(no subject)
Here's something my roommate, Jonathan Zimmerman, wrote about Brett Favre, Wisconsin's National Hero:
I found my role model watching Monday Night Football. His name is Brett Favre, he's a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, and he is a modern day mythological being. Don't believe me? What can Hercules, Achilles, and Titus possibly have on a guy like this. Like Zeus's other illegitimate son, Favre is an inhumanly powerful man-God. And although his mother never dunked him in a magical river, he too is invisible, capable of sustaining injuries to his head, torsoe, legs, and yes even heels while showing up for battle every week without fail. But mostly, he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders everyday, which is exactly what it is to lead a team that is nothing less than a religion to an entire city, while being dealt back to back tragedies with the death of a father and the development of breast cancer in your wife, this latest one coming at mid-season at a point when then Packer's were struggling with a 1-4 record. Brett Favre, or Brett Fav-ruh as Ben Stiller calls him, is the pure light that shins above the crap-stenched sewer of 2004 professional sports.
I mean, lets face it, despite what ESPN would try to force you to believe, this is a bad time to be a sports fan. If you don't live in Boston or New York, chances are you're baseball team sucks, or at least will suck when George Steinbrener opens up his check-book and next thing you know your favorite player is wearing pin-strips and saying things like "I wanted a real opportunity to win a championship". Yah, us too. The NBA is looking to extend its season straight into July, where is exactly enough time for people to realize how incredibly stupid basketball in the summer is. And if you even mention the NHL Jeremy Roenick personally comes to your house and beats you. You know, at least boxing fans have something to be happy about. Everywhere they go nowadays a boxing match seems to be breaking out; basketball games, NFL games, college football games...
But through it all, Brett remains consistent, aggressive, unscathed; the gun-slinger personified. The Packers understand that with number 4 they have a chance to win every single week, that's just how good a player and a leader he is. He is the most respected and loved player in the league hands down, and at the age of 35, he will be for at least a few more years. But Farve is not a character, he never has been, that's not his style. Nowhere does the outdated cliche of the "blue-collar guy" in pro sports fit better than for him. He does his job every single day, battles ever single week, and hasn't missed a start in 200 consecutive weeks, smashing all other NFL consecutive start records. And the reason is that there is just no place he would rather come Sunday be than on that football field. Critics point to Favre's picks, not an excessive number but not great, as his Achilles' heal. Really though, he is just too damn good to spend his time on the field worrying about that kind of stuff. So many quarterbacks are so concerned with not letting defenses make plays on the ball that they don't make plays themselves. Brett doesn't worry, he knows the defense can and will make a play on him, but he also knows he can get them too. And when Favre's winning, which is most of the time, the picks are as meaningless to the scoreboard as they are and always have been to him. Winning or losing, his confidence is just astounding.
So Brett Favre is my role model, I already called him. Good luck finding your own. My advise would be to begin looking outside the realm of professional sports, because it would be a shame to wake up tomorrow and find out that your role model cheated with steroids, or beat the crap out of some fans, or did some stuff with a young girl that, if it wasn't rape, was at the very least extremely skeevy. No that would be no fun at all. My role model is great, because besides all the stuff about being a deity and a cowboy, he possesses one quality that trumps all others, integrity. He is strong, unwavering, and honest. In fact, I'll just go ahead and say it, Brett Favre is a super-hero.. Yes a super-hero, because if having integrity in 2004 doesn't make you a super-hero I don't know what does.
I found my role model watching Monday Night Football. His name is Brett Favre, he's a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, and he is a modern day mythological being. Don't believe me? What can Hercules, Achilles, and Titus possibly have on a guy like this. Like Zeus's other illegitimate son, Favre is an inhumanly powerful man-God. And although his mother never dunked him in a magical river, he too is invisible, capable of sustaining injuries to his head, torsoe, legs, and yes even heels while showing up for battle every week without fail. But mostly, he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders everyday, which is exactly what it is to lead a team that is nothing less than a religion to an entire city, while being dealt back to back tragedies with the death of a father and the development of breast cancer in your wife, this latest one coming at mid-season at a point when then Packer's were struggling with a 1-4 record. Brett Favre, or Brett Fav-ruh as Ben Stiller calls him, is the pure light that shins above the crap-stenched sewer of 2004 professional sports.
I mean, lets face it, despite what ESPN would try to force you to believe, this is a bad time to be a sports fan. If you don't live in Boston or New York, chances are you're baseball team sucks, or at least will suck when George Steinbrener opens up his check-book and next thing you know your favorite player is wearing pin-strips and saying things like "I wanted a real opportunity to win a championship". Yah, us too. The NBA is looking to extend its season straight into July, where is exactly enough time for people to realize how incredibly stupid basketball in the summer is. And if you even mention the NHL Jeremy Roenick personally comes to your house and beats you. You know, at least boxing fans have something to be happy about. Everywhere they go nowadays a boxing match seems to be breaking out; basketball games, NFL games, college football games...
But through it all, Brett remains consistent, aggressive, unscathed; the gun-slinger personified. The Packers understand that with number 4 they have a chance to win every single week, that's just how good a player and a leader he is. He is the most respected and loved player in the league hands down, and at the age of 35, he will be for at least a few more years. But Farve is not a character, he never has been, that's not his style. Nowhere does the outdated cliche of the "blue-collar guy" in pro sports fit better than for him. He does his job every single day, battles ever single week, and hasn't missed a start in 200 consecutive weeks, smashing all other NFL consecutive start records. And the reason is that there is just no place he would rather come Sunday be than on that football field. Critics point to Favre's picks, not an excessive number but not great, as his Achilles' heal. Really though, he is just too damn good to spend his time on the field worrying about that kind of stuff. So many quarterbacks are so concerned with not letting defenses make plays on the ball that they don't make plays themselves. Brett doesn't worry, he knows the defense can and will make a play on him, but he also knows he can get them too. And when Favre's winning, which is most of the time, the picks are as meaningless to the scoreboard as they are and always have been to him. Winning or losing, his confidence is just astounding.
So Brett Favre is my role model, I already called him. Good luck finding your own. My advise would be to begin looking outside the realm of professional sports, because it would be a shame to wake up tomorrow and find out that your role model cheated with steroids, or beat the crap out of some fans, or did some stuff with a young girl that, if it wasn't rape, was at the very least extremely skeevy. No that would be no fun at all. My role model is great, because besides all the stuff about being a deity and a cowboy, he possesses one quality that trumps all others, integrity. He is strong, unwavering, and honest. In fact, I'll just go ahead and say it, Brett Favre is a super-hero.. Yes a super-hero, because if having integrity in 2004 doesn't make you a super-hero I don't know what does.