Sports columnist William Rhoden covered the retirement drama of Brett [1]Favre [1], veteran quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, in Saturday's sports section. Rhoden thinks Favre is getting a raw deal from the Pack, and wrote:
There have been ferocious debates about Favre that in many ways go beyond football. In a fragile economy in which jobs are being lost, there is a poignancy in watching someone who has given so much not be allowed a change of heart about retirement. Sports should accommodate this sort of change of heart.
Rhoden's latest foray into politics is not only silly, it's not even internally consistent - in a fragile economy, wouldn't the liberal Rhoden want the wealthy Favre to go ahead and retire and allow a younger player to replace him and garner the riches that would otherwise pile up in Favre's bank account? In other words, share the wealth?
Rhoden has a history of awkwardly [2] mixing sports and liberal politics [2]. He called for the cancellation of the 2003 NCAA men's basketball tournament because of the impending war in Iraq andonce argued the U.S. could help repair its world image if the University of Alabama hired a black football coach - coincidentally, then-Green Bay Packers assistant coach Sylvester Croom (Croom went to Mississippi State instead, and U.S. reputation predictably plummeted).