2 posts tagged “football”

Hello, hello to one and all. This is my crazy-go-nuts week in terms of fall playoff coverage. The weather is going downhill, and I've got a lot of long drives this week. One down, three to go.

So I really didn't need to read this in the weather news this morning:

...SIGNIFICANT LAKE EFFECT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS POSSIBLE LATE FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY EVENING FOR WEST AND NORTH CENTRAL UPPER MICHIGAN...

Now it just so happens that I will be driving up to Marquette on Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon this week, to cover playoff football games. The games themselves will be played inside the Superior Dome, which you saw photos of recently, and it's all nice and dry and warm inside. But to get there, you have to drive two hours through whatever weather the U.P. is enjoying at the time. To get home again, you have to drive two hours back through whatever. If you don't know. Marquette is in the lake effect snow belt, on the south shore of Lake Superior--they can get vast quantities of snow. So it's shaping up as one of those weekends.

On Tuesday, I drove to the volleyball regional tournament. That is an 80-mile drive each way; it's a lot closer to Lake Michigan than to Lake Superior. Our team won (just barely, in five games) and advances to the regional championship match tonight. My wife is coming along to keep me company (and, oh yes, to pick up some low-cost kitty food in Iron Mountain), and we'll stop by to see my mom, too. It's fun to have someone along--nice to have company.

Last weekend, both the football teams played at home in their district championship games. One team played Friday night: It was about 40 degrees F and dry until a few raindrops fell in the final minutes. By that time they had won, so they were happy.

During the night, the rain continued, and it changed over to wet snow Saturday morning. The other team's game was at home, starting at 12:30 p.m. Remember the recent post about the game played in the rain and fog? This one had the same two teams at the same field, only it was played in daylight.

The field had taken a good soaking overnight, but the snowflakes were real pretty during the first half. and the field was in fairly good shape ...

Not that every pass was caught ...

Or that every tackle was made ...

So conditions were fairly good early in the game. But with all those football players chewing it up thoroughly over two hours of playoff football, the middle of the field got torn up and muddy and slick. Twas a muddy mess by the time it was over. The wet snow eased off during the second quarter, but some drier snow, driven by chilly winds out of the north, arrived during the second half.

As the game went on, the teams continued battling in the mire ...

Finally, the game was over. A touchdown in the first quarter was the only scoring in the game. As always, the teams shook hands when it was all over ...

I was talking to someone in the office today. Covering the game last Saturday was fun. Despite the rain and cold and mud. In fact, because of the rain and cold and mud. It was outdoors. It was real. It was genuine football.

This weekend, I may be driving two hours through snow (twice) to got photos of teams playing on a plastic carpet in warm conditions. It's just not the same. To me, the fun part of football season ended last Saturday ... regardless of what happens in the playoffs.

(I wrote this letter to a friend this week about Brett Favre's announcement that after a long, legendary career as quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, he has decided to retire.)

Packer fans of every description were saddened last week by the news that they knew would come sooner or later. As far as they were concerned, it should have come much later.

I was fooled, too, I must admit. With the success the team enjoyed during the 2007 season, I was sure we would see Brett Favre back at quarterback for at least one more season and maybe two. This year's edition of the Packers played much better than anyone expected, even with all the injuries, and reaching the NFC championship game was a dream few could have imagined. In the end, they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions.

With the team's improvements, I thought Favre would be sure to stay around. Last week's news caught me off-guard. Then we had the press conference late last week, where he explained his decision.

Sigh. It was hard to watch. If only it was a kids' game, where he would just be expected to play on Sunday afternoons and enjoy life away from the field. But that's not in the cards for an NFL star in this era, certainly not for a star quarterback. For a regular season that lasts four months, it takes total dedication and focus nearly 12 months a year, mentally, physically and emotionally. Physically, Favre could have come back. But all the emotional and mental demands become too much to ask.

Brett (4) at training camp, August 2004

And, like he said, it wasn't fun any more. And he gets to the point where he feels he has to lay the burden down. A heavy burden it is. The weight of the team, the franchise, the city of Green Bay, the state of Wisconsin was on his shoulders. Not all of it, of course, but a lot of it was. At least he felt it was. And his opinion is the one that matters here.

As its most recognizable player, Favre was the symbol of the Packers. And for all his good-ol'-boy demeanor and the obvious happiness he felt while playing, he was under lots of pressure to perform well. That meant practice after practice, both during the season and in the off-season--the many obligations a pro football player has all season long, with mini-camps, pre-season practices, time with coaches and teammates, hours and hours by himself with VCRs and DVD players, moving images forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards, seeing how this guy gets open and this defender gets around his block, why this cornerback can be picked on and why this safety is too dangerous to attack too often.

Meanwhile, life goes on. His wife had cancer and seems to have beaten it. But you never know. His two girls are getting older. As a man, he wants to know and experience these things with the people he loves the most. As a human, he know he only gets one shot at life and family, and that, however long football lasts, he is as mortal as anyone else. The years pass, and none of us is getting any younger.

You have talked about this in the fairly recent past, talking about when you get to retire. It's a goal line out there, that all of us are moving towards slowly.

I'm thinking of the old song, "If I could save time in a bottle..." All the Packer fans, including me, want to remember the vintage Favre and uncork a new bottle from time to time so we can savor once again all the things that made him such a magical player, so much fun to watch. See him battle his demons and overcome them, like he did all those opposing teams over the years. See him in "There's Something About Mary," looking ready for anything. What we'll miss most of all isn't the guy who made all those consecutive starts or who led his team to all those fourth-quarter wins. We'll miss the little kid in Brett Favre's body who had such delight in doing what he was doing.

If only he could just do the on-the-field part, time would go on and he could keep playing. But the sad fact is that he only can do the fun part if he does all the drudgery stuff, the boring stuff, the demanding stuff--first. Then he gets dessert.

We'll miss him. Badly. There never will be another. Because there never was one before him. No other team has ever had a Brett Favre. We Packer fans were lucky to get the only one for ourselves and to keep him with us for so many years. We were so damn lucky. I can't tell you how lucky we were.

This was the only time I ever got to see him in person.

While I thought he would play one more year, I think he was wise and very mature to make the decision he did. The 2007 season was a great one for the Packers and Favre. Sure, the playoff game against the Giants didn't go well, but on the whole it was a very successful year. A good year to go out on.

Because of the decision he made last week, Favre won't have to suffer the indignities of being taken down by injury, by better opponents and by Father Time himself. He will never be benched. He will never go through a long, painful decline in skills. He won't have to worry about breaking his fans' hearts due to poor play. Too many sports stars seem to think they can go on forever and can't recognize when they just don't have "it" any more. And their teams and fans love him so much, they can't bring themselves to turn the page.

I know you don't follow hockey, but I do. I'm a big fan of the Detroit Red Wings, and they had a Brett Favre of their own: Steve Yzerman. He was so much fun to watch for so many years. He wasn't an ironman, but he was tremendously skilled and dedicated to his team, taking them from the depths of the NHL standings to win three Stanley Cup championships. He was such a joy to watch when he was playing. It just made me happy.

Same with Brett. Now, like Yzerman, Brett Favre has decided enough is enough. Who are we to second-guess? But maybe we can take a lesson from this. Maybe it helps us see that life is meant to be enjoyed. That we can take our work and the other things we do and be passionately committed to them. That family trumps other considerations. That by believing in yourself, others will believe in you.

I'll miss him. Sure I will. But I've got great memories and feel gratitude for all that he has given us over the years. And I'll never have to pity him. I'm grateful for that.