A Country Boy in Summer

All around the NFL, training camps have opened. What’s better than sprinting around a field under the hot summer sun wearing sweat-soaked pads while other men, larger than the average bear, try and pound you into the turf?

Ah, football. You gotta love it! There is nothing like the wear and tear of two-a-days combined with long position meetings detailing X’s and O’s.

All 32 teams will be in camp by the end of the weekend and, unlike in other major sports, each of those 32 teams have dreams of winning the Super Bowl. Some dreams are much more legitimate than others, but they all have them. We’ve seen it time and time again. Last year’s Super Bowl champ could become this year’s chump and the doormats of yesterday could rise up and shock the world. This fact alone makes the NFL great.

But not everybody enjoys training camp, especially those cagey veterans who have proven themselves in the grinder. For them, four to five weeks is way too much time to prepare for the regular season. Two weeks are more than enough.

Of all the veterans out there, the cagiest has to be Brett Favre of Minnesota Vikings fame. In case you didn’t know, he also played a few seasons in Green Bay (though Packer faithful may deny it now) and dabbled in New Jersey and Atlanta at different points in his career.

Favre, never one to shy away from media scrutiny or big decisions, has yet to say for sure whether or not he will be back in Minnesota for his 20th season. His ankle will tell him when, if, he will be ready to play.

Does anybody out there think the conversation with his ankle will go something like this?

Ankle: Hey, Brett.
Brett: Yes, Ankle?
Ankle: The Vikings broke training camp yesterday. I’m ready to play now.

I think everybody would be shocked if Favre decided to finally hang it up for good (no, I mean really this time). But since we still don’t know for certain, let’s have some fun and assume Favre will be back to lead the Purple for yet one more season.

Let’s celebrate his pending return to the gridiron with a reset of the classic poem A Country Boy in Winter by Sarah Orne Jewett.


Brett Favre – A Country Boy in Summer

The heat may rise at training camp,
     For all I care, says Brett,
And I don’t mind how hot it grows,
     For I won’t have to sweat.
Young guys may practice all day long,
     But I shall never wheeze;
What cares a good ol’ boy like me
     For summer days like these?

Far down the field to fleet receivers
     It is such fun to throw,
But not in August! Then is when
     There is no joy, I know.
When those two-a-days have ended,
     Well, I will take the lead;
They will greet me all the better
     Then certain of their need.

When I go home after game-time,
     Schucks! The INTs I dread!
Even Hall of Fame gunslingers
     Hit the other team instead.
You ought to see the pigskin go,
     I’ll toss a touchdown then;
And old Paul Allen* will say, “Rubes,
     We got some points again.”

There’s always something I can do
     ‘Til training camp is done;
The press ask questions all the time
     Of games both lost and won.
And when I give my mind to it,
     I’ll do as coaches say,
And lead our great team to Dallas
     To play some February day.

I shall be glad when I return
     And summer turns to fall,
I’ll show them by-and-by that I
     Have not yet hit a wall.
I’ll take the drops behind center,
     I’ll do the best I can.
A good ol’ boy like me can’t quit
     Without two rings in hand.

I like to hear the media praise
     Just as I come in sight,
And the Packer fans give me scorn
     While they drink late at night.
For now Purple fans seem like friends,
     And cheer my greatness here.
Some fellows talk of the Super Bowl,
     But they shall wait another year.



*Paul Allen is the voice of the Vikings on the radio and can be heard weekdays from 9:00am – Noon on KFAN.

Tomorrow, the Hall of Fame Game! Dallas vs Cincinnati! Getcha popcorn ready! Who will win this epic, preseason classic?