Gunslinger Read online

  Then, on the morning of September 23, 1987, the Sun-Herald ran this headline on the front of its sports section: FAVRE EARNS STARTING JOB FOR USM AGAINST TEXAS A&M.

  Problem solved.

  A whopping 22,150 fans traveled 90 miles north to Jackson’s Memorial Stadium, where the Texas A&M game would be held. Some surely came to see the Aggies and their famed coach, Jackie Sherrill. Most, however, were there because of the 17-year-old quarterback with the thunderous arm.

  During warmups, a Texas A&M coach named Curley Hallman paid special attention to the freshman. He watched him throw, watched him walk, watched him jog. “He looked cocky as hell,” said Hallman, the Aggies’ secondary coach. “He had this pigeon-toed walk, sort of a strut. And I thought, This kid’s 17? Hell, our wrecking crew is about to give him a rude awakening.”

  On paper, the game was not a particularly good one. Texas A&M won 27–14, using long second-half runs from tailback Darren Lewis and quarterback Bucky Richardson to seal what was, briefly, a close contest. Favre completed only 6 of 22 passes for 143 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. “That makes it sound like he wasn’t good,” said Carmody. “That’s very misleading.”

  Favre was the most jaw-dropping sight on a sloppy field. His offensive linemen played abysmally, and he spent 80 percent of his time evading defensive ends. His wideouts dropped so many passes that, at one point, a reporter in the press box cracked, “Did Southern leave its receivers in Hattiesburg?” One writer glowingly compared Favre to Archie Manning from the Ole Miss days. “In essence,” Doug Barber of the Sun-Herald wrote, “Favre ran 40 yards under duress to gain six yards.” In the second quarter, Favre dropped back and launched an exhilarating 52-yard spiral to Darryl Tillman, who burst past the defensive back, caught the ball in stride, and cruised into the end zone. “I just reared back and threw it,” Favre said with a shrug. “And he caught it.”

  About 20 minutes after time expired, Hallman found himself in the Aggies’ dressing room, changing alongside Sherrill and R. C. Slocum, the defensive coordinator. “I’m gonna tell you something,” he said. “That kid they’ve got is gonna be something special.”

  Neither man agreed. “Ah, shit,” said Sherrill, “he’s just a boy who had a pretty good game. He ain’t gonna be much of anything.”

  Favre was a different player from practice to practice and game to game. Hot, cold, high, low, precise, erratic. He had both the strongest arm and the worst touch anyone had ever seen. Whether he was throwing a 5-yard screen to tailback Shelton Gandy or a go route to Tillman, the velocity was always the same. “There were wide receivers coming in with the laces from the football imprinted on their chests,” recalled Jarrod Bohannon, an offensive tackle. “Brett threw one speed: superhuman hard.” In the pocket, he was sloppy and unpredictable. Having rarely passed in high school, Favre didn’t fully grasp the intricacies of stepping forward to escape the rush. He led the world in 360-degree twists. He zeroed in on one receiver, failing to gaze elsewhere if the primary target was covered. At times, Carmody and White thought they were witnessing the second coming of Billy Kilmer. Then, in other situations, they’d pull him for Young.

  Off the field, Favre devoted time to studying game plans. But not an overwhelming amount of time. He possessed both a 17-year-old quarterback’s confidence and a 17-year-old quarterback’s knowledge of the sport. He believed in arm strength over game plans. “You have to remember, he was very young,” said Simmie Carter, the backup quarterback. “He was really just a kid.”

  Scott Favre, Brett’s older brother, was now a student at Southern Miss. He’d given up intercollegiate sports after quarterbacking for Pearl River Junior College to focus on pursuing his degree and his beer. He and Brett were often inseparable inside Vann Hall, at fraternity parties, at bars. Along with cold beverages, Brett tried to commit himself to Deanna Tynes, his high school girlfriend. A sophomore basketball player at Pearl River, Deanna called Brett every day, and saw him as often as possible. It was a 39-mile drive from Hattiesburg to the Poplarville junior college campus. Kerry Williams, a sophomore defensive back at Southern Miss, was dating a coed on the Pearl River women’s basketball team. “So we’d sneak out after curfew together and drive down to see them,” said Williams. “No one had to know.” Brett and Deanna were on again, off again. There was love, but Brett’s availability (emotionally, physically) was limited. He was a college football player. All else came second.

  Carmody didn’t concern himself with the details of his quarterback’s social life, but he believed the boy needed to mature. His reckless play was a cover for limited knowledge, and every time Brett twisted right, slipped left, rose, and threw off his back foot, the coach covered his eyes and sighed. The only saving grace was the results. One week after the Texas A&M loss, Southern Miss traveled north to Louisville to spar with a high-flying Cardinals squad haunted by five straight losses to the Golden Eagles. “We considered them our big rivalry game, because we could never beat them,” said Craig Swabek, a Louisville running back. “Every year we played them we were convinced we’d win. And every year the same thing happened . . .”

  The final score was 65–6. Barber, the Sun-Herald’s excellent beat writer, called it “a nuking.” When the Golden Eagles took a 24–0 first-quarter lead, half the fans began to exit. Favre threw for three touchdown passes, including two long ones (22 yards and 38 yards) to Chris McGee, his new favorite receiver. His finest moment came midway through the first quarter, when he marched his team 80 yards down the field before capping the drive by (gasp!) looking off two covered targets and hitting tight end Preston Hansford with a slug to the chest.

  “I didn’t know who he was before that game,” said Howard Schnellenberger, Louisville’s legendary head coach. “Two things stood out. First, he wore his uniform like one would a pair of Wranglers. And second, he was the right man for the right job in the right system. After getting beaten up like that, we could see what they had was pretty special.”

  There were highs, there were lows. The next week Southern Miss hosted No. 6 Florida State, and lost 61–10. Favre celebrated his 18th birthday by completing a mere 5 of 30 passes for 40 yards. Among his four interceptions was one to a Seminoles cornerback named Deion Sanders. Toward the end of the play, a defensive lineman clubbed Favre in the chin with his forearm, knocking him unconscious. Afterward, Carmody and White were terrified that the freshman would lose confidence. Yet as soon as the game ended, and the media dispersed, Brett was farting, laughing, making jokes at his own expense, cracking open a beer, and throwing his feet up on a sofa. “He used to do an impression of Tom Cruise from Risky Business,” said White. “He’d slide into team meetings wearing only underwear and socks. He’d look at you and say, ‘Made it by three seconds!’ He was just really relaxed for someone with his inexperience.”

  “He was a lot like Charles Barkley in personality,” said Joe Courtney, a Southern Miss basketball player. “He’d make comments, and you’d laugh 20 minutes later because they were sharp. He could say a few words and make a paragraph. I played with Michael Jordan later in the NBA, and he and Brett both had a quality where they seem to know what’s going on at all times.”

  At the conclusion of most games, Brett received an inevitable lecture from Irvin, who arrived with a mental list of mistakes. The Favre family traveled everywhere Southern Miss played, and Dad considered it his duty to break his son’s performance down. He was relentless and rarely complimentary, but Brett took it all in. He knew what his father was, and that the words were as much for the old man’s benefit as for his. He also surely realized that, deep down, there had to be some mitigating feelings of incompetence. Irvin coached Brett for two full high school football seasons and rarely had his son throw. Now, less than a year later, Brett Favre was the nation’s hottest freshman quarterback, discovered by his college coaches in less than a month of exposure. How could that have made Irvin Favre look? Like a genius, for raising such a boy? Or a fool, for not knowing what he had?

/>   If the Florida State game was a rough endeavor for Favre, the next week’s matchup—against Mississippi State in an emotional clash at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson—was embarrassing. After being told how the Golden Eagles’ season could be made with a win over the Bulldogs, Favre charged onto the field and flopped. With less than three minutes remaining in the third quarter, and his team trailing 14–3, Carmody pulled Favre, inserted Young, and then watched as the onetime starter led Southern Miss on two fourth-quarter scoring drives in a magical 18–14 victory before 40,000 spectators. “We got to a point where I could see we had stagnated,” Carmody said. “You feel you need to do something to get it going.”

  That evening, Carmody returned home and debated whether it was time to reinstate Ailrick Young as the starter. After two straight subpar showings, Favre seemed to be regressing. “You always worry about killing a guy’s confidence,” said Carmody. “Brett was resilient, no question. But I’m sure he had some doubts creeping in.”

  A decision was made: one more chance. Were the freshman to struggle at Memphis State, he would spend the remainder of the season on the bench, learning and preparing for 1988.

  Was he nervous and uptight? Hardly. The morning of the game, the entire team—dressed in mandatory shirt-and-tie attire—took a trip to Graceland. While walking past Steve Davis, the Golden Eagles’ secondary coach, Favre smiled and said, “Thanks for the autograph, Mr. Gatlin.”

  What?

  Moments later, Davis was approached by two young women. “Mr. Gatlin, do you think we can have your autograph?” Favre had told them that Davis was Larry Gatlin, the famed country singer. “What makes it really funny,” said David, “is I don’t even look like Larry Gatlin.”

  Southern Miss won, 17–14, behind Favre’s two touchdown passes and 123 yards. His starting job was secure.

  With the freshman leading the way, the Golden Eagles wound up with a 6-5 record, and Favre’s statistics (a school-record 15 touchdown passes, 13 interceptions, 1,264 yards) made him one of the nation’s most accomplished freshman passers.

  “We weren’t a great team,” said White. “We had OK talent. But when you worked with Brett every day, it became clear we had a quarterback who could take us to pretty big places. When the season ended I was just excited to see what he would do next.”

  There are things 18-year-old college quarterbacks want to hear, and things 18-year-old college quarterbacks don’t want to hear.

  Want to hear: You have an amazing arm and a bright future!

  Don’t want to hear: We’re dismantling the program.

  Want to hear: We have some exciting freshman receivers joining the team!

  Don’t want to hear: They’re all five feet three.

  Want to hear: We’re planning on throwing the ball more than ever!

  Don’t want to hear: I’m pregnant.

  Silence.

  I’m pregnant.

  That last one—those words hit Brett Favre like an anvil to the jaw. They were delivered via Deanna Tynes in the early summer days of 1988. At the time, she was planning on transferring from Pearl River Junior College to Southern Miss to pursue her four-year degree. She had been experiencing slight vaginal bleeding, however, and made an appointment with her gynecologist. “After the results came back positive,” she recalled, “a social worker took me into her small office, sat me in a chair, and looked at me with a concerned expression.” The woman had a simple question: What do you want to do?

  Deanna’s first thoughts were of her mother and grandmother, and their inevitable disappointment. Her second thought was that, even at age 19, there was no way she would have an abortion. When she told Brett the news, he was surprisingly calm and reasoned. He, too, didn’t believe in abortion (both were raised Catholic), and assured Deanna all would be OK. They discussed marriage, but dismissed the idea as foolish, and agreed to hold off informing Brett’s parents.

  Brett reported to Hattiesburg with the rest of his teammates, greeted by a new head coach (Curley Hallman, the former Texas A&M assistant who had admired the young quarterback just that past September), a new staff, and hopes for a winning season. But he wasn’t the normal happy-go-lucky quarterback, and it was obvious to all who knew his game and personality. In particular, Irvin Favre—who made the occasional drive to Southern Miss to watch workouts—wondered aloud what was wrong with his son. The passes were crisp, but the demeanor was sullen. This wasn’t the football-obsessed son he raised. Finally, after several weeks of nervousness, Brett told his father. They were home in Kiln, sitting in the living room. “I just blurted it out,” Brett recalled. “It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.” Irv didn’t yell, berate, or console. He simply rose from the couch, walked into the kitchen, and cleaned the dishes. After 10 of the most emotionally tortured minutes of Brett’s life, Irvin returned and sat down next to his son. “I’m not going to preach to you,” he said. “I’m not going to scold you. All I’m going to say is that I expect you to step up and be a man about this. Your mom and I will do everything we can to help you, but this is your responsibility, OK? Now how are you going to handle this?”

  According to Brett and Deanna, the news was greeted by relatives with peaceful contemplation. Bonita, however, remembered things quite differently. “The girls [Irvin’s sister, Kay Kay, and Brandi, her daughter] told me Deanna was pregnant,” she said. “I blew a gasket. I was raising Cain. My first thought was he ruined his life and his career. He was so young, just a boy.” Bonita liked Deanna (“Very quiet, very polite”). But the idea of her son as a father? “He didn’t know anything about being a mature adult yet,” she said. “It was not the type of news we wanted to hear.”

  Instead of transferring to Southern Miss, Deanna dropped out of college and moved home with her parents. Brett visited when he could, spoke with Deanna regularly, and pretended, when strangers inquired, to be an excited soon-to-be father. Truth be told, however, after the shock of a pregnant girlfriend wore off, he showed minimal interest in the plight of the woman who was carrying his child.

  Baby? What baby? There was football to worry about.

  In the lead-up to the 1988 season, the Southern Miss sports information department asked its athletes to fill out a questionnaire. Some of the data was helpful (Brett’s goal was to “play pro football”; he resided in Vann Hall room No. 209, and his phone number was 266-2532) and some was trivial (his hometown radio station of choice was WZKX; his preferred TV network was WLOX).

  All, however, was eagerly consumed by Hudson “Curley” Hallman.

  At age 40, the new head coach had been something of a surprising hire. A former cornerback at Texas A&M, he’d spent the previous 15 years bouncing around the college ranks, from a defensive backs coach for four years at Alabama to a running backs coach at Memphis State for two years to a linebackers and defensive backs coach for three years at Clemson to six more seasons as the defensive backs coach at Texas A&M.

  Having grown up in Northport, Alabama, just five miles from the University of Alabama campus, young Curley’s dream was to play defensive back for Bear Bryant and the Crimson Tide. When he went unrecruited by the school, however, he turned toward Texas A&M and Coach Gene Stallings. It was there, while playing football and basketball, that Hallman looked around and saw guys just like him—undersized, ignored, desperate to achieve. “I learned that motivation is far more important than natural talent,” he said. “And when I later worked for Coach Bryant, I loved his approach. He concerned himself with making the good player great, the average player play good. So my focus became lifting talent from a lower level to a higher level, through hard work and preparation. I came to Southern Miss with that attitude. We wouldn’t get Alabama-, Florida State–, Auburn-level players often at Southern Miss. But that was OK, because we had men who’d kill to win.”

  Hallman watched as much tape of the 1987 Golden Eagles as possible and spotted an opening for greatness. He saw the quarterbacks listed as Favre’s backups, and conside
red them poor fits for what was to become a high-powered pro-style passing offense. Jeff Bower, the new offensive coordinator, agreed. Simmie Carter was fast, quick, and powerful, but lacking in arm strength. Michael Jackson ran like a rocket and threw like one, too (rockets have no arms).“We needed help in the secondary, and Simmie struck me as someone with all the skills of a defensive back,” Hallman said. “And Jackson—nobody could run with him. So why not try at wide receiver?” Both players agreed to make the switch and were later drafted by NFL teams. “We moved a lot of guys around,” said Hallman. “We took three or four players who were third team on the defensive line and moved them to offensive line. We also played lots and lots of people. If you worked hard, I felt like you deserved to play. I don’t think any teams used more people than we did.”

  Like many of his teammates, Favre didn’t mind having a new coach. Inside Vann Hall, the dismissal of Carmody, who knew his football but was overly strict and unemotional, had been greeted with New Year’s Eve–like vigor. “We had a three-day party in the dorm,” said Marty Williams, the team’s center. “There were kegs sitting in the middle of the dorm and when Carmody was fired we went crazy. He was just a prick to play for. And nobody wants to play for a prick.”

  Hallman was the exact opposite. He talked trash. He schmoozed. He had an open-door policy for everyone on the team. He refused to embarrass his men for underwhelming performances. “You’ll be better tomorrow” was a common refrain, and the Golden Eagles bought in. None more eagerly than the sophomore quarterback.