Below are today's, and Sunday's column for The Washington Post - Brett Favre and Gary Williams are the focus of the articles. -------
Perhaps the best way to describe the football career of Brett Favre is to say that he has come to embody Hamlet, Shakespeare's greatest and most famous character.
There is no doubting that Favre is heroic. That was never more evident than in the fourth quarter of Sunday's NFC Championship game, when he hobbled in and out of the Minnesota Vikings' huddle but somehow managed to keep back-pedaling and scrambling away from pass rushers to throw laser beam passes while getting knocked down by the New Orleans Saints again and again.
He is also tragically flawed -- the word "tragic" being limited to the context of football. For all the spectacular numbers Favre has put together during his remarkable career, he has won as many Super Bowls as Mark Rypien and Doug Williams and played in as many as Joe Theismann. Oh sure, Peyton Manning's numbers are exactly the same at the moment, and Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl. But none of them ever failed as dramatically as Favre has the last two times he reached the brink of a Super Bowl.
Click here for the rest of the column: Brett Favre: the hero without the happy ending
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Ninety minutes before he would walk onto the court at Comcast Center on Saturday evening, Gary Williams sat in the coaches' conference room that adjoins the Maryland locker room. As always on a game day, his face was filled with tension even though his dry humor was as firmly in place as his game face.
As he prepared for his 1,000th game as a college basketball coach at the age of 64, he didn't feel all that different than he felt just before coaching his first game in 1978 at the age of 33.
"When you stop looking ahead to the next game, to the next season, to the next thing -- whatever it may be -- that's when you stop coaching," he said. "I think I can honestly say I've never done that. When the day comes that I don't want to do that anymore, then it'll be time to stop."
Looking ahead most of the time doesn't mean he can't look back on occasion, because after 1,000 games there are a lot of memories.
Click here for the rest of the column: After 1,000 games, Maryland coach Gary Williams has plenty of good memories
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4 comments:
I enjoyed the Favre as Hamlet column, but I wonder if a simpler comparison would be more apt: Is he not Phil Mickelson? Incredible talent, always exciting -- and remarkably able to make the one mistake he can't afford to make at the wrong time?
I question whether Favre wants to win. It is not that he doesn't want to win, but that he wants to win with himself being the hero. Winning without being the hero is insufficient. Given two options - 100% chance at winning the super bowl as the "game manager" (aka Trent Dilfer) quarter back, or 25% chance of winning the super as the hero - would option would Favre take?
We have already seen a play where Favre took the higher risk/lower probability option, the option that would have made him look like the gun slinging hero.
John, who edits your post articles? I can't believe that they let you get away with "he threw an overtime interception in overtime."
When else would you throw an overtime interception?
Dave Berman, I was thinking the same thing about the overtime-overtime missed edit. (and if this is CSI - Berman - This is Dodger Nancy's LA cousin Dan)
And Schmoe, I'm not sure the final interception falls into your game manger/hero question... If Favre runs the ball he's still the hero.
My question is how did he not see Berian uncovered (6 yards right in front of him) on the right sideline.
Anyway, love the blog John. Appreciate your writing it.
--Egan
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