The Return of Old Number Four

“Retirement is the ugliest word in the language”
-Ernest Hemmingway

Hemmingway was rarely wrong and he knew a thing or two about love and time and words. Just read The Old Man and the Sea, a somewhat poignant piece of prose that in various ways deals with all three. There are plenty of terms in the English language, from censorship to mediocrity all the way through to suburbia that have a certain ugliness about them. Yet Hemmingway, in all his earnestness, deemed retirement the most despicable of the lot.

He understood that retirement was just a warm simile for death, a strange form of purgatory that acts as nothing more than a shelter for that one final bus. For an athlete, that last statement is an even starker truism. It is startling and it is real and when that last run in the sun is completed, the haunting ring of the passing bells fills the air almost immediately. There will be no tomorrow.

So retirement is not something to be entered into lightly nor is it a decision that should be made without proper reflection and consideration. As the ever-wise Keith Olbermann eloquently said, “You must not go gently into that goodnight.”

There will be plenty of time to deal with tomorrow with all the tomorrow’s to come, as they say. The retired tend to have great deal of time on their hands with plenty of solitude and many occasions for reflection. It would be hoped such solitude and such occasions for reflection aren’t filled with regret and self-loathing and damning questions revolving around petrol left in the tank and things left undone and how much further one could have gone.

It is a depressing notion and one which I hope never to consider. Luckily chain-smoking sports writers rarely have to give away the game due to various reasons relating to a shorter-than-average life expectancy and an ability to keep on tapping right to the very end.

Athletes, however, aren’t so lucky. We may have the shorter-than-average life expectancy in common but that is where the roads diverge. There is a finite life, and usually a short one at that, for The Athlete. This is even truer for those who compete at the elite level and decidedly truer for those who make their name from collision sports. Sport is a young man’s game. Not even the best of the best, those who have dominated their field and stand on the peak above all others, can go forever. The body goes. And so to does the mind.

When either goes, it is time to give the game away.

But if both still exist and an individual, particularly one who has excelled at the top level for so long, still believes he is capable then he has every right to continue on. And he should carry on for his own personal sanity.

A perverse and selfish notion exists in sport, as prevalent today as ever, that athletes are better off retiring with dignity, while at the top of their game. Better to go too early than too late. This arrangement, of course, comes from supporters and the press. Selfishly, they wish to remember their heroes at their peak and so therefore attempt to force them out as soon as the slope heads south. There is a love for the fairytale, even if it has to be artificially constructed.

Athletes themselves, if truly pressed, would struggle to find any legitimate reason as to why they should give up something they love before they want to. And quite often they feel pressured by expectation not of on-field success but of when the clock should be punched for the last time. The result is that many go before they are ready.

Brett Favre, seemingly, was another victim of this absurd belief that athletes are better off retiring too early rather than too late. He still wants to play. That is patently obvious. It was clear in his emotional retirement speech. It was plain when he refused to categorically rule out coming back for the Packers in April. It was evident in the way he played last season. And it was marked when he contacted Packers General Manager Ted Thompson only last week, suggesting he was ready to go around for an eighteenth season.

Physically, Brett Favre can still play and play well. He is coming off one of his finest seasons and he still ranks in the top third of quarterbacks in the NFL even at the age of thirty-eight.

Mentally, he is clearly in a space where he wants to play football at the elite level.

So it is only natural that Brett Favre should play football. He should be forgiven for his understandable mistake of walking away from the game as quickly as it should be forgotten that he did same. He has earned the right to walk away at a time of his pleasing and should not be criticised for playing on by the self-serving media, delusional football aficionados or prickly organisations.

In fact, we should be on our weary knees thanking the gods for giving us more of Old Number Four. Favre is the defining face of football’s most successful era, a quarterback with a bullet arm and a working-man charm that transcends nearly every border imaginable to make him the most popular sporting hero of his generation. No other player has a more widespread appeal and only an elite few can match his on-field achievements.

The gods are rarely kind enough to give us a second chance. We should look on the inevitable return of Favre, and his return is inevitable, as a blessing of the most benevolent nature.

Not everybody views Favre’s return with such fondness, however. The most sickening display of rejection comes from the brass of the Green Bay Packers. General Manager Ted Thompson won’t contact Favre while the word emanating from the organisation is that the Favre era has ended and it is time for Aaron Rodgers.

Not only is such a stance insulting to Favre, his legacy and the wishes of Packer fans, it is insanely stupid from a purely football perspective. The simple fact of the matter is that Brett Favre gives the Packers more chance to win this season than Aaron Rodgers, a back-up who has shown very little in his admittedly limited opportunities. The Packers are a team ready to win but they will forgo that if they pass on Favre for Rodgers. The Packers are ready for a Super Bowl run with Favre leading the team. Ryan Grant is a dynamic running back. There is a clever and talented receiving corps in place. The defense can shutdown some quality offenses. And that will all mean nothing if Favre isn’t throwing the pigskin and calling the shots.

The notion that Favre would come back and the Packers would pass on him is astounding. There would be unprecedented levels of violence in Wisconsin, a state not known for its taste of civil unrest, if that scenario played out. Breweries would be torn, cheese would fill the streets, green and yellow effigies would burn. This would be Los Angles 1992 with even more hate. Sanity would not be a common resource.

Favre will be back throwing the pigskin this season. You can take that to the bank. We should all be eternally grateful. Let us just hope that it is in the Packer number four.