Gunslinger Page 11

  Hallman knew the basics about Favre (strong arm, good vision) when he arrived, but little more. His first prolonged exposure came in spring drills, when he watched the quarterback drop back and throw. “I’ll tell you what stood out,” said Hallman. “If receivers were dropping his passes in practice, he wouldn’t make it easier. No, he’d crank it up. That was his way of saying, ‘If you can’t catch that one, try catching this!’” In particular, Hallman recalled Favre throwing to Alfred Williams, a five-foot-seven, 168-pound junior receiver from Meridian. Teammates nicknamed Williams “Mud Bug” because he always seemed to rise from the ground to catch passes. “So one day Brett throws one of them bullets at him,” Hallman said. “Ol’ Mud Bug jumps up, and he gets hit right in the sternum. Pop! I mean, he busted his pads open and bruised his sternum. I thought, OK, I can work with this quarterback.”

  In another episode, Favre and the first-team offense was practicing against the scout team defense when Keith Loescher, a linebacker lined up at defensive end, burst past the tight end and had a clear shot at the quarterback. He wasn’t allowed to hit Favre, of course, but Loescher ran past and slapped him hard on the back of the helmet. “Just to let him know I could have knocked the shit out of him,” said Loescher. “I kept running, I hadn’t even stopped, and he threw the ball and hit me in the back of the head. It was his message.” Hallman loved it.

  Carmody had not been one to banter with his players. They were kids, he was the boss, and the divide was made of steel. Hallman operated differently. He had stories to tell and examples to offer. He possessed an encyclopedic memory for games and players, and he wasn’t afraid to take risks in order to motivate. Southern Miss players still remember a team meeting the day after a loss. Simmie Carter had committed a series of boneheaded personal fouls, and Hallman called him to the front of the room. “Simmie,” he said loudly, “if I do this . . .”—he shoved the six-foot-one, 175-pound cornerback in the chest—“how do you feel?”

  “Mad,” Carter said.

  “Right, mad,” replied Hallman, who then pushed Carter again. And again. “You want to respond, right? You want to hit me, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Carter, pacing back and forth, steam rising from his ears.

  Hallman leaned in for another shove. “Coach,” Carter said, “do not do that.”

  Hallman ignored Carter and rammed the player in the chest.

  “Oh, man, was it tense in there,” said Lehman Braley, an offensive lineman. “We all thought Simmie was about to knock him out.”

  He didn’t. He exited the room, returned, took a deep breath, stared angrily at Hallman. “Look,” the coach said, “there’s always someone you wanna hit, you wanna punch, you wanna hurt. But you have to be able to control the impulse. You understand?”

  Carter nodded. He understood.

  Favre needed no such lessons. But from the start of their partnership, Hallman regularly evoked the mystique of Kenny Stabler, the former Alabama signal caller who went on to a fabulous 15-year NFL career. The two were old friends,* and Hallman raved of the left-handed quarterback’s poker-faced approach to the position. “He never let his opponents see frustration, he never showed signs of stress or nervousness,” said Hallman. “I talked to Brett about that all the time, because he had that, too. Just like Kenny.”

  The Golden Eagles kicked off the year by winning two of their first three games (the loss was an expected 49–13 road thrashing at the hands of No. 10 Florida State), and on September 24 the team traveled to Greenville, North Carolina, to face East Carolina. On paper, it wasn’t much of a matchup. The Pirates were in the midst of their fifth straight losing season. Yet somehow, Southern Miss trailed 42–38 with less than two minutes remaining. When he jogged back onto the field, Favre was ordered by Hallman to “get us this win.” Favre moved the Golden Eagles into Pirates territory, and with 30 seconds left took the snap at the 47-yard line, dropped back, and surveyed the field. His third read was Williams, the five-foot-seven gnat who found an opening sprinting down the right sideline. Favre glanced away from a covered Michael Jackson, felt pressure from the right side, pumped slightly, and let loose a 44-yard pass that blasted straight through the air—no arc, no wobble. The ball slammed into Williams’s chest, and he tumbled down at the 5-yard line with 22 seconds left. “It was a laser,” said Nick Floyd, the assistant athletic director. “And the receiver wasn’t even looking up.” Moments later, Ailrick Young—inserted to throw off the defense—hit Preston Hansford with a 5-yard touchdown pass, and Southern Miss won, 45–42.

  Afterward, Rick Cleveland of the Clarion-Ledger asked Williams about the catch. “I heard the ball humming about five yards from me,” he said. “I mean, I heard it coming at me.”

  Cleveland had covered hundreds of football games throughout his one and a half decades in media. Williams heard the ball? C’mon. No way . . .

  “I swear, I’m not joking,” he said. “I heard it. I guess it was the laces whirling in the wind, but I heard it.”

  With that throw and those words, Favre rose from good young quarterback to Paul Bunyan. Wrote Chuck Abadie in the Hattiesburg American: “USM is a football team that’s fun to watch. It’s a football team that has won coming from behind. It’s a football team that’s getting better each week. Maybe it is time USM began doing more to promote this football team. Get the word out to voting members of the polls that there’s something brewing here.”

  Five weeks later, after Southern Miss came from behind to beat Memphis State on a 45-yard Favre to Eugene Rowell touchdown pass with 39 seconds remaining, the Golden Eagles were a hot topic in the college football universe. They clinched a berth in the Independence Bowl, the school’s first postseason appearance in seven years. Hallman’s team was 8-1, and its seven-game winning streak was the longest since the school won the 1958 small-college national championship. In the following morning’s USA Today, Southern Miss was ranked No. 25 in the newspaper’s weekly poll. The New York Times, which used a computer to determine its list, had the Golden Eagles 8th, behind seven national powers (USC, Notre Dame, UCLA, West Virginia, Clemson, Florida State, and Michigan) and 10 slots ahead of Auburn, its upcoming opponent.

  Which was probably a mistake.

  Because so many of Hallman’s players hailed from the state of Alabama, and so many of those players hailing from the state of Alabama had been ignored by Auburn, the journey to Jordan-Hare Stadium carried great significance. This was, like the clashes against the University of Alabama, about retribution. “We wanted to destroy them,” said Marty Williams, the center from Eufaula, Alabama. “Not just win, not just come away with a three-point victory. We wanted to kill them and leave a bruise.”

  With their stellar record and their national ranking, the Golden Eagles players and coaches had never been more confident. This would be their national coming of age. “The game,” said Hallman, “to show we belonged with the best.” Auburn, however, was ridiculously good. The Tigers boasted college football’s top-ranked defense (they finished No. 1 nationally in total defense and scoring defense), and would place seven players on the All–Southeastern Conference team. In particular, Southern Miss was worried about Tracy Rocker, a two-time All-American defensive tackle who, at six foot three and 288 pounds, was faster, stronger, and meaner than any of Hallman’s offensive linemen.

  Before 73,787 die-hards, Auburn jumped out to a 21–0 first-quarter lead, then added 10 more points to enter halftime up 31–0. It was football beauty vs. football ugliness, and as Auburn scored its second touchdown on a perfect 38-yard pass from Reggie Slack to Freddy Weygand, a shell-shocked Hallman knew the Tigers were too much. Somehow Favre remained unruffled. Despite being harassed on every other play, he completed 25 of 43 passes for 212 yards and a meaningless fourth-quarter touchdown. Throughout the afternoon Rocker stomped through the Golden Eagles’ huddle, swinging his arms, challenging opponents to fights. “I’m the baddest motherfucker out here!” he screamed. “Can’t nobody block me!” Finally, late in the game, Fa
vre looked up at Ryals, whose muddied uniform and turf-stuffed helmet bars told the sad story of a one-sided destruction. “Chris,” the quarterback bellowed, “can’t you please shut that sonofabitch up?”

  “Man, he ain’t lying,” Ryals replied. “He is the baddest motherfucker out here.”

  Favre broke up laughing.

  “He would always find a way to keep us loose—win or lose,” said Williams. “Whether it was something stupid he said, or a joke, we always had fun. Even while getting our asses kicked.”

  Southern Miss rebounded from the embarrassing loss to beat Louisiana Tech, 26–19, then play in the December 23 Independence Bowl against the University of Texas–El Paso in Shreveport, Louisiana. Of the nation’s 17 bowl games, the Independence may well have been the least hyped or, for that matter, interesting. The 10-2 Miners competed in the lightly regarded Western Athletic Conference, and built their record by feasting on creampuffs like Mankato State and Weber State. While watching tape of UTEP, Hallman and his assistants knew this was a ridiculous mismatch. So, too, did Favre, who brought his characteristic sense of levity to the affair. A couple of days before the game, while the team was staying in the Clarion Hotel, Favre called Marty Williams and pretended to be a reporter for the Shreveport Times. For 10 minutes he peppered his center with questions about the team, the game, the “amazing, fabulous, talented, future Pro Bowl quarterback named Brett Favre!” Having rarely been requested by the media, Williams was thrilled, and blathered on about life as a Southern Mississippi Golden Eagle. “Well, he has me on speaker phone and I hear the guys start laughing,” Williams said. “I was so excited to be interviewed, because nobody ever cares about linemen. We went into the hall and I was pissed. I whupped his ass. He deserved it, too.”

  The game was as close as the fight. The Miners opened the scoring with a 30-yard first-quarter touchdown pass from Pat Hegarty to Reggie Barrett, then vanished. James Henry, a Southern Miss cornerback, returned two punts for touchdowns, Shelton Gandy ran for two scores, and Favre completed 15 of 26 passes for 157 yards and one touchdown. The final score was 38–18, and as Curley Hallman walked off the field, he could have made a serious run for the mayorship of Hattiesburg.

  The program was back.

  Less than two months after the Independence Bowl, on February 6, 1989, Brittany Nicole Favre was born. She weighed seven pounds, two ounces, and when Deanna Tynes held her, “I knew I’d made the right decision.” How did Brett feel, standing there at his girlfriend’s bedside, looking down at the pinkish infant who was now his responsibility? It’s a question he has never fully addressed. Scared? Certainly. Happy? Probably. Confused how this would all play out? Without a doubt. “We agreed to love our daughter and take care of her without getting married,” Favre said. “When I was at Southern Miss I went out partying with the guys, then drove all night to see Deanna and Brittany. Here I was, [19]-years old, changing diapers in the middle of the night and playing football the next day.”

  The memory—conveyed to Playboy’s Kevin Cook in 1997—was warm and likely well intended, but not entirely true. The Brett Favre who became a father eight months shy of his 20th birthday may well have been a burgeoning football legend, but he was ill equipped to parent. Save for a brief try at cohabitating with his girlfriend (it lasted only a few months), Brett was a bit player in Brittany’s early life. The primary caretaker was Deanna, who resided in a small apartment in Poplarville and, shortly after his daughter’s arrival, took a job in the collections department of a bank. As Brett was living life as the big man on the Southern Miss campus—drinking and partying and having peers ask for autographs and coeds seek his attention—Deanna dwelled in a small gray cubicle, phoning customers whose mortgages or loans were near foreclosure. “The people I called would inevitably launch into a story about their sick children or invalid mothers,” she recalled. “My heart would break, of course, because I could relate to their problems.”

  Irv and Bonita helped pay some of the bills, but Deanna still struggled to afford rent, groceries, diapers. She left the bank to become a waitress at a local golf club. The money was better, but the life no easier. Dreams of a four-year college education died. Social experiences withered. Most of her friends were off at universities, getting drunk, meeting young men, filling in the blanks of their dreams. Deanna, meanwhile, had a screaming baby and Brett’s wild stories from Southern Miss. It was the loneliest time of her life.

  Favre tried to empathize. Truly, he did. On the following season’s player questionnaire, he filled in the blank space alongside IF MARRIED LIST WIFE’S MAIDEN NAME AND HOMETOWN with “Deanna Lynn Tynes, Poplarville.” But the couple was neither married nor engaged. A year later, the same space was left blank. In the August 27, 1989, Clarion-Ledger, Favre said—not entirely convincingly—that Brittany was the most important thing in his life. He added of Deanna, “We’ve sort of broke up right now, but I hope we can get things worked out and get married some day. I care a lot, I really do. I want to be with my daughter. I want to be a daddy.” For Favre, however, the allure of single life proved irresistible. He had spent the first 17 years of existence as a sports-obsessed choirboy, and now he wanted to eat from the buffet. Keith Loescher, his pal and teammate, remembered the night he received a call from Deanna, who desperately wanted him to collect Brett from her apartment and take him back to campus. “He’s been in the bathroom for two or three hours,” she told him. “You have to get him out.” Loescher arrived to find Favre drunk and passed out. He lugged him to his car and tossed him in the backseat. “If you puke,” Loescher said, “I’m gonna beat your ass.”

  Once the season ended, Favre went wild. He was out most nights, either at bars or fraternity parties, usually drinking either in someone’s dorm room or at the end of a dirt road. “We also spent a lot of time in New Orleans down in the French Quarter,” Loescher said. “It was only a two-hour drive from school, and Steve Helms [a little-used wide receiver] had an uncle who owned Johnny O’s, the bar across from Pat O’Brien’s.” Brett and Scott Favre, Ryals, Loescher, and Co. began the evenings with a couple of cherry bomb shots, then progressed to beer and more beer and more beer. “Sometimes we’d shut a place down,” said Loescher. “Those were some of the best nights of my life.”

  Although he came to love Favre as much as any player he coached, Hallman lived in fear of the calls he inevitably received. The stories of the quarterback’s wild ways could have filled a 200-page book, and often involved his No. 1 running buddy, his older brother. In particular, there was a hellacious brawl at the Phi Delta Tau fraternity house. At the time, football players and fraternity members mingled like lions and tigers. They were parts of the same campus social circles, but warily eyeing one another, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. “Those Phi Taus were always being pricks, or at least that’s what we told ourselves before going down to their house and wreaking havoc,” said Pete Antoniou, a defensive tackle. “So one night they were having a bash and we forced our way in. All hell broke loose . . .”

  The fraternity members saw the football players—the Favre brothers, Antoniou, Ryals, defensive tackle Buddy King—and demanded they leave. The football players saw the fraternity brothers and laughed. Who’s gonna make us? For a solid 15 minutes, the front lawn of the fraternity house served as the state’s largest boxing ring. Punches were thrown, choke holds administered. Scott, drunk and out of control, went after any fraternity brother he could find. “It was the classic story of someone talking shit, and the shit talk escalating,” said Clark Henegan, Brett’s friend and a participant in the melee. “Brett wasn’t one to shy away from action, but he didn’t start it. He was just involved, fighting, like we all were.”

  When members of the Hattiesburg Police Department arrived, sirens blaring, a handful of football players and fraternity members darted up the street and into nearby bushes. Many simply froze in their tracks. The fraternity members were ordered back into the house, the party officially ended. The football players were placed in the
rear of the cars and brought back to Vann Hall. No charges filed.

  “We were so stupid,” said Antoniou, “that as soon as the cops drove off we went right back to the frat house for more.”

  They were greeted by a jarring sight. During the fight, Scott somehow lost his favorite pair of white Bucks shoes, and returned to Vann Hall in socks. Now, as they glanced toward the front yard, the players spotted a bright flame and some smoke. It was the shoes, on fire and charred to the insoles.

  The morning after the brawl, Hallman held a team meeting and demanded that those involved in the incident identify themselves. One player had a black eye. A couple of others featured cuts and small bruises. He didn’t blame Brett Favre, but he held him accountable. What sort of leader winds up in a fraternity brawl with a shoeless sibling? “After that fight I talked to Bonita and Irvin, and I said, ‘I’m going to alert you ahead of time now,’” Hallman said. “Because I heard word that Scott and Brett were raising a lot of cane. I said, ‘We can do one of two things. You can talk to Scott, but I’m not sure that’ll help. But what’s gonna happen real soon is I’m gonna suspend Brett Favre. Can you help me for that not to happen?’ They got Scott to move back home or something. I said, ‘I know you love both sons. But he either has to stop running around with Scott, or I’m gonna have to take action.’”

  Brett Favre—part-time father, full-time quarterback—was far from done running around.

  Hell, he was just beginning.

  7

  Legend

  * * *

  WE NEED to get a Heisman Trophy campaign going.”

  The nine words emerged from the mouth of Chuck Bennett, marketing and promotions coordinator for the Southern Miss athletic department. They were not greeted warmly.