retired…not dead.

everyone’s talking about it…everyone in the sport’s world, that is.
brett farve retires…

as colin cowherd began his segment this morning on espn radio, he remarked,

brett is not dead, despite the coverage on espn.

i don’t have cable, hence no espn, so i wouldn’t know. i just know it has obviously received a lot of coverage. just from the little i heard on espn radio and read online, i can see how easily it would appear that brett is no longer with ‘us’ as he is being idolized by the minute (as if he wasn’t before). he now becomes a legacy…at the age of 38, while still being alive. amazing…the way people are talking, you would think that brett’s life is over just because he will no longer wear the green and gold uniform identifying him from the front as 4, FAVRE from the back.

this talk is not so new, at least speculation of his retirement. a 38-year-old QB…every year the retirement question lingers, until the day the pads are donned for summer training.

when favre’s daughter, the then 17 year-old brittany, was asked about her father’s retirement over 2 years ago, she said,

oh, the retirement question…it’s frustrating for me because i really don’t know. ….i think that’s one reason he’s been able to make such good decisions because he doesn’t base things strictly on himself. he thinks ‘am i hurting the team? am i helping the team?’ he knows when it’s time to retire, and i trust that when it’s time, he’ll do it….
~brittany farve as quoted by tony walter from green bay press gazette, 31 december 2006

seems like he knew the timing was right. the time when he was simply too tired to go on, saying something to the effect of it being time to hang up his cleats.

retiring.
that’s a big deal, you know?
retiring from a life of all you’ve ever known,
all you’ve ever done,
all your identity is tied to.

retiring.
being willing to leave your career as it is (despite not having the fairy tale ending–i.e., making it to Super Bowl XLII).
being able to say

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race….
~as did paul in 2 timothy 4.7

being willing to lay it down…not to pick it up, or come back, again.
being willing to move on to and embrace new opportunities and a new way of life.

the flawed.

in class a few weeks ago, we talked about celebrity culture. a comment was made that we love to watch stars rise but, sometimes even more, we love to see the trainwreck. we love the perfection, but love the flawed, and the descent into flawedness as well.
i guess i have never thought about it…but this conversation sparked my thinking.
and i think i would have to agree.

i think that is why we are so attracted to lives such britney spears and lindsay lohan,
tragedies such as heath ledger,
and future speculations about miley cyrus.

in an espn.com article on brett favre entitled “brett, we miss you already” wright thompson
states,

i’ll miss the pills, and the drinking, and the stories about rehab. favre wasn’t perfect. none of us are. but in his imperfections lay his humanity. he was capable of failure like any of us, and therefore his successes seemed even more amazing. he was real, in a league that often seems anything but.

and on espn radio this morning, colin cowherd spoke of sport celebrities this way:

we hope they struggle and fail. we’re jealous.
the most flawed is the most popular because you could relate to them.

we like the celebrity status for a few reasons…
it is a life where we, most likely, will never attain–to be famous.
it is a life where we can catch a glimpse of how others live.
it is a life where we can relish in the glory of others, while secretly wishing it was happening to us.
it is a life where we can identify with the fall, glad it is happening to another and not us.
it is a life where humanity is realized as we see the potential and the fallibilities of us all.