Gunslinger

by Jeff Pearlman

  She showed up later, clad in leather—looking for Brett.

  “I think Irv hit on women because he was aging a bit and looking for acceptance,” Kelly said. “We’d drive, and Irv would say, ‘When women get older they don’t want it anymore.’ That was a disappointment to him, and it probably led him to straying.”

  Irv’s father, Alvin Favre, hadn’t been faithful to his wife, and his father’s father probably hadn’t been faithful to his wife. Infidelity seemed to come naturally to Favre men. Brett’s came accompanied by guilt. Irv’s generally did not. “Love was a complicated thing with Irv,” said Kelly. “He never received affection from his dad, and he didn’t give much affection to his kids.”

  Brett Favre’s two favorite nonfootball activities were hunting and golfing. Though each endeavor used its own unique instruments, both brought him a similar peace of mind.

  Favre began hunting as a boy in Mississippi, using a pellet gun to shoot squirrels, rabbits, birds. On occasion, he and his pals would saunter around the property, aiming at stray dogs and cats. This sounds cruel. And, truly, it is cruel. But it was also what one did in rural Mississippi, between the ages of 8 and 15. “The boys all had BB guns,” said Bonita Favre. “I can’t tell you how many daisies I bought over the years that’d get shot up.” As Brett grew in stature, he acquired more equipment and more friends who liked to traverse the woods. What Green Bay lacked in nightlife it made up for with nearby hunting options. Favre and his pals traveled near and far, often at the invite of Packer die-hards eager to host the great quarterback. Because fame is magnetic and fame plus success plus charisma is übermagnetic, Favre was feted with free rifles, free gear, free lodging. A hunting TV show once offered Favre $450,000 to go on three expeditions. He declined. “I used to take Brett on the Menominee Indian reservation about 55 miles from Green Bay, just so he could shoot buck,” said Jerry Parins, the team’s longtime head of security. “He’d use a bow and arrow, and was always looking for that trophy deer. I’m sure we broke some reservation rules about hunting, but you know what was special? The following Tuesday, on the team’s day off, we’d drive back up to the reservation and he’d go to the school and they’d have an assembly and Brett would go in, talk to the kids, touch them, hand out stuff.”

  Unlike hunting, Favre’s devotion to golf came after he arrived in Green Bay and, in particular, after he returned from his first stint at Menninger. “He really needed an outlet to pass the time when he got out of that,” said Ryan Longwell, the Packers kicker. “Brett and I would play once or twice a week during the season.” He advanced from duffer to a near-scratch golfer, and went through a stretch of devoting all of his free time to hitting small white balls into slightly larger holes. The golf course became his refuge.

  That’s why, on the late afternoon of Sunday, December 21, 2003, Brett Favre found himself on the greens of the golf course near the Packers’ hotel in Berkeley, California. He, along with Longwell, backup quarterback Doug Pederson, and punter Josh Bidwell, was getting in a quick nine holes the day before Green Bay would meet Oakland on Monday Night Football. “There was no one else around,” Longwell said. “It was just the four of us.”

  Because he is the type of man who forgets his wallet and loses his keys, Favre did not have his cell phone with him. Pederson, however, did, and when it rang he was surprised to hear the voice of Deanna Favre.

  “Hey Doug, it’s Deanna,” she said. “Is Brett with you?”

  “He’s nearby,” he said. “Is everything OK?”

  “No,” she said. “Not really.”

  Ever since arriving as a little-known journeyman free agent before the 1996 season, Pederson had shared a bond with Favre over quarterbacking, hunting, Southern sensibilities. He starred at Northeast Louisiana, a Division I-AA powerhouse, then bounced around from the World League of American Football to NFL training camps before landing in Wisconsin. He was the perfect backup for the territorial Favre—good enough to fill in, but lacking the skill set to ever be considered a genuine threat.

  Deanna told Pederson the worst news imaginable: earlier that day, Irv Favre, age 58, had died.

  “What?”

  “Brett’s father is dead.”

  The backup quarterback—face ashen—handed the phone to his friend.

  “Brett, honey . . .”

  The shock arrived first, followed by the sobbing and pained breaths. “It was crushing,” said Longwell. The toughest man anyone knew had lost the toughest man anyone knew. The sun was shining, the temperature was in the high 60s. There was not a cloud in the sky. On the following day his team (8-6 and in the thick of the playoff race) would be playing the biggest game of the season on national television. It was the stuff Brett Favre lived for. Silencing a riotous stadium. Picking apart an eager secondary. Jogging off the field, finger pointed skyward. Glory.

  And now—heartbreak. Brett asked Deanna to fly to California, then he put Pederson back on the line with his wife. “Please comfort him and pray for him,” Deanna said, “while I try and find a flight out there.”

  The details of what happened trickled in. At approximately 5:23 p.m., while driving his pickup truck along Highway 603 near Kiln, Irv Favre swerved off the road and into a ditch. A woman named Leslie Stevens was directly behind him in her vehicle. She saw the accident, pulled to the side, and rushed toward the scene. “I got out to see who it was, and I recognized him as being Brett’s daddy,” said Stevens, who worked at an area motel. “He had a pulse, he was breathing. But he wasn’t talking.” Others joined her, and someone called 911. Irv was rushed to Hancock Medical Center.

  He was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. The cause wasn’t the automobile impact, but a heart attack he suffered while driving. “The news was so shocking that at first it didn’t register,” Deanna recalled. “Brett’s dad was only 58—way too young to die. It just didn’t seem right.”

  Over the course of her 38-year marriage, Bonita repeatedly implored Irv to take better care of himself, to eat healthier, to have regular checkups. Both Irv and Bonita were pack-a-day cigarette smokers, and Irv’s diet often seemed to consist of anything layered in grease topped with more grease. Following the autopsy, a doctor told Bonita that Irv had suffered a pair of previous heart attacks over the past two years, but—he said—“your husband blew us off.”

  When the Associated Press story hit the wires, the reaction was quick and predictable. Across Wisconsin and Mississippi, there were outpourings of affection, of loss, of compassion. Columnists and analysts lined up to pay homage to a person who served as a model father and husband. Wrote Thomas Rozwadowski in the Green Bay Press-Gazette: “If you spent 10 minutes with Irvin Favre, you might as well have known him for 10 years.”

  This was true for many. But inside the family, the death was more confusing. Yes, Irvin Favre was beloved. But he was also the cause of tremendous pain. Through recent years the family had learned more and more about his infidelity, and the stories were ugly. It wasn’t so much that he strayed—Brett, his brothers, and sister were well aware their father was no Ward Cleaver. And, truly, how could Brett condemn a man for moral transgressions? Yet it was a repeated slap in the face to Bonita, who put up a positive front and protected the image of a man who deserved no protection. Every year Irv’s birthday gift to his wife was money, accompanied by the words “Buy what you want.” Sometimes he purchased greeting cards. Usually he reached into a drawer for a card he had given two . . . three . . . four years earlier. It was exasperating and belittling and, worst of all, selfish.

  He was, however, also the only father Brett Favre ever knew. And for all the moments the son longed for unattainable affection, Irv Favre was the one who taught him football, toughness, resiliency. He was there for the good times and the hard times, and the insufferable barstool bragging Irv besieged upon others was fueled by pride. So when he learned of his dad’s death, Brett refused to focus on the flaws. Instead, he was overcome by the idea of never again hearing his old man’s gruff voice.


  After hanging up with her husband, Deanna called David Thomason, a pilot and family friend who handled private travel for the Favres. He arranged for a plane that would take her from Green Bay to Oakland, with a 4:00 a.m. arrival time. Meanwhile, Mike Sherman—who was now both the coach and general manager—reached out to Favre and urged him to do what was best for the family. If he wanted to skip the Oakland game, it was completely acceptable.

  Brett called his mother. He asked whether he should come home or face the Raiders. “It’s your choice,” she said. “Whatever you do, I support.” When Favre returned to the Claremont, the team hotel, he was greeted in his room by Father Jim Baraniak, the team’s Catholic chaplain and a man the quarterback loved. He knelt on the floor alongside Favre, who sat on the bed. “It wasn’t to be in a prayerful stance,” Baraniak said. “It was so we could be more eye to eye.” They spent the next 40 minutes discussing the loss of a parent. The feeling of emptiness. The burn of abandonment. “When we focus on our personal loss, it’s terrible,” the priest said. “But when we focus upon what someone else gains, it’s beautiful. Your father is in heaven now, with Jesus. That’s to be celebrated.”

  Favre was crying. “I believe you,” he said. “But it hurts.”

  He decided to play against the Raiders, but wavered. Would he be able to think about first downs and slant routes when all his focus was upon his father? Maybe, just maybe, he should take this one off. “How can I go on?” he asked Baraniak. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Brett,” Baraniak replied, “nobody expects you to do this.”

  When he finally left the room, the priest was convinced Brett would miss his first start in 11 years. “He seemed prepared to leave,” Baraniak said. “Like that’s what he was going to do.”

  Moments later, there was a knock on the door. It was Donald Driver, the standout wide receiver. The men hugged for what felt like an hour. “You know, Donald,” Favre said, “I never told Dad I loved him.”

  The Packers were scheduled to hold a team meeting that evening in one of the hotel’s ballrooms. Sherman didn’t expect his quarterback to attend, but there he was, standing in the hallway. “He asked if he could speak to the team,” Sherman said. By now, word had spread. All 53 players knew of Big Irv’s passing. When Favre entered, he was greeted by a library-like silence. “You could hear a pin drop,” said Ray Sherman, the wide receivers coach. “I mean, nobody made a sound.”

  “You could see how broken up he was,” said Mark Tauscher, the offensive lineman. “It was more than just football.”

  Mike Sherman took his place at the front of the room. Everyone was seated. “Brett,” he said, “would like to say a few words.”

  Favre stood. He was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, sandals. He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. Marco Rivera, the burly offensive lineman, couldn’t look at Favre’s face. Others also kept their eyes on the floor. Grief owned the room. “By now y’all know what happened with my dad,” Favre said in his familiarly soft drawl. There was pausing. Tears. More pausing. “And I appreciate Coach Sherman giving me the option not to play. I really do.” Pause. “I loved my dad. I love football. I love you guys. I grew up playing baseball for my dad, and I grew up playing football for my dad. It’s all I know. It’s my life. I’m playing this game because I’ve invested too much in the game, in you, in this team, not to play. If you ever doubted my commitment to this team, never doubt it again.”

  He sat down, crumbling into his seat.

  “I still get goosebumps thinking about it,” said John Bonamego, the special teams coordinator. “Talk about a moment . . .”

  The meeting concluded with Longwell leading the room in prayer. Many of the Packers knew similar loss. Rob Davis, the long snapper, was a senior at Shippensburg when his mother Reba died of a heart attack at age 51. Nick Luchey, the fullback, was a Miami freshman when his dad James succumbed to cancer. “Hey, Brett, as a man you’re going to be OK,” Luchey said to him. “It’s hard to lose a parent, but everything your dad put into you stays.”

  Favre barely slept. When Deanna finally reached the Claremont, they hugged for, in her words, “what felt like forever.” He had spent the majority of their marriage wounding his wife in many of the same ways Irv had wounded his wife. Through addiction, infidelity, indifference, he utilized every method to crush a marriage. Yet Deanna Favre remained loyal and faithful, and now she was here, by his side.

  “I just—I just can’t imagine never seeing Dad again,” he said.

  “Your dad was so proud of you, Brett,” Deanna said. “He came to every one of your college games and has watched all of your pro games. Do you think he’d want you to sit out tomorrow? I’m convinced he would have wanted you to play.”

  On Monday morning Favre woke up tired but resolute. Save for a difficult phone conversation with his sister Brandi (“Brett lost it,” she recalled. “And then I started to cry”), he felt determined. He would play, and he would play well. The day was treated like any other game day. Breakfast, a few meetings. Then, about four and a half hours before the 6:05 kickoff, the Packers left the hotel in Berkeley. “I remember sitting on the team bus, waiting to go to the stadium,” said Bob Harlan, the team president. “Brett and Deanna come out of the lobby, and he has his arm around her, and they looked more like they were on the way to a funeral, not the Oakland Coliseum.”

  There was little of the usual pregame banter and none of the jokes. Favre dressed quietly alongside Pederson and Craig Nall, the two reserve quarterbacks, and his mind was focused upon his father. Normally Favre spent the time before games thinking about his opponent, his worries, the obstacles he might face. He was never an overwhelmingly deep ponderer of life’s issues, but his brain broke down football games well before they actually happened. Now, looking into an unfamiliar metal locker with some hangers and a small shelf, Favre could only see his dad; could only hear his voice. The Raiders? Hell, they could have been the Mahopac High School freshman team. The evening wasn’t about overcoming Oakland. No, it was about living up to a standard set by a man no longer walking the earth. Under normal circumstances Favre would devote a good deal of time to warming up, stretching, tossing the ball. This time, he walked into the field just 45 minutes before kickoff, and his pregame throws were wild and uninspired. He looked down at his hands, which were shaking. He could barely breathe.

  The Packers were 8-6, and trailed the Vikings by half a game in the NFC Central. The playoffs were far from a certainty. But none of that mattered. “You didn’t talk to Brett right then,” said Kevin Barry, the offensive tackle. “You let him be, but you knew you’d play your heart out for him.”

  The Oakland Coliseum has long been a dump. Granted, not when it opened in 1966 as the home of the Raiders, and not when Major League Baseball’s Athletics relocated to California from Kansas City two years later. But over the decades, as newer stadiums debuted across America, the Coliseum steadily devolved from modern to moldy, from upbeat to barely upright.

  With that progressive decay came an attitude. Whether the Raiders go 16-0 or 0-16, the team’s fans show up for home games ready to bark. They paint their faces silver and black, add shoulder pads and breast plates to their outfits, make certain opposing players feel like they’re about to engage in gang warfare. The stadium’s south end zone is known as the Black Hole, and it is the worst place on earth. “Batteries, chicken bones, coins, you name it,” Jets center Kevin Mawae once said of the items he dodged while playing the Raiders. “I’ve had it all.” Through the years, Raiders fans have engaged in some awful behaviors. Fights. Shankings. Beatings. Drunken brawls straight out of a Mad Max sequence. They are—along with Philadelphia—the league’s most vicious loyalists.

  On the evening of Monday, December 22, however, they did something spontaneous, out of character, and remarkable. In the moments before the game, 10 of the 11 offensive starters for the Packers were introduced and (of course) booed. The last man was Favre, and as he ran onto the field and through a tunnel
of teammates, the 62,298 people in attendance stood and applauded. It wasn’t uproarious, or overwhelming. It was (gasp) respectful. “Amazing,” Favre later said. “It was almost God’s way of saying, ‘See? There is compassion in this world.’”

  For a quarterback whose mind wasn’t on the game (“He was a dishrag,” said Sports Illustrated’s Peter King), the Raiders were an ideal opponent. One season earlier, they had shocked the AFC by going 11-5 and reaching the Super Bowl behind a rookie head coach, Bill Callahan. Now the organization was an ode to dysfunction—a 4-10 record, a wannabe tough-guy coach whom no one listened to, a roster of disinterested and/or arrogant kids and worn-down has-beens. “It was very dark,” said Chuck Bresnahan, the Oakland defensive coordinator. “We quit as a team. I hate to say that, but we hit a point midway through the year and it was no longer important to everyone. Players’ cars were leaving the stadium almost as soon as the final gun went off.”

  “We were a mess,” said Derrick Gibson, a Raiders safety. “Nobody bought in, nobody respected what we were doing.”

  Oakland’s weaknesses were plentiful, but none more pronounced than the secondary. Put simply, teams that liked to pass owned the Raiders and, in particular, owned Phillip Buchanon, the second-year cornerback from Miami. That’s why, even with a distracted Favre, the game plan was simple: attack through the air.

  “Brett,” said Paris Lenon, the Packers linebacker, “carved those boys up like a turkey.”

  Immediately before player introductions, Donald Driver called his fellow wide receivers together and said, “Listen, anything he throws we catch. I don’t care what it is. Behind us, over our head. If we have to get on a ladder, jump on the guy’s shoulder, we’re gonna catch the ball.” The grieving quarterback sent a message when, on the Packers’ third play, he hoisted a magnificent 47-yard bomb over Buchanon to receiver Robert Ferguson. Two snaps later, he looped a rainbow over Gibson’s head and into the arms of tight end Wesley Walls in the rear of the end zone. Favre pointed toward the sky, then at Deanna in a box near the top of the stadium. He and Walls hugged, and one could all but see Big Irv hovering atop a cloud, preparing to ask his son why the ball wasn’t delivered a second or two earlier. “Sometimes in special circumstances, you make special plays,” Walls said. “I think it’s fair to say we were inspired by Irv.” Favre completed his opening nine throws for 183 yards and two touchdowns. It was part accuracy, part determination, part . . . otherworldliness.