September 9, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, much of what’s known about legendary NFL quarterback Brett Favre has been kept between the goal posts. So Greg Hengler sat down with Brett Favre in his Hattiesburg, Mississippi, home where Brett shared stories about humility, aging, and faith, in this fourth part of his five part series.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and we tell stories of
all kinds here, folks, as you've come to love and know,
we're always trying to get stories in the voice of
the person telling them. We try and get out of
the way, step as far back as possible, and we
love to get stories behind stories. And Brett Farb's life
we've been digging in deep. And this is the fourth
(00:31):
part of a five part series, Brett Farb's life outside
of the Goalposts, which is what we're interested in here
on this show. Not Brett Farv a football star. That's interesting,
but who's the man? What's life like before and after?
Who were his parents? Where did he grow up? How
did he deal with fame and everything after? Here's Brett
(00:54):
Farv getting personal about his faith, about humility and about aging.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And I can't speak for other people, but we we
we and I s I say we more me. But
we tend to lean on God when we need him,
going to rehab, spending time by myself like open a Bible, God,
I need some help. I can't do this alone. And
(01:21):
I remember asking people not and we s we We
still are active in the Catholic Church. In fact, my
father Tommy our priest is one of our m. We
we take him on vacations and do all kinds of stuff.
But but I like leaning on someone. And I I've
had enough adversity to walk me through the Bible. If
(01:46):
you go to rehab three times, you lose your dad.
M being lost her brother out here on a four
wheel or accident. Yeah he was nineteen years old. Yeah,
on my four wheeler. Oh he's killed a helicopter to
tam out of here to the h H hospital. But
(02:08):
I mean it's bad. Oh, you know. So there's enough
things that you know, you go, God, I need some
help here. And and you do well for a while,
and you slip, and you do well, and you slip.
But I think as I I've gotten older, I tend
(02:32):
to slip maybe less, I y, I look at things differently.
I think at f at fifty, I'm a lot wiser
than I was at forty. But I'm sure if I'm
making to sixty, I'll be saying you were a freaking idiot.
At fifty you didn't know nothing, M. And I'm sure
(02:54):
that's the cycle that will always be. And I'm talking
about just life in general. Uh, what what we thought
was important at eighteen, at thirty, we thought that what
you know, what were you thinking? And then at forty
you thought what were you thinking at thirty? And but
(03:15):
you I feel like you you narrow down as you
get older what matters and what it takes, you know,
to achieve whatever happiness. And so I think that my
(03:36):
faith has gotten gotten better and stronger, but it needs
a lot of work. I'm not going to sit here
and and brag, but I do. I do know that
that humility is uh. I had to look it up.
You know. I'm thinking, I'm thinking one thing, and actually
(04:04):
what I was thinking, I didn't know how to put
it in words, and humility was the word I was
looking for. There was a time I thought that it
was all about me. But it's like the Oakland Game
or my career. And you could say the Oakland Game
is like my career. I was just driving the car,
(04:26):
you know. God was telling me where to go, when
to stop, when to pass, when the park, and that
took a while. I think that I goes back to
playing twenty years. At twenty one, I thought once I
(04:49):
got into play, I thought I can be pretty damn good.
And at nineteen and twenty years you know, I'm like,
that doesn't matter really, y. You need to be thankful
that God gave you the opportunity. And and also, you know,
(05:11):
the one thing that I I f I feel really
good about is that I made the most of it.
You know, I I let him down in a lot
of ways. That was one of 'em. I didn't let
him down. He's like, alright, I gave you a gift.
What are you gonna do with it? And I I
actually told my daughter that today. I said, you got
a chance. Cause she didn't play very good last week.
(05:35):
They played s Friday and Saturday. She played pretty good Friday,
not so good Saturday. She was really down and she
was beating herself up today and uh, I gotta do
this my weight so I'm overweight. And I said, look,
here's the reality. And I said, this is the truth.
(05:55):
You got a chance next week to redeem yourself. And
it starts out, what are you gonna do with it?
There's gonna come time when it's over, and then what
do you do? So? And that's life in general. You know,
(06:16):
we s we have a chances to In fact, I
say we you know, you never know when it ends.
My dad died at fifty six, and that was I
was thirty two or three, and I thought I was
(06:39):
I thought I was really young. Now I I now that.
I mean, I'm almost my dad's age. And uh, it's
kind of like, buddy, you know, I do the physicals
and do do all the things I need to do.
And he didn't, in spite of me trying to said Dad,
(07:05):
you need to get a physical. He didn't take really
good care of himself. He just thought he was gonna
live forever. You know that m that mentality like that.
You know, his age are definitely before him h other generations.
I'm sure he say you need to go see a doctor. Oh,
I ain't gonna see no doctor. I mean you that,
(07:29):
I don't care how tough you are when it's your time.
But he had apparently had had two other heart attacks
that no one knew. Uh. The autopsy showed that there
was a massive heart attack. He was driving down the
road again. He was fifty six, which you know, I'm
(07:50):
fifty now, fifty six don't seem that I look, Uh,
you know, there was a time in fifty it was
like he's fifty sold I'm like fifty six, ain't that
you know? But you know, it's really unfair. I look
at it as when people are like that, like my
(08:12):
dad was, it's really unfair to everyone else that you
would be that selfish, that you wouldn't take care of yourself,
you know, for do it for the kids and your
wife or whatever. If you think about me, you with
(08:33):
the kids, if you just neglected, you'd feel terrible. Well,
that's what you do when you don't take care of yourself,
if you just walk away from them. That's really kind
of the same thing. So, I mean, when it's your time,
(08:54):
it's your time. But I'm gonna try to hang on
as long as i can.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And you've been listening to Brett Farr part four of
our five part series about so Much and My Goodness,
him talking about humility, having to look up the word
so that those words could approximate what he was thinking about.
Am I good looking back at our lives, we can
all do that. If we're not, we're really not living
right how we looked and did things ten years ago.
(09:19):
Hopefully we're doing better now. We have this five part
series from Brett FAHRV and no one has anything like it.
And that's what we do here in this show, and
whether it's the Life of Brett or Henry Ford where
we talked to great historians about him, or the Steinway
family or my goodness, our dread Scott on Spike's story
by George will about Kurt Flood. It's just a beautiful story,
(09:44):
Brett Favre's story here on our American Stories
This is our American stories, and we tell stories of
all kinds here, folks, as you've come to love and know,
we're always trying to get stories in the voice of
the person telling them. We try and get out of
the way, step as far back as possible, and we
love to get stories behind stories. And Brett Farb's life
we've been digging in deep. And this is the fourth
(00:31):
part of a five part series, Brett Farb's life outside
of the Goalposts, which is what we're interested in here
on this show. Not Brett Farv a football star. That's interesting,
but who's the man? What's life like before and after?
Who were his parents? Where did he grow up? How
did he deal with fame and everything after? Here's Brett
(00:54):
Farv getting personal about his faith, about humility and about aging.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And I can't speak for other people, but we we
we and I s I say we more me. But
we tend to lean on God when we need him,
going to rehab, spending time by myself like open a Bible, God,
I need some help. I can't do this alone. And
(01:21):
I remember asking people not and we s we We
still are active in the Catholic Church. In fact, my
father Tommy our priest is one of our m. We
we take him on vacations and do all kinds of stuff.
But but I like leaning on someone. And I I've
had enough adversity to walk me through the Bible. If
(01:46):
you go to rehab three times, you lose your dad.
M being lost her brother out here on a four
wheel or accident. Yeah he was nineteen years old. Yeah,
on my four wheeler. Oh he's killed a helicopter to
tam out of here to the h H hospital. But
(02:08):
I mean it's bad. Oh, you know. So there's enough
things that you know, you go, God, I need some
help here. And and you do well for a while,
and you slip, and you do well, and you slip.
But I think as I I've gotten older, I tend
(02:32):
to slip maybe less, I y, I look at things differently.
I think at f at fifty, I'm a lot wiser
than I was at forty. But I'm sure if I'm
making to sixty, I'll be saying you were a freaking idiot.
At fifty you didn't know nothing, M. And I'm sure
(02:54):
that's the cycle that will always be. And I'm talking
about just life in general. Uh, what what we thought
was important at eighteen, at thirty, we thought that what
you know, what were you thinking? And then at forty
you thought what were you thinking at thirty? And but
(03:15):
you I feel like you you narrow down as you
get older what matters and what it takes, you know,
to achieve whatever happiness. And so I think that my
(03:36):
faith has gotten gotten better and stronger, but it needs
a lot of work. I'm not going to sit here
and and brag, but I do. I do know that
that humility is uh. I had to look it up.
You know. I'm thinking, I'm thinking one thing, and actually
(04:04):
what I was thinking, I didn't know how to put
it in words, and humility was the word I was
looking for. There was a time I thought that it
was all about me. But it's like the Oakland Game
or my career. And you could say the Oakland Game
is like my career. I was just driving the car,
(04:26):
you know. God was telling me where to go, when
to stop, when to pass, when the park, and that
took a while. I think that I goes back to
playing twenty years. At twenty one, I thought once I
(04:49):
got into play, I thought I can be pretty damn good.
And at nineteen and twenty years you know, I'm like,
that doesn't matter really, y. You need to be thankful
that God gave you the opportunity. And and also, you know,
(05:11):
the one thing that I I f I feel really
good about is that I made the most of it.
You know, I I let him down in a lot
of ways. That was one of 'em. I didn't let
him down. He's like, alright, I gave you a gift.
What are you gonna do with it? And I I
actually told my daughter that today. I said, you got
a chance. Cause she didn't play very good last week.
(05:35):
They played s Friday and Saturday. She played pretty good Friday,
not so good Saturday. She was really down and she
was beating herself up today and uh, I gotta do
this my weight so I'm overweight. And I said, look,
here's the reality. And I said, this is the truth.
(05:55):
You got a chance next week to redeem yourself. And
it starts out, what are you gonna do with it?
There's gonna come time when it's over, and then what
do you do? So? And that's life in general. You know,
(06:16):
we s we have a chances to In fact, I
say we you know, you never know when it ends.
My dad died at fifty six, and that was I
was thirty two or three, and I thought I was
(06:39):
I thought I was really young. Now I I now that.
I mean, I'm almost my dad's age. And uh, it's
kind of like, buddy, you know, I do the physicals
and do do all the things I need to do.
And he didn't, in spite of me trying to said Dad,
(07:05):
you need to get a physical. He didn't take really
good care of himself. He just thought he was gonna
live forever. You know that m that mentality like that.
You know, his age are definitely before him h other generations.
I'm sure he say you need to go see a doctor. Oh,
I ain't gonna see no doctor. I mean you that,
(07:29):
I don't care how tough you are when it's your time.
But he had apparently had had two other heart attacks
that no one knew. Uh. The autopsy showed that there
was a massive heart attack. He was driving down the
road again. He was fifty six, which you know, I'm
(07:50):
fifty now, fifty six don't seem that I look, Uh,
you know, there was a time in fifty it was
like he's fifty sold I'm like fifty six, ain't that
you know? But you know, it's really unfair. I look
at it as when people are like that, like my
(08:12):
dad was, it's really unfair to everyone else that you
would be that selfish, that you wouldn't take care of yourself,
you know, for do it for the kids and your
wife or whatever. If you think about me, you with
(08:33):
the kids, if you just neglected, you'd feel terrible. Well,
that's what you do when you don't take care of yourself,
if you just walk away from them. That's really kind
of the same thing. So, I mean, when it's your time,
(08:54):
it's your time. But I'm gonna try to hang on
as long as i can.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And you've been listening to Brett Farr part four of
our five part series about so Much and My Goodness,
him talking about humility, having to look up the word
so that those words could approximate what he was thinking about.
Am I good looking back at our lives, we can
all do that. If we're not, we're really not living
right how we looked and did things ten years ago.
(09:19):
Hopefully we're doing better now. We have this five part
series from Brett FAHRV and no one has anything like it.
And that's what we do here in this show, and
whether it's the Life of Brett or Henry Ford where
we talked to great historians about him, or the Steinway
family or my goodness, our dread Scott on Spike's story
by George will about Kurt Flood. It's just a beautiful story,
(09:44):
Brett Favre's story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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