Why I Have a Man Crush on Brett Favre

John Madden and I have something in common.
No, I don't weigh 400 pounds and travel exclusively by RV.
I do have a man-crush on Brett Favre, though.

The question a friend of mine at LifeWay asked me this week is a good one. WHY?

There is a story here. First of all, my wife I and both are alumni of the University of Southern Mississippi, like the greatest quarterback of all time. Second, I actually knew Favre's late dad Irvin, because some of his former athletes at Hancock North Central played baseball with me at at Gulf Coast Community College. I am pretty sure I met Brett Favre when he was still in high school when he was making the rounds with his dad.

The third big reason is the best one, though.

The year was 1990 and I covered college football for the Montgomery Advertiser, Alabama's capital city newspaper. If you know about college football in the state of Alabama, you know the state is split down the middle between Auburn University and University of Alabama fans, many of whom have lost their ever-loving minds when it comes to this sport. If you don't pledge your undying allegiance to Bear Bryant (Crimson Tide) or yell War Eagle (Auburn) incessantly, you are unworthy of drawing a breath of life. I had people threaten my life over negative things I wrote about both sides. Seriously.

It was in this environment I covered college football. When my friends and newspaper readers found out I was a USM graduate, I was labeled incompetent to cover college football because this tiny school was not in the SEC and unworthy of any consideration by Alabama and Auburn folks. It made me a little crazy.

Six weeks before Alabama's home opener against USM, senior quarterback Brett Favre wrapped his car around a tree outside Hattiesburg and had 20 inches of his intestines removed as a result. He spent a week in the hospital. He lost 30 pounds.

Somehow, Favre led USM to a 27-24 win in Gene Stallings' first game as Alabama's head coach. What made it even better was that I assigned to cover the Southern Mississippi locker room and got a chance to do an interview with Favre. To cap it off, several weeks later, Favre followed up with a doubleheader sweep of the state, leading USM to 13-12 win over Auburn. Both of these were road games for Favre and the Golden Eagles, since at that time, none of the big boys wanted to "lower" themselves to come to Hattiesburg for a game.

So, in 1990, Southern Mississippi and Favre were the state champions of Alabama college football.

So, yes, Brett Favre has had a Hall of Fame NFL career with the Packers. Yes, he's won a Super Bowl. Yes, he will probably end up leaving the Packers for the Tampa Bay Bucs or the New York Jets.

But he earned my admiration long before he became a Packer. I became a fan when he put the USM football program on the map.