After Brett Favre (pronounced "Farrvv": Sorry!)
retired from the Green Bay Packers team, because
he was almost forty, and couldn't make up his mind
whether it was time to retire (The Packers helped
him decide), the Minnesota Vikings hired him
to be their quarterback. What a year he had!
Even Favre says it was his best year, ever!
We have just gone through another off-season
of maddening speculation about whether Brett
wanted to play another year, and get the stuffing
shoulder-punched out of him, again. He is back!
I listened to his news conference.
It was a most interesting muddle in a huddle.
When asked a question, Favre started talking,
all around the subject, rather like a rag picker
pulling scraps of things into a heap.
Brett Favre is not a lineal thinker.
While attending to the task of answering a question,
he mentioned everything he noticed around the subject.
Finally, not because he was finished--there were still
other factors he noticed, but did not have time for--
he would just quit. And it worked.
Brett answers questions the same way he plays quarterback.
Everything is a blooming, buzzing confusion. He calls the play,
counts down at the line, trying to draw opponents offside,
while the linebackers and defensive backs are trying
to confuse him, while his own offensive line is trying
to protect him, and his running back is charging like a train
up alongside. And much, much more!
You cannot be a successful quarterback if you think
linearly: first this, then that, and then. . . . Like Brett,
you have to move through that swarm of things,
and absorb them without isolating them from everything
else that is going on. A quarterback does not have
the control that an orchestral director has, that allows
the play to be stopped, backed up, tried again, until
everything turns out just as you had planned.
It is a swarm of very large, very strong, angry bees,
and in the midst of all that, you have to do something
without taking the time to put it all in order.
You just have to be able to do it.
And you can do it because, somehow, you are aware
of all kinds of things going on,
without having the time to order them.
I wondered whether people who coach quarterbacks
think linearly, or whether they teach them
how to dance in a storm.
retired from the Green Bay Packers team, because
he was almost forty, and couldn't make up his mind
whether it was time to retire (The Packers helped
him decide), the Minnesota Vikings hired him
to be their quarterback. What a year he had!
Even Favre says it was his best year, ever!
We have just gone through another off-season
of maddening speculation about whether Brett
wanted to play another year, and get the stuffing
shoulder-punched out of him, again. He is back!
I listened to his news conference.
It was a most interesting muddle in a huddle.
When asked a question, Favre started talking,
all around the subject, rather like a rag picker
pulling scraps of things into a heap.
Brett Favre is not a lineal thinker.
While attending to the task of answering a question,
he mentioned everything he noticed around the subject.
Finally, not because he was finished--there were still
other factors he noticed, but did not have time for--
he would just quit. And it worked.
Brett answers questions the same way he plays quarterback.
Everything is a blooming, buzzing confusion. He calls the play,
counts down at the line, trying to draw opponents offside,
while the linebackers and defensive backs are trying
to confuse him, while his own offensive line is trying
to protect him, and his running back is charging like a train
up alongside. And much, much more!
You cannot be a successful quarterback if you think
linearly: first this, then that, and then. . . . Like Brett,
you have to move through that swarm of things,
and absorb them without isolating them from everything
else that is going on. A quarterback does not have
the control that an orchestral director has, that allows
the play to be stopped, backed up, tried again, until
everything turns out just as you had planned.
It is a swarm of very large, very strong, angry bees,
and in the midst of all that, you have to do something
without taking the time to put it all in order.
You just have to be able to do it.
And you can do it because, somehow, you are aware
of all kinds of things going on,
without having the time to order them.
I wondered whether people who coach quarterbacks
think linearly, or whether they teach them
how to dance in a storm.
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