place. And he wanted to make sure they think he, who likes to butt-slap fellow players, is a fun guy.
It’s like grade school. How many times did I stand in a group of kids on the playground waiting as a class mate selected by the teacher chose members for her side in Dodge Ball or Red Rover? “Choose me, choose me,” I pleaded silently as the anointed student placed her finger on her cheek and looked from side to side before she made each selection. “I choose… ”she said, as my heart did a flip-flop. That’s all Brett wanted — to be the one chosen by his mates. And coach Brad Childress, who some say doesn’t use the brain God gave him, made a smart play when he dispatched members of the squad, the three players closet to Favre, to Hattiesburg to bring back the quarterback. And just like any grade-schooler knows, when your friends say, “We need you, Buddy, and we like playing with you,” a kid will do whatever they ask because it feels so good to be needed and liked. It won’t cure a case of life-long insecurity but it helps ease the symptoms.
Just ask Sally Field. I’m old enough to remember the actresses’ Academy Award acceptance speech for her performance in Places in the Heart, her second Oscar for best actress. The former Gidget and Flying Nun looked out to the audience of her peers and gushed, “I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!” Brett Favre should take a page from Field’s play book. He should use those same words when he gets to the Dome for the first game of his second season because fans and players agree: He hasn’t had an orthodox career and right now, his former arch enemies like him. They really like him.