Favre Out Now that Brett Favre has retired, I wonder what he'll do?

I'm sure he'll be fine. He certainly doesn't need the money, but what will occupy his time? To me, Brett Favre lived to play quarterback. So now what? Flinging footballs at faraway farm equipment or playing pickup games like he does on those jeans commercials?

It always seemed incongruous that this Southern-born man would become such an icon in the heart of the Midwest. But when you think of the other iconic quarterbacks from his era, what do you come up with? Joe Montana, Joe Cool. 'Nuff said. Troy Aikman, another Southerner, but also detached and businesslike. Dan Marino, the guy that set the bar of NFL records that Favre would eventually surpass, a great quarterback but without a whole lot of dimension apart from his ability to throw a football.

Then there's Brett. Now this guy has some dimension. Playing the game with a style decidedly his, seemingly drawing plays up with a rock in the dirt of the sandlot, blurring the line between daring and reckless. Caution? Schmaution! He would fire passes into the teeth of a secondary knowing he had the arm strength and--well, just knowing he would get it where it was supposed to be. And when he succeeded, he celebrated by jumping boundlessly up and down like a kid----even at age 38. But if he didn't pull it off, you just rooted for the guy because he thumbed his nose at playing it safe.

There was also the way he became a star, playing first for his dad in a run-oriented offense in high school that allowed him to throw maybe five or six passes a game. Riding the bench for his first pro coach, who said it would take a plane crash to get Favre into a game. Then, he replaced a guy in the Green Bay lineup, Don Majkowski, who earned the nickname "The Magic Man" for his own late-game heroics, and turned up the dial on that particular style of play. Add on his humanizing trips to rehab, first for dependency on painkillers and later for alcohol. Toss in that performance on Monday night a couple of years ago, the day after his dad died, when he lit up the sky with passes and burned his own brilliant star just a little brighter.

And then there was the way he said goodbye to football on Thursday. Full of emotion, choking back tears--real tears of bidding farewell to an old friend. No prepared statements, just Brett Favre of Kiln, Mississippi. Saying that as hard as it was to say it, his career was over, that he had no more to give the game. Poignant.

At least one person in our newsroom kind of scoffed at the notion of us using the sound bite where he sat silently gathering himself for what seemed like an hour, the emotion rising up from deep within, the silence broken only by his sniffles, finally saying that he hoped the Packers knew that all the money they spent on him was money well spent. But that wasn't a hokey sound bite used by a cynical media. That was genuine emotion, something you just don't see very much of. Kind of cleansing---like a good cry.

WHILE I'M STILL ROLLING....

The cynic in me says that the higher-ups at the Illinois High School Association must own large amounts of stock in the oil companies. What other explanation can there be for their ridiculous bracketing of the state basketball tournament? Here's what I mean:

You have Edwardsville and O'Fallon playing for a sectional championship tonight. In Bloomington. That's a good three-hour one-way trek up Interstate 55. I know, because I did it for four years in college. How stupid is that? Well, not as stupid as having the schools do it twice in two or three days. Edwardsville's team (and let's not forget their parents and fans) spent six hours on the road on Tuesday, getting in late and having to wake up and go to school the next day. It was O'Fallon's turn on Wednesday. Now both teams will repeat this idiotic sojourn again today. What happened to the day where you played in the Alton regional, then advanced to the Collinsville sectional, and then moved on the Carbondale supersectional before making the trip upstate? Can't you just see the digital numbers flash by on the gas pumps? Maybe somebody can set me straight on the logic for making teams do this.......

And while on the subject of prep sports, here's to all the players whose careers are winding down, or have already finished. Those who won't go on to play in college, and perhaps weren't stars even on their own rosters. We give out much publicity to the blue-chippers who have tough decisions about which college scholarships to accept---and hey, they deserve all the accolades for everything they've done to get to this point. But for those who endured the same long practices, whose parents got them started on the same CYC, JCCA or YMCA route, schlepped them to summer and AAU league games, forked out the money for camps, yelled out encouragement and doled out hugs and pats on the back to their kids but are now seeing the end of the competitive road, enjoy your own moment of satisfaction.

Thanks for reading on this far. Until next time.............. ¶ 10:03 AM