Gunslinger Page 9

  “Yeah,” Favre said, laughing. “I do.”

  The two took to the floor, surrounded by a ring of teammates. Favre flipped Watts over. Watts flipped Favre over. Back and forth, bodies pressed against the cold concrete floor. “I couldn’t believe it,” Watts said. “He was tall and lanky. It probably took 10 minutes, but he got the better of me. He was tough—exactly what you want from a quarterback.”

  The victory helped endear Favre to the team’s linemen. When the elephants gathered in a dorm room to drink and watch TV, Brett was with them. When they hit up a fraternity party, Brett tagged along. Hattiesburg is one of Mississippi’s finest cities, but there aren’t 1,001 nightlife destinations. When the players went out it was usually to the End Zone, a sports pub located across the street from campus. For members of the football team, drinks were on the cheap. “Brett never drank in high school,” said Scott Favre, his brother. “College was when he got out, saw what the real world was about. So he kind of went crazy with it.”

  The fact was Brett grew up around alcohol. His grandfather owned a bar, and when he died, the wife took over. Brett spent many boyhood days at the saloon as the gamblers and drunkards went about their lives. At family gatherings, nearly everyone held a beer in their hand. The two constants were crawfish and alcohol. It wasn’t so much choice as cultural predetermination.

  At Southern Miss, Favre’s family was the football team, and Ryals was his brother. The two knew—unless something absolutely crazy occurred—neither would play in that week’s home opener against Tulane. Ryals was being redshirted, and Favre spent the two weeks post-Alabama taking precious few reps during practice. Everyone inside the program presumed Carmody’s plan was the same as it had been for Week 1—Ailrick Young as the starter, Simmie Carter as the backup, Brett Favre in uniform in the case of emergency. Even when the coach mentioned in his weekly press conference that he’d like to see Favre play, few bought in. “But truthfully, I thought I might put him in if things weren’t going well,” Carmody said. “I didn’t make a big deal of it to the other coaches or any of the players. It was mainly something in my head.”

  The night before the game, the entire Southern Miss football team headed to a nearby cinema for a showing of RoboCop. When the film ended, Ryals and Favre stopped at a package store to purchase a case and a half of Schaefer Light. “Six bucks a case,” Favre recalled. “It was the beer of choice because we didn’t have any money.” Over the next five hours, the teammates watched Johnny Carson and David Letterman while playing quarters, the drinking game that involves trying to bounce a quarter off a table and into a cup. If the quarter finds its mark, the other person drinks. If it doesn’t, you drink. “We didn’t have any change,” Brett recalled, “so we used a washer.”

  Favre had never consumed this much alcohol. Neither had Ryals. “We sat there and just got drunk, drunk, drunk,” Ryals said. “We figured if we drank eight beers, then seven, then six . . . we figured 36 would make the perfect pyramid.” Each player downed 18 beers, went to bed at 3:00 a.m. and awoke four and a half hours later for team breakfast and meetings. At six eight and 310 pounds, Ryals seemed relatively unfazed. Favre, on the other hand, wore a shade of toad-gray. He wasn’t hung over when he stepped out of bed. He was still drunk.

  Though far from a national power, Tulane made the two-hour drive from New Orleans to Hattiesburg accompanied by expectations of a win. In quarterback Terrence Jones and wide receiver Marc Zeno, the Green Wave featured two explosive stars, both of whom had recently been featured inside the pages of Sports Illustrated. Through two games, Zeno had 16 receptions for 244 yards and four touchdowns. “We,” coach Mack Brown said at the time, “have firepower.”

  Which, he believed, the Golden Eagles lacked. “We knew their personnel, they knew ours,” said Jones, the junior quarterback. “We were close enough, geographically, that a lot of the guys from both teams played in high school. It wasn’t a blood rivalry, but you didn’t want to lose that game, then have to hear about it.”

  It was a typical early September day on the Southern Miss campus. The temperature was 94 degrees, but 110 with the heat index. M. M. Roberts Stadium held 33,000 spectators, and a mere 16,023 showed up. Though they’d only played one game, the Golden Eagles were already cold product. Terrence Jones and Marc Zeno brought fans to New Orleans’s Superdome. Ailrick Young did not have the same cachet—or any cachet—in Hattiesburg.

  Tulane jumped out to a 3–0 lead, and with Young and Carter both receiving time at quarterback, Southern Miss kept the score tight. Neither played particularly well, but Tulane committed a series of costly turnovers, and the Golden Eagles entered the locker room at halftime deadlocked with the Green Wave at 10. “[Tulane] had scouted us well against Alabama and they were shutting us down,” said Chris McGee. “Ailrick and Simmie were terrible.” During the intermission, McHale said White (the offensive coordinator) asked him for any suggestions concerning blocking schemes or altering the game plan. “All I could think of was how much trouble our quarterbacks were having and that Tulane wasn’t having the same problem,” McHale recalled. “I blurted that I didn’t think any adjustments would make a difference and that we needed to put Brett in.”

  Is this the way it truly happened? Hard to say. McHale said Favre asked to be placed in the game—which is a strange recollection, considering he still had beer coursing through his system. Neither White nor Carmody recall McHale speaking up for Favre’s debut. In fact, the head coach said McHale “sort of exaggerates some of the things about Brett.” Whatever the case, as the players exited the locker room for the field, Carmody grabbed Carter by the pads and pulled him aside. “I think I’m gonna give the freshman a chance,” Carmody said. “It’s not a reflection of how I feel about you.” Carter nodded. What could he say? “I wanted to play,” Carter said. “But coaches coach.”

  The Golden Eagles returned to the field with Young at quarterback, hoping for the best, expecting adequacy. Carmody wanted to give his starter one final chance. He felt he owed it to him. So Young jogged out to the huddle, called the designated play, stood behind center—and nothing.

  Three plays, no first down.

  “And that was basically it for Ailrick Young as our quarterback,” said White. “Nice kid. But we had to look for something better.”

  With about seven minutes remaining in the third quarter, and his team trailing 16–10, Carmody yanked his headset over his ears and called up to White, who was sitting in a box above the field. “Let’s put Favor in,” he said.

  White: “Do you mean Favre?”

  Carmody: “Yes, Favre. We’re putting him in.”

  White: “Um, are you sure?”

  Carmody: “Put him in.”

  White: “Coach, he doesn’t know left from right.”

  Carmody: “Put him in.”

  White: “Coach, he doesn’t really know the playbook.”

  Carmody: “Don’t worry, it’ll be OK.”

  White: “I figured we were gonna redshirt him.”

  Carmody: “Plan’s changed.”

  White: “Coach, I don’t think this is fair to him.”

  Carmody: “We’re putting him in. Those guys love him. They’ll take care of him.”

  A moment later, Carmody scanned the sideline for the freshman. Brett Favre was standing alone, still burping up the aftershocks of 18 Schaefer Lights. “Take some snaps from center and warm up!” the coach yelled. “You’re going in!”

  Favre misheard. “You want me to punt?” he said.

  “No,” Carmody said, “you’re going in.”

  “Oh, shit,” Favre said.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  One hour earlier, as he jogged onto the field from the locker room, Favre had vomited. “He went over to the wall and bent over and ralphed,” Ryals said. “Just vomits his guts up right there. He looks like he’s about to drop warming up. He’s sweating bullets, white as a sheet.”

  “He
wasn’t prepared to play,” said Scott Favre, who was watching from the stands. “He didn’t know it would happen.”

  With 5:48 remaining in the third quarter, Brett Favre stood alongside Carmody and listened as the coach told him, simply, “Take it easy, have fun, don’t make any mistakes.” He pushed Favre onto the field, placing his right hand square in the black No. 4 on the middle of his gold jersey. Tim Hallman, the starting right guard, looked up, perplexed by the sight of the freshman jogging into the huddle, head bobbing, arms pumping. He turned toward Jim Ferrell, the center, and said, “That’s the cocky kid from the coast, right?”

  Ferrell nodded.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Hallman said.

  “My first thought was, Has Coach lost his mind?” Hallman recalled. “I can’t believe he’s gonna try and throw a fourth-stringer in the game. I didn’t even know his name. Was it Favree or Fahvor?”

  In the stands, Bonita Favre was talking when she felt an elbow jabbing into her ribs. It was Irvin. There were about 20 Favre family members in the stands. “Brett’s going in!” he yelled. “Brett’s going in the game!”

  “What?” she screamed. “He’s what?”

  Around them, a chant accompanied their son’s steps toward the center of the field. “Great! White! Hope! Great! White! Hope!” Young and Carter were African Americans, as had been most of the option quarterbacks employed by Carmody through the years. “I’m not proud of the chanting,” Bonita said. “It wasn’t people at their finest.”

  Favre reached the huddle, breath smelling of beer and puke, hands quivering. He clapped, said, “OK, let’s go! We’re gonna score!” and called some sort of a play that included numbers and letters he didn’t fully understand. “He was wide-eyed,” said Jay Sherron, the starting left guard, “but he was instant energy. He took charge like he’d been there for years.”

  Because we live in a world of sports mythology, much has been written of Brett Favre immediately marching Southern Miss down the field in a powerful display of leadership; of throwing a 50-yard touchdown pass and screaming, “I’m Brett Favre, and this is my team!” Al Jones, a respected Mississippi journalist covering the game for the Biloxi Sun-Herald, vividly recalled Favre’s first pass—“He got the ball and overthrew the receiver by a good 15, 20 yards, and everyone went crazy because it went so far.”

  Never happened.

  On first and 10 from the Southern Miss 21, Favre took his first official snap as a college football player, turning to his right and perfectly handing off to halfback Shelton Gandy for a 1-yard gain. On second down he dropped back, tucked the ball, and plowed into the line, advancing three inches. “I just didn’t know where to throw,” he said afterward. “My mind just felt like it was blown.” Finally, with Southern Miss facing a third and 9, White called for a pass to Eugene Rowell, a sophomore wide receiver with no Division I receptions. If anyone on the field could feel Favre’s nervousness, it was Rowell, who had been lightly recruited out of Auburn (Alabama) High and whose blazing speed was marred by iffy hands and poor route running. This time, Favre dropped back, rolled slightly to his right, and spotted Rowell 7 yards away. His pass hit the receiver in the chest, a refreshing change from Young’s rickety ducks. Even though the Golden Eagles fell a yard short of a first down and had to punt, the small crowd let loose a standing ovation.

  Here was their quarterback.

  The Southern Miss defense returned to the field, and when Kerry Valrie picked off an errant Jones pass, Favre found himself back in the huddle. He guided the offense 32 yards on four plays, then avoided a full-out Tulane blitz, slid right, and rifled a 9-yard scoring pass to Chris McGee, the senior receiver, who broke free when a Green Wave cornerback collided with a teammate and fell to the ground. Favre leapt into the air, pumped his fist, sprinted into the end zone, and slammed into McGee. White was incredulous—Favre had executed the wrong play. The touchdown gave Southern Miss a 17–16 lead. “He injected us with energy and confidence,” said Chris Seroka, the kicker. “It was like, ‘Whoa. We’ve got this thing going now.’”

  Tulane countered when Jones scrambled through the Southern Miss defense for a 52-yard touchdown, then hit Zeno for the two-point conversion and a 24–17 advantage. The Golden Eagles rebounded, and a 2-yard sweep by Gandy again tied the score with 11:49 remaining. After Carmody’s defensive unit held the Green Wave to three plays and a punt, Favre sauntered into the huddle, stared down his five senior offensive linemen, and said, “OK, shut up and listen. Here’s what we’re about to do . . .”

  He guided the team on a symphonic 55-yard drive—barking at teammates, taking his time, walking with the confident strut of a seasoned veteran. Sometimes he took seven-step drops when they were supposed to be nine. Sometimes he took five-step drops when they were supposed to be seven. He punctuated play calls with statements like, “You know, just go left!” or “Run over there to the big guy!” On third and 10 at the Tulane 23, Favre dropped back. And back. And back. The pocket collapsed around him from both sides. With defensive end Darius DeClouette charging from the blind side, Favre rolled to his right past the outstretched arms of defensive end Lonnie Marts. Favre ran, ran, ran, ran, closer to the sideline, football gripped tightly in his right hand. With Marts inches away and two other defenders approaching and the head linesman in his path, he squeezed the ball in both hands, cocked his arm, and flipped it high into the air and toward the end zone. “My problem,” Favre recalled, “was when I saw he was pretty wide open I had to compose myself to get the ball to him.” The pass seemed to hang forever—more helium balloon than bullet—before it fell into the arms of Alfred Williams, the sophomore receiver from Meridian. The building went berserk—fans jumping, hugging, screaming, stomping their feet and clapping their hands. It was the loudest anyone had heard M. M. Roberts Stadium in years. “This,” McGee said afterward, “is one of the most exciting games I’ve ever played in.”

  The Golden Eagles held on for the 31–24 win. Their new quarterback completed 6 of 10 passes for 85 yards and two touchdowns, while running for 22 more yards. When Mack Brown, Tulane’s coach, was asked afterward whether he had had a plan to stop Brett Favre, he admitted, with a grin, that he’d never actually heard of Brett Favre.

  6

  The Man

  * * *

  IN THE IMMEDIATE aftermath of the victory over Tulane, Jim Carmody and Jack White stood in the locker room shower, basking in the glow of serendipity. As the water streamed over their heads, the head coach turned to his offensive coordinator, smiled, and in his thick Southern drawl said, “We’re gonna start him next week.”

  “Favre?” White asked.

  “Is there someone else I don’t know about?” Carmody cracked.

  Though only 36, with the cherubic cheeks and boyish grin of a teenager, White had been around enough to know young, charismatic, strong-armed quarterbacks weren’t a commodity to be taken for granted. Since graduating from the University of California–Santa Barbara in 1972, White had coached at East Carolina, Kansas, Jacksonville State, and Oregon State, and his quarterbacks formed an uncoordinated conga line of awfulness. There was Mike Weaver at East Carolina, who passed for two touchdowns, 9 interceptions, and 443 yards in 1974. There was Scott McMichael at Kansas, whose one touchdown was coupled by 7 interceptions in 1976. There was, perhaps most memorably (or forgettable), Ladd McKittrick at Oregon State, whose four touchdowns and 18 interceptions helped lead the 1983 Beavers to a 2-8-1 record.

  Now, suddenly, he had Brett Favre.

  “The freshman is starting next week,” Carmody told White. “Why don’t you let the boys know . . .”

  The first quarterback White spoke with was Young, who took the news professionally but was quietly crushed. “You’re important and we need you,” White told him. “You’re one of our leaders.” Young nodded, exiting with his head down. He later spoke with Larry Davis, the Southern Miss noseguard. “He was upset, which was understandable,” said Davis. “I told him you don’t have to be a quarter
back to get the ladies.”

  When he was done with Young, White summoned Favre, who bounded into the coach’s office, peppy and high off his football emergence. “We’re starting you next week,” White said.

  “OK, that’s great,” Favre said. “Who are we playing?”

  “Texas A&M,” White said.

  “Ah, Texas A&M,” Favre replied. Pause. “Are they any good?”

  The Aggies were ranked No. 16 in the nation. Four players would be selected in the upcoming NFL draft. “Yeah,” White said. “They’re not bad.”

  The next week included some of the most fun days of practice in recent team history. White and the assistants worked on adjusting the playbook to Favre’s skill set. “We didn’t have an advanced passing game by any means,” White said. “So we kept it simple: downfield, flat, inside. We did those routes over and over.” Balls soared through the air, receivers bolted downfield, running backs went out for patterns. It was like spending months preparing for a Spanish guest and then learning, at the last minute, that he speaks French. “Brett wasn’t Ailrick,” said Rick Slater, an offensive tackle. “So we couldn’t prepare as if he was the same type of player.” The plays White introduced were relatively simple, but not to a kid used to handing off 30 times per game. These included 75 XYZ Cross, with 75 being the protection and X and Y the crossing wide receivers. There was also 75 Right Z Hook, fancy lingo for the Z receiver running a hook. “It was pretty basic,” Favre recalled.

  During the week of Favre’s rise to starter, the Student Printz, the university’s student newspaper, ran a lengthy piece about Southern Miss potentially losing its Division I-A designation due to poor attendance figures. A school needed to average at least 17,000 spectators per game, and of late the Golden Eagles were struggling to hit the number. Wrote Cliff Kirkland, a Sun-Herald columnist: “Southern must address the serious problem of dwindling fan support.” Suggestions were offered, including better opponents, cheaper tickets, family-friendly promotions, and joining a conference.