Favre left unprepared

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- You can see many a goodbye to a sporting life that can bring a teardrop to your eye.

Lou Gehrig’s, for one.

Magic Johnson’s was another.

But very seldom will you see one as fraught with emotion on the athlete’s own part as Brett Favre’s farewell to football turned out Thursday in his adopted Green Bay.

He came into the room looking exactly the way you would expect Brett Favre to look on his day off -- no tie, shirttail hanging untucked over his jeans.

Ol’ Brett in a pinstriped suit, well, it would have been just plain wrong, like Dale Earnhardt in a tuxedo.

He managed to get out a dozen words before he broke down.

“As much as I thought about what I wanted to say, and how . . .”

He choked up and had to deeply exhale. “I promised I wouldn’t get emotional,” he said.

You could see him fight it, trying to keep under control, the way he did for 17 seasons in a Packers-provided pocket while looking to throw a pass.

“You know, it’s funny,” Favre said, sniffling. “I’ve watched hundreds of players retire. And you wonder what that would be like for you.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

“You think you’re prepared . . .” he said.

It was time to make it official, but he could barely bring himself to spit it out.

Favre thanked the Lord for giving him the ability and opportunity to play.

He thanked the Packers in that plain-spoken way the suits in their front office came to know and love: “I hope that every penny they spent on me they know was money well spent.”

He thanked the men he played with: “I hear so many people talk about my accomplishments. It was never my accomplishments. It was our accomplishments. It just so happened that the position I played got the most attention.”

He thanked the fans in the stands: “I just hope they appreciate me as much as I appreciate them.”

Put it to a vote and it would win in Wisconsin in a landslide. No superdelegates would be necessary.

Favre felt a need to explain to everybody why he was leaving. Clear up things once and for all.

Speculation had been swirling that it could be because the Packers weren’t bringing in new talent to his satisfaction, or that they wouldn’t pony up enough money to keep their star quarterback happy.

“None of those things have anything to do with my retiring,” Favre said, “and that’s from the heart.”

The next words out of his mouth summed it up, best he knew how:

“I know I can still play, but I don’t want to.”

Maybe he will regret it.

If you think Favre hasn’t thought about that, long and hard, then you obviously don’t know him at all.

“I will wonder if I made the wrong decision,” he said, refusing to be one of those self-assured athletes who crow that they know exactly what’s best. “I’m sure I will sit there on Sundays, saying, ‘I could be doing that. I should be doing that.’ ”

He isn’t sure if he can bring himself to come back to Green Bay on those days, stand on a sideline, sit in a private box, be a part of it without truly being a part of it.

All of those people, the ones at Lambeau Field into whose arms he leapt, the ones who brought brooms and shovels to keep the aisles clean, the ones whose head wear appeared to be made of Velveeta, what will he do without them?

“When I laughed and my family laughed, they laughed,” Favre said.

“When I cried, they cried.

“When I cheered, they cheered.

“When I threw an interception . . . well, you know . . .”

They booed?

Not many, not often. Not even when a Super Bowl was at stake on Jan. 20 of this year and a Favre pass in overtime landed in the wrong hands, those belonging to Corey Webster of the New York Giants.

It would be the last NFL pass he ever threw.

Lawrence Tynes, a kicker not one-1,000th as famous as Green Bay’s quarterback, gave the Giants a trip to Super Bowl XLII and put an end to a legend’s career, right then and there.

Cost him a shot at the (beatable, as it turned out) New England Patriots.

“I didn’t really think about it when I walked off that field,” he said. “One play, one game, one season doesn’t define me.”

He preferred to remember -- as no doubt Packers backers will -- passes such as the 90-yarder he threw to Donald Driver for the first touchdown in that NFC championship game.

Now that he will have more free time to look back, Favre probably will do just that -- partly because he can’t quite yet bring himself to look forward.

“People ask me, ‘Do you have a plan?’ No, I don’t. This is all I’ve ever done.”

Somebody asked: “What are some of the things you’re looking forward to be able to do with your life now?”

“Nothing,” he said.

Ron Wolf, the former Packers general manager, asked No. 4 the same question when he announced his intent to hang it up: So, what are you going to do?

“Nothin’,” Favre told him.

He played football. That was all he knew. Not playing, it’s the only thing in this game that can make him choke up.

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Mike Downey is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.