For the better part of his 20 years in the NFL, the story of Brett Favre was tailor-made for a middle America that swoons over blue-collar football heroes.
We learned about his formative years in tiny Kiln, Mississippi, a town defined by the boom of the timber industry, decimated by the Great Depression, then sustained by decades of illegal moonshining ingenuity. We heard tales about Favre being raised by a pair of schoolteachers, then his serendipitous discovery as a high school football player while being coached by his dad, Irvin Favre. And of course, we heard about the football hurdles, with Favre lucking into a single scholarship offer from Southern Mississippi despite running an ill-fitting wishbone offense that rarely showcased the massive arm that would eventually deliver him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.