a new doxology

When I woke up this morning I thought it was going to be just another regular Tuesday. I walked to the kitchen and toasted a bagel and then sat down at my desk to eat breakfast and check a few of my “usual” websites. After checking my emails I went to espn.com and froze in my seat when I saw the BREAKING NEWS Alert on top of the page. My outlook on the whole day (and perhaps the whole world, at least temporarily) changed when I read the headline “Favre tells Packers he’s retiring” in Chris Mortenson’s breaking story. I checked the time stamp on the story and it read 9:39am ET; I was reading it at 8:45am CT. The story had broke only 6 minutes earlier. To be fair, Jay Glazer may have actually been the first to break this story on foxsports.com, but that was probably only a few minutes earlier. I turned on ESPN and they hadn’t even interrupted Sportscenter and their other regular programming to report the story. I felt weird being one of the first to know something that was about to become a really big deal to a lot of people. I’ve been a Packers fan since I can remember watching football, it’s a tradition passed on to me by my dad, who became a Green Bay fan because his dad (my grandpa) grew up cheering for the Packers in Wisconsin.

Brett Favre has been the quarterback of the Packers for the past 16 seasons and holds nearly every possible statistical record for quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. He led the Packers to the Super Bowl twice, winning the championship in 1997; and Brett is only the player in NFL history to win the MVP award three times (and he did it in three consecutive seasons, from 1995-1997). But beyond all the stats, Super Bowls and MVP awards, Brett Favre became the most loved football player (not just quarterback) ever because of the character and spirit he brought onto both the football field and into life. Favre was the guy who was always jumping around after a touchdown and high-fiving lineman who had just knocked him down, and even in his older age this year he was often seen carrying receivers off the field or even throwing snowballs at teammates as the Packers went 13-3 and came within one game of the Super Bowl. Read the rest of this entry »