This week’s big sports news involved my favorite athlete to hate, Brett Favre.
I mentioned Favre a while back in a post about immaturity and athletes. Back then, I was contrasting the complimentary way in which Favre is recognized for his youthful exuberance and the way athletes who act immaturely and hold out for money or take PEDs are lambasted. (Read all about it here.)
I dislike Favre, but it is not really his fault. ESPN makes me hate Favre with over-reporting and unprofessional, blatant favoritism and flattery of Favre. It is just impossible to like a guy who is in the news that much.
For others, the hatred toward Favre is due to his “treachery”. To illustrate I have some photos for you.
You see, to most people the “real” Brett Favre is the one on left. He is wearing a Green Bay Packers jersey. Favre became a superstar in Green Bay and carried the franchise for a decade and half. Then he retired.
Retirement did not suit Favre well and he came out of retirement and was traded to the New York Jets, that is the middle picture. The Jets had to guarantee they would not parlay Favre to the hated Minnesota Vikings, lest they suffer a tremendous penalty. The season started well for Favre and his Jets, but the season was derailed and injury forced Favre into retirement, again.
In February 2009, Favre unequivocally stated that he will stay retired this time.
In June 2009, Favre expressed interest in returning to the NFL once again, this time as a Minnesota Viking. After flirting with the idea, Favre clearly expressed that he was not returning to the NFL and he was staying retired.
Yesterday, Favre signed a 2 year deal with the Vikings. That is the picture on the right.
To Packers fans this was treason. Like a Hatfield becoming a McCoy, a Montague becoming a Capulet or a Jet becoming a Shark, this was perfidy.
Packers fans are burning Favre jerseys in effigy for his mutiny.
Is it reasonable for an athlete or even a fan to think that treachery is possible in sports? How is this normal? Are sports so powerful that it becomes like a religion, a marriage or nationalism that is so important that if one changes teams it is treason?
Seriously. People take sports way too seriously. I enjoy sports, I follow sports and I watch a lot of sports. Don’t think for one second that I treat it like a religion. In fact I can prove it. I am a sports polygamist (see here for definition and the opposing point of view). I like a few teams in every sport. People look at me in horror when I explain to them that I like 2 NFL teams equally. Or that I follow 7 or 8 baseball teams. They don’t “accept me” as a real fan. “You can only root for one team” they say. Says who? Is it like religion where you need to choose? Is it like marriage, one wife or husband per person?
Favre sees through those “sports as religion” fanatics. Favre sees it as a game, as a business and as entertainment, and that is exactly what it is. He wants to play, he is going to play and he doesn’t care for whom.
There can only be treason when something is so important and vital that reneging on that thing is harmful. Sports are not in that category.
Another example of placing too much meaning in sports comes up in the Performance Enhancing Drugs in basbeall argumnent. You will hear critics say that the PEDs besmirch the sanctity of the game. Is there anything more self contradictory than “sanctity of a game”?!?! The whole is that is it is a game! An escape from sanctity! Sanctity is part of religion, not baseball. Sports are a game, entertainment. There is no sanctity and there is no treason.
But there are things that have sanctity and there is treason. As a Rabbi, I think it is supremely important for everyone to develop a theology that they believe in strongly. That belief should be strongly enough that reneging on that belief would be treacherous. We should constantly reevaluate our position,and perhaps treason is the right decision at some point, ala Raoul Wallenberg. The point is that we should find things in our life that we believe with conviction. We need an understanding of what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false.
As I heard many times from Rabbi Motti Berger, “Truth is something worth dying for and in some cases, worth killing for”. What is that truth?
Tonight is the first day of Elul. the last month of the Jewish calendar. That means judgment day is just a month away. It is high time to kick into gear and work out our true beliefs. Only when we know what we are willing to die for can we begin to live for something.
Related posts:
Packers fans are burning Favre jerseys in effigy for his mutiny.
is this for real/ Have not seen this in the NY Papers nor heard in on Sportstalk radio. I have no TV. please post a link
Watch this with the sound off, your kadoysh ears should not hear such language…
There are more, this is just one.
And you think that Favre, tuchus kissing Mike Franseca is going to talk about this?!?!
Sports fanatics are , ahl pee rov, living vicariously through their sports teams. Some strange psychodynamic makes otherwise reasonable people feel that their own fortunes rise and fall in accordance with another group of guifted athletes who , other than the name of their city of residence /raising pasltered on their Jersey share zero in common with.
AAMOF absent the Jersey, famous visage and big contract most sports fand would turn heel and run if they ever met up with a sports star in a dark alley. Is there a bigger mishigass? yet yours truly is firmly in its grips.
We all are gripped by sports. I am a self confessed fanatic.
But there are things that are holy (marriage / religion / patriotism to some) and those thing should be held high above sports. By using terms like “treason” and “sanctity of the game”, sports goes from folly to idolatry…
As for Farve himself this real-life soap opera is qualitatively different. I think that the average NFL career is only 2.5 seasons. Farve’s longevity and highly unusual length of service WITH ONE TEAM made him Mr. Packer. (I think he was cut by the Falcons as a rookie) Most players are traded at least twice in their career and many are journeymen who bounce from team to team. there is insuficient time for the fans to link their identity to these transient athletes.
The fans are furious at him because he willfully went over to the hated arch-rival within the division. Many teams would’ve been glad to extend him a similar contract. AAMOF had he just said the word he’d STILL be the Jets starting QB and Mark Sanchez would either be elsewhere or hoding a clipboard and learning from the seasoned old pro. I don’t even thin Woody Johnson would’ve demanded that he surgically repair his slighly torn rotator cuff. And so his silly little games to secure his release from the Jets and to blow off the hell of training camp and then un-retir DAVKA withthe Vikings is correctly seen as a bald manipulation meant to circumvent the clause in his trade to the Jets and to “stick it” to the Packers GM and, by association, to all the cheeseheads.
Hell hath no fury like love to hatred turned.
A great assessment of the situation.
But, it is so utterly ridiculous when you break it down. Sports are entertainment, like a movie, broadway show or board-game. Tying our souls to these sports allegiances is so absolutely inane. It gets exacerbated when an athlete like Favre does what he did, but that only shows further the silliness of it all. It defies explanation – that you could even offer an explanation just shows how ridiculous it is!
and I am talking about from a real sports fan’s perspective… (mine)
tried the link. Got a general U-Tube page nothing specific re Frave
gotta go noe. Please email me the link.
I fixed it. Video plays in the comments.
B”H
Sounds like you might support IDF soldiers’ refusal of orders which violate Torah prohibitions.
If so, excellent.
:-}
The problem with Favre is not that he is a “traitor.” It’s that he deliberately has played an “I’m retiring. Not I’m not” game to get himself more attention and to try to force people to tell him how much they love him and want him to keep playing.
Favre was NOT a team player in Green Bay when the franchise was interested in transitioning to a younger quarterback (Aaron Rogers). His interests were and always have been Favre-centric, at the expense of the team. This is also true now. Does anyone think the Vikings are better off with Favre having skipped out on training camp until now?
I understand that retiring is an extremely difficult decision for a professional athlete. But most athletes have managed to make this decision privately and with grace. Favre’s failure to do so only amplifies his selfishness. It’s the same media members or fans who believed Favre represented all that was noble and good in sports & was the true “man’s man” (e.g., Peter King) that are turning on him now. They feel betrayed. Most football fans have long tuned out to the drama of Favre. The Vikings have one of the most exciting players in the NFL. His name is not Brett Favre.
As for the “sanctity of the game,” I think you’re making a semantic point when it comes to the discussion of PEDS. Yes, there are people who treat sports as a religion, and that is its own separate issue. When many people talk about PEDs ruinng the sanctity of the game, though, they are speaking of a pureness that has to do with fair competition. It has to do with the philosophy of elite sport, and why people care to see what is humanly best.
The reason many people object to PEDs is that using them was both illegal AND against the rules in sports (there is a popular myth that steroids were not banned in baseball during the 1990s – this is completely FALSE). It was cheating, plain and simple.
You say “It’s only a game,” but do you teach your children that it is ok to cheat because when something is only a game? Or do you teach that them they are supposed to follow the rules of the game when they play?
Offwinger:
Great comments. Really.
I am very shtark on this point – watching and following sports is entertainment. All I ask is to be entertained. Taking it more seriously than that by the spectator is ridiculous.
As far as the players go it is a completely different story. I am not here to give mussar to millionaires, I am putting it into perspective for the fan. The fan has got to chill out a little. For the fan it is entertainment – remember?
When one is playing sports I demand integrity, sportsmanship, fairness and good attitude. But that’s because it is life for the person playing.
And in response to sanctity of the game, I don’t agree that it is semantics. The way I hear people talk about the records of baseball as holy is more than slightly disturbing. It is to those that I address my opinion. Get a life!
Thanks for commenting, and come by again soon!
Chas v’sholom. Sports are sacred.
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