Frank's first response was to ask if it was for real this time and unless we have another trigger-happy code monkey on our hands, this time it's legit. (He has since sent this gem: "Aaron Rodgers, Rex Grossman, Jon Kitna, Tavaris Jackson - one of these QBs is guaranteed to make the playoffs next season. Gotta love the NFL.")
I'll spare the world another blogger wailing in the darkness and asking what Packers fans have done to deserve a quarterback who is subject to the aging process of the human body. I'll fess up right here and let everyone know that I was calling for Favre's (overdue) retirement a little over a year ago.I'll also skirt the positive spin post until closer to draft day, when you'll see plenty of copy devoted to Aaron Rodgers and how he's primed to step into a starting role in Green Bay.
Instead, I'll fight back the tears and urge to vomit and relay a quick Favre story while I watch my Flickr account explode.
I went to St. Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin and the school has served as the summer home of the Packers dating back to the Lombardi era. Apparently, Coach Lombardi struck a deal with some of the Norbertine brothers to house the players on campus and they've been there ever since.
The prize job for me was as the van driver, who racked up a ton of hours each day, was fed three meals a day (a huge perk as a college kid) and drove players the few miles back and forth from campus to Lambeau Field.
I have often explained to people that this was the best job I've ever had and it's a shame that my career peaked so quickly. It used to be a joke when I said that.
One of the most stressful parts of the job... OK, pretty much the only stressful part of the job, was picking up players after practice each day when they had finished signing autographs after the morning workouts. It was my job to nose the huge 15-passenger van up next to the gates and hope that people had the good sense to stay away from the wheels and front end as we left to head back to the locker room.
Someone in the Packers front office had a great idea where eight or nine players would hang back after the morning practice and sign autographs for 30 to 45 minutes and fans would be issued tickets to get onto the practice field to get whatever they had with them signed. It cut down on the crush of fans hounding for autographs and meant that a good chunk of them went home with some nice souvenirs.
Normally, I just concentrated on getting guys into the van and then safely getting away from the crowd. This was usually stressful as fans do dumb things around athletes - like one kid who threw his bike under my rear tires to hopefully force me to stop and keep the players around while the police sorted things out - and the players just wanted to hit the showers and head back to campus for lunch.
Favre usually got a personal ride back with the security team - if he tried to wade through the railbirds and hop on a bike, he'd have been torn limb from limb - but on days that he was signing, he'd catch a ride in the van.
Favre would have been justified in grabbing shotgun and no one would have much of a case for kicking him out, but he didn't. In order to give more room to a series of linemen and players with pads in the August heat, Favre threw his helmet down between the driver's and passenger's seats and sat perched there for the short drive back.
I know it doesn't sound like much, but in the summer of 1997, Favre was a defending world champion, the quarterback for a frontrunning team and one of the most popular players in football - he was also a guy bouncing along and telling off-color jokes while squeezed into the front of a van so his teammates would have just a little more space to spread out in the air conditioning.
It was easily one of the best displays of leadership I've ever seen.
Late addition: Of all the stories today, this has been my favorite.
(Image taken for Siberia, Minnesota)
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