Brett Favre on Tough Love, Parenting, and Telling the Truth (Pt. 2 of 5)

00:00:12
Speaker 1: This is Our American Stories. Much of what’s been known about legendary NFL quarterback Brett Farv has been kept between the goalposts. So Greg Hengler took the three-and-a-half-hour-long drive south from here in Oxford, Mississippi, where we broadcast this show, and sat down with Brett and his Hattiesburg, Mississippi, home. Here’s Brett on tough love, telling the truth, and having a parenting style that’s different than his father’s.

00:00:42
Speaker 2: And this is Part Two of our five-part series. I coached two years of high school football, not because I wanted to. The head coach here at the high school, who I knew really well, kind of talked me into it. I don’t know. I don’t really want to. It was the first year out of retirement, and I ended up loving it, but I felt like I was really tough on the kids. I didn’t pick my dad, and the other coaches picked a lot. “You big sissy,” not so much me. But, and that, of course, at that time, that’s all I knew. Now, and looking back, as a coach or as a person in that position — doesn’t have to be a coach, can be a teacher — I think our job is to mentor rather than pick. I mean, in some respects, it’s like bullying, to where some of those kids didn’t want to come around. And don’t get me wrong, I would joke around with these kids, but it would always be in a playful manner, and I knew that whoever it was that could handle it. In fact, it may, it may even help with team bonding, but I would be really demanding on what I knew they were capable of. Only because I knew what they were capable of. It was just like talking to your kids, and you say — and I’m bouncing all around — but like my twenty-year-old daughter, and I use this example all the time, like first or second year of “American Idol.” We’re in Green Bay, and I’m studying, but we got “American Idol” on, and we love watching. And I don’t know if it was when the show was over, and she’s probably eight, she comes over and she said, “Dad, I want to try out for ‘American Idol.’ What do you think?” I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘You can’t sing. You’re terrible,’ and I was just telling her the truth. I said, ‘Trust me, if I let you try out, someday you’re gonna say, “What were you thinking?”‘ And I knew what she’s capable of. And I mean, she’s she’s a smart kid. If she wanted to be a doctor, she could. She wants to be a lawyer, she could. But she’s not gonna be a rocket scientist. And I think, I think as a, as a coach, I demanded what I thought they were capable of achieving, and I felt like if they were not, there’s a reason for it: not studying, not paying attention in practice. But when they did well or did something that I’d been trying to coach them to do, I would reward them. I’d hug them, put my arm around them. ‘Great job.’ And that’s where my dad lacked. When you did something right, it was, ‘You were supposed to do it that way.’ You didn’t say anything. ‘No.’ ‘About damn time,’ you know, something like that. Yeah, yeah. And that’s all I knew. And I was determined that I didn’t think I’d ever coached, but if I did that, I would, I would build them up as well. I mean, it’s sorry to get on there as, but they got to know that when they do well, that you love them. The same can be said for for life. Like my dad — and I don’t, I don’t say this with any regret because I don’t — but he never told us he loved this. But again, he was — that was his. You know, I don’t think any drill sergeant at the end of the day says, ‘I really love you guys.’ He may say it, you know, or our joking manner, like, ‘Now, get your ass out and give me!’ So my mom, of course, was kind of the caregiver. Told you she loved you, and, ‘Oh, don’t worry about your dad.’ But then when he walked in the room, and, you know, it was all… it was tough, tough love. And I was determined, if I had boys, I would tell him I loved him as much as possible. Now I had two girls, and I told him I loved him. And, ‘Dad, I know, I know you don’t have to tell me,’ but did tell them over and over again. Now, am I a perfect parent? Absolutely not. But my dad was. I don’t know if it was the way they were raised. I’m sure part of it was. My grandfather was real mellow, but he was up at the… people change, you know? And, you know, people — maybe your own family members — that like, you know, just the tough guy that you once were, you know, maybe with the grandkids. Like, ‘Where was that when I was a kid?’ So, going back to my dad, when I had Brittany at Brealley, he, he didn’t want to spend very much time with him. He didn’t have patience. Kids running around screaming. He’d, he’d start yelling, and then I’d have to yell at him, and then it was just a… it was bad. But, you know, like I told people, he… I knew he loved me, us. He didn’t have to say it. Now, as I got older, I understood it more and more. M sometimes through his yelling and screaming, and that was his way of… it’s kind of like saying, ‘Well, you he was supposed to be able to do that, you know, good, you know, good job, but hell, that’s what I’ve been coaching you do.’ That was his way of saying, ‘Awesome.’ It was just the way it was. And again, it drove me. And I don’t even know what I was being driven by. I, you know, it… maybe I was. It was driving me, you know, like, ‘I’ll get him to say, “Nice child, I’m proud of you,”‘ without even knowing it. But it’s funny, when he would come up to Green Bay, he’d retire. And this is more just kind of a funny exchange between us, but he would get in the truck after the game. It would be a good game. Let me tell you, ‘Well, he completed thirty, thirty. If you had thrown thirty more better passes…’ And I’m like, ‘Look, for someone who never threw the ball, don’t tell me how to throw,’ and he’d just shut up. Well, it was nothing he could say, you know. ‘Well, it was the truth.’ ‘Why’d you miss that read?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t even want to hear it.’ You never coached me one thing about reading. It was hitting the tackling dummy and doing monkey roles, and, you know, which I wouldn’t trade it. It worked out. But don’t tell me how the throw. But up until the end, that meant he was determined to coach me up. Now, all of a sudden, he’s gonna coach me up on the ins and outs of the passing game. And he didn’t know from Setanola when it came to the passing game.

00:08:44
Speaker 1: And you’re listening to Brett Farv talking about his dad, who was his coach when he was in high school, and they never threw the ball. And we’re going to continue. If you’d like to hear more on Brett Farv’s life. This is Part Two of a five-part series. Brett Farv’s story: this one about his father, about parenting, about love and discipline. Here on Our American Stories.