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 Brett Favre can keep playing year after year, season after season. I don’t care if he plays on every single NFL team and wins the next 6 Super Bowls, as long as he just keeps on playing.
He can win with the Vikings and then go to the Bengals and then up to the Seahawks … you go Brett … I love it. Anyone that gripes about Brett Favre is missing out on a truly fun ride.
Watching Favre is for me, like that one last connection to John Elway and the hey-day of the Broncos. Favre played in the best Super Bowl ever, when John Elway was young, though at the time he was considered old. When I watch Brett Favre play now, it makes me feel young. And that’s not an easy task.
In addition, I have an especially huge affinity for Favre’s current team the Minnesota Vikings. Starting in the 5th grade, I hung out at one house for about 5 years straight. You probably know that house -- where total chaos rules.
The Marovelli house had more siblings and more neighborhood kids, more dogs and more cats either laying around or fighting, then any other house in the hood. And the door was always left wide open. And the TV was always left turned on.
And that is where I had my first introduction to the Vikings. Erin Marovelli asked me if I knew about football, and then she preceded to explain it to me. I think she just wanted to show off her football know-how, but I listened. It’s really not that complicated and that’s when I became a fan of the purple and gold.
My family was from Alaska, my dad had no interest in football. When asked to events where we had to pretend to be interested in a Redskin game, it was almost uncomfortable to have to see my dad pretend to know what the hell was going on and, worse yet, act like he cared. And my mother hated sports. Except for Olga Korbett and Billy Jean King of course.
For some weird reason, I became a crazed fan of the scrambler, Fran Tarkenton. I watched the games in the basement of our townhouse by myself, and followed the Vikings for several seasons only to watch them lose time and time again either in the Super Bowl or on their way to the Super Bowl.
I still remember the playoff game when the Vikings lost in the last 50 seconds when the Cowboys threw a Hail Mary pass to Golden Richards. I didn’t know that 48 seconds left on the clock is really an hour in football time.
I thought the game was locked up and then this guy with his long blond hair hanging out of the back of his helmet screwed it all up for us Viking fans … I cried and cried. My mother was so irritated, she just didn’t get it. Nor did she have the patience for my theatrics.
Years went by, and I moved to KC. But the Chiefs? Are you kidding me?
I have friends who still follow the Chiefs; they are gluttons for punishment. God bless them though, they are true fans.
The next move was to Denver. It was April, and all I heard was Broncos, Broncos, Broncos. I hated it. I was sick to death listening to Bronco stuff and it wasn’t even football season. Those people were whacked over their Broncos.
My husband’s boss heard me griping about the whole Bronco insanity, and he was determined to open my eyes to the Denver Football experience. I went to the first pre-season game, and his job was done. I became a lunatic Bronco fan just like everyone else in Colorado.
After the Broncos sealed their place in football history, it took a couple years, and a couple moves and my attachment, my love for the team waned. I look back on those years, and the time spent screaming at the television from the back of a bar or scaring the children at my friend’s houses when I would randomly yell out in pain watching Elway get sacked … shivering under a blanket at the old stadium while that crazy ass guy stood over the end zone in a barrel with no clothes on … while people were sledding down the steps of the stadium. I am glad I had the chance to experience the passion that comes along with being a crazed Denver fan.
But, way back in my mind, I still hold on to the anguish over that last second pass to some pretty boy from the Cowboys. I never liked the Cowboys. Nobody I know, likes the Cowboys. So I’m living here in Texas and the only NFL team that ya hear about….The Cowboys.
I wouldn't consider Tony Romo a pretty boy, but he does fly off on the weekends to party in Vegas, and he dates ditzy celebrities. That pretty much qualifies him as a douche bag, which in my book is next in line to a pretty boy.
So this Sunday, I’ll be watching the Vikings. I’ll be watching Brett Favre, and I’m hoping that the spirit of all those Vikings that have gone down before him, lift him up, lift up those poor cold Minnesota Fans, that have never had the sweet taste of Super Bowl victories.
I want them to drink from the Gatorade container on Super Bowl Sunday. But first, they need to beat the Cowboys. I don’t want to cry after the game, and that young man, Brett Favre, is my last hope.
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Comment by BL on 2010-01-15 11:49:41
Well done, Amy. The "will he or won't he retire" saga of Brett Favre, that has gone on for years now, is nobody's business but his own. So what if it causes the sports talkshow call-in lines to light up like crazy; or get the ESPN/FOX/CBS/NBC host/jocks to speculate and speculate? The fact is, it's his body, and if the man can still play and some team still wants him, then great, I'm all for it.
As a Broncos fan since 1983, only the sweet taste of Super Bowl victory can provide lasting healing for a fan who sticks with a team, regardless of who that team is, through the tough times. Those of us who anguished over three Broncos Super Bowl losses in four years (each worse than the last), understand the meaning of words such as vindication, gratification, and, yes, even salvation. For all those long-suffering Vikings fans, I also hope that Brett Favre will lead your purple and gold to the promised land.
Also, my bad in insisting the game was Saturday! You were right...it's Sunday. |
Comment by Rebecca on 2010-01-15 13:58:17
Very well put Amy. I myself am a New England fan but since their poor performance last week I too will be cheering for Favre and the Purple and gold! |
Comment by Lars on 2010-01-16 02:42:57
Brett Favre represents both the best and the worst of what football is. And perhaps the perfect and final symbol of its transformation.
He has fun. He plays like a kid. He loves what he does. He is a vision of yardrat in high-tops who can sling a 30-yard dart to the neighbor-kid who cut off the slant route at the Dodge. And he is one of those people who is identified with a franchise, almost to the degree that the franchise is associated with its home city.
But that team personification is what he was once. Now he is has become the symbol of the new NFL. He is now a movable commodity. A great QB and a future hall of famer. But he is no longer the perfect symbol of the "old school", but the "new-school" star of three teams in as many years.
He has traded in his loyalty for either money or ego. And yes, another ring counts as ego.
I am a football fan who was raised so far from the city I had no real affinity with an NFL, except perhaps the LA Rams after reading a book on Deacon Jones and Fearsome Foursome.
Dont get me wrong, I am a football fan. Season ticket holder in KC as Schottenheimer rebuilt the Chiefs. Season ticket holder in St. Louis from day one through the greatest show on turf. After that, I have enjoyed and followed home teams while living in Chicago and Miami.
I hold no hard feelings against Favre. Nor do I idolize him. I do enjoy watching him play and can appreciate his "brand". But I miss a team truly representing a city, and the players who live and die there.
While I can accept that this is just another aspect of the "greeding of America", I miss the comraderie of and common DNA among Chiefs fans who know the initial reason why we came to despise the Raiders so many years ago. |
Comment by Football Pagan on 2010-01-16 02:44:28
I love your writing but it saddens me that your intelligence, your wit and your passion are all wasted on what has become the 21st Century opiate of the masses. While we are watching a group of physical deviants that achieved a good deal of their athletic prowess with the help of drugs, run up and down a field of carpet, the multinational greed heads are raping us and transferring all the power in the world to their pockets. Yes, Karl Marx needs updated. |
Comment by It killed me as well... on 2010-01-17 15:30:59
I remember that 'hail Mary' pass also. As a 10-year-old Vikings fan, I caught endless grief from all of my band-wagon hopping-Cowboys-fan classmates. I had to endure their ribbing on top of my personal grief over a game lost after it seemed to be won.
But one thing...the pass was caught by Drew Pearson, not Golden Richards. |
Comment by Anonymous on 2010-01-18 11:59:33
Wow This is a surprise I was going to Text u and give u grief about the Cowgirls because I\'m a Skins fan and chargers and times are tough now but to see the spanking and to see Brett have so much fun that was a reprieve from my anguish. Old guys rule Old girls too! |
Comment by D.Amasa on 2010-01-18 12:53:20
I read somewhere that Minnesota made a deal with Satan back in the '80's sometime ... he'd provide global warming to extend their growing season and also eventually a Super Bowl champion. |
Comment by Carrie on 2010-01-18 16:50:26
I think it is hard to not cheer on Farve. He is an icon and he deserves his success, plus he seems very likeable. I told my husband (as the Vikings destroyed the Cowboys - yay) I could never root against Brett Farve. So for the Superbowl I am hoping to see The Vikings versus the Colts. The Colts are my team, but I would not be upset if the Vikings won. Keep goin' Brett! |
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