Joanne Carraway’s Community Column for March Word Count: 497

Thank you for the tears, Brett

I agree with many of radio talk show host Laura Ingraham’s positions relative to national moral issues, but she raised my ire with the comment about Brett Favre’s public display of emotion at his televised retirement announcement. Maybe I’m a little bit “tribal,” or perhaps the better term is “redneck,” but I don’t appreciate “outsiders” passing judgment on a state wherein they’ve never lived and judging people in whose shoes they have never walked.

It was an emotional moment for me, too, as I watched Favre’s announcement, for my mind raced back to the sweeter times I had shared with my elderly parents at their home as they watched him play via television for USM. My father, in his heyday, was quite the coach—a consummate strategist who led the neophyte Bassfield basketball team to numerous championships. He was visionary, as well, implementing the first football program at Bassfield High School. In his latter years, he would chuckle about the first, extremely tense game played at Yellowjacket Field. Back then, many parents were apprehensive about the “dangers” of the aggressive sport. The game had no sooner started than a helmet came tumbling off the head of one of the home players. The fear in the air was palpable as one of the parents angrily shouted to my father, “See there, Dennis, now one of them has lost his head!” When everyone in the bleachers realized that a beheading had not taken place, the embarrassment subsided with a tension relieving laugh and the game ended with great fervor by the supporters to continue this new game called football.

Mother, on the other hand, was ever the quiet and shrewd observer. Many of dad’s plays she knew by heart and could have easily filled in for him. It was mother of whom I was reminded as I watched Brett’s moment for, before much “ado” was being made about Favre at USM, mother—not dad—had keenly observed his athletic prowess. I vividly remember her saying, “That Brett Favre is the best player I’ve ever seen. He’s going further than USM.”

I miss mother and dad more than words can convey. Death has a way of eliciting tears and in Favre’s tears I saw an extremely gifted young man dealing with the death of something he loved. I think in that moment he unwittingly capsulized the raw emotion of having dealt on a personal level with deaths and catastrophic illness—all uniquely interwoven within the persona of a mega NFL star whose fame could not impede the cathartic and redemptive aspect of tears.

With Easter upon us, we are reminded of the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” He wept at the death of His dear friend, Lazarus, whom He would shortly raise from the dead. The one and only Perfect Man wept.

For all of you men who dare show emotion, you’re in good company! As for Brett, I wanted to publicly say, “Thank you for the tears.”

Joanne Carraway, formerly of Bassfield, now resides in Oak Grove.