Life After Favre: Turns out we'll live

There aren’t many places where a title like Life After Favre would come off as anything but overwrought and pseudo-weighty. But in Wisconsin, it makes perfect sense. Few athletes (or any public figures, for that matter) have burrowed into the state’s collective consciousness like #4 did during the 16 years he played for the Green Bay Packers. But now that he’s gone, what becomes of the team and fans? That’s the question Milwaukee-born author Phil Hanrahan set out to answer in his compelling look at the Pack’s 2008 season. Hanrahan doesn’t fall prey to sports-book clichés, and, as a result, Life After Favre ends up being much more a celebration of the inimitable culture that surrounds the Packers than just a look at one specific year or player. In advance of his reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Oct. 8, The A.V. Club talked with Hanrahan about the benefits of not being a sportswriter, Favre as a black hole, and what kind of fruity drinks Atari Bigby likes with dinner.

The A.V. Club: Even though this isn’t a Favre book, what are your thoughts on him?

Phil Hanrahan: The book reflects my actual feelings. There’s a strategic reason not to alienate one camp or the other, but my honest feelings are neutral. It’s hard for me to get worked up about what he did. Words like “traitor” don’t occur to me. I think once the Packers told him they were moving on, I can understand how he’d feel all bets were off. I don’t think that reflects any moral flaw, I just think it tells you something about him emotionally and psychologically. He knows he’s jeopardizing his relationship with Packers fans, but if he’s willing to do that, that’s his call.

AVC: You didn’t talk to Favre. Did you try?

PH: Of course I thought about it, but no. Honestly, I didn’t think he’d talk to me. The bigger concern was that I didn’t see what was to be gained. I’d have to go through a million hoops to get to him, and what if I did? He’s probably going to give me banalities. But let’s say I do get him talking about potent, radioactive stuff. If he says anything even a micron beyond what’s already been reported, it’s going to overshadow everything else in the book. It would have been a black hole.

AVC: How did not being a trained sportswriter affect your writing?

PH: Game recaps were a negative. There’s a craft to recapping a game in three or four pages, I had to learn it, and it was much harder than I thought. My respect for sportswriters is now through the roof. But there was a great benefit in that everything was new to me: pro football players, the locker room, practices—and I hadn’t been to Lambeau Field or Green Bay since I was 12 years old. I was seeing things with fresh eyes. Plus, I have a literary and academic background—though I tried to stifle the academics—and there was so much in this story I’m interested in beyond sports. If a sportswriter wrote it, it might go too much against convention. I think a reader will sense within a couple pages that I don’t have the voice of a sportswriter, and it’s not the sensibility they’re used to seeing on the sports page. In fact, I originally had a six-page digression about The Princess Bride. My editor actually wrote: “Do we really need six fucking pages about The Princess Bride?” [Laughs.]

AVC: The year you chronicle was the Packers’ second losing season in 17 years. Was that a benefit or detriment?

PH: At first I was worried that if the Packers didn’t have a good season it would turn out to be a dreary book. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I think I originally started out to write a rah-rah book. But when I started writing about some of those heartbreaking games and tragic figures—Mike McCarthy, Ted Thompson, Derrick Frost—I realized that struggle and drama were the drivers of the story, and I had an overabundance of each. Somehow I even began to feel a bit lucky.

AVC: Did you ever start to lose some of your fan’s passion once you were privy to the behind-the-scenes warts?

PH: I didn’t. I think part of it was because I wasn’t in the locker room long enough. But the bigger reason is that the team truly was a bunch of nice guys—for better or worse. It became an issue last year. The three-beers-in-the-bar version is that we need some more badasses. I can’t come up with a jerky guy, though. I went in preparing to meet some assholes, but I didn’t get any of that. And I think that’s genuine, and not programmed from the Packers’ P.R. department.

AVC: What’s the best story you left out?

PH: I actually didn’t leave much on the cutting room floor, but there was one detail I really deliberated on. When I had dinner with Atari Bigby, he ordered a drink with his salmon and greens—Sex On The Beach! It was this huge fruity concoction with a cherry. Then he ordered another. I thought about it for three days, and I left it out because, one, I wasn’t sure Atari would want me to mention it, but I also thought that one detail might color the whole section. I didn’t want people to remember only that about him.

AVC: One of your cornerstones in the book is the long Aaron Rodgers chapter. Even today Rodgers has remained circumspect about Favre. Did you have any trouble getting him to talk?

PH: I think he understood he’s kind of the hero of the book, I was focused on post-Favre, and that this was going to be the first book about the new-era Packers. The only time he was uncomfortable was when I brought up topics like him being booed in training camp. And I give him credit for not hiding that emotion. He’s very polished, but when you hit an emotional topic, it’s clear. He’ll become monosyllabic and give one-word answers. So when I asked him if he’d heard the boos, he said, “Yes,” and nothing else. That “yes” hung in the air. I appreciated it; it’s human. It didn’t come across as “poor me.” It came across as: Yeah, I heard them, and I don’t care to say anything more about it. But I will tell you the truth.