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It took two tries, but after 20 years of playing professional football, Brett Lorenzo Favre retired from the NFL. His journey in the world’s top football league began with the Atlanta Falcons before a legend-defining period at the Green Bay Packers.
Over 20 years, he recorded various career achievements, including winning the most coveted Super Bowl and the NFL Most Valuable Player awards. In all, it was a fulfilling career for Brett Favre, and it has stayed that way even after retirement.
Post-NFL, Brett Favre Has Been a High School Coach and Deepened His Entrepreneurial Involvements
For most players, retirement is a dreaded milestone and one that happens swiftly to keep the pain of walking from the game short. However, in 2002, Brett Favre began a constant ‘will he, won’t he’ dance with retirement that continued till 2008. In March, he announced his retirement from the Green Bay Packers, citing that he no longer wanted to play.
After some contractual drama, one that included his rejection of a $25 million deal to stay retired, Brett Favre came out of retirement in 2009. He played for the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings before calling time on his 20-year career for the final time in 2011.
Since he retired, Brett has kept busy in different ways. In 2012, he became a football coach at Oak Grove High School. Favre led the team to the Class 6A Mississippi high school state championship before leaving the role in May 2014. Since he left high school coaching, however, he has intensified his entrepreneurial efforts.
He Had a Restaurant
In 1998, about a decade before his retirement, Brett and Dick Monfort, owner of the Colorado Rockies, founded the restaurant, Brett Favre’s Steakhouse, in Green Bay. He continued his ownership of the business after retirement, with Dennis Fenrick serving as general manager.
After 17 years of existence and a name change in 2017 to Hall of Fame Chophouse, Brett and his business partner announced the restaurant’s closing in May 2018.
Brett Favre is Among the Board of Directors of Sqor
One other venture that has kept Brett Favre busy since retirement is Sqor. In 2013, three years after his final game, he joined the board of directors of the sport social media platform. As part of his role in the company, Brett also serves as a product ambassador.
Other roles and contributions to the company include giving sports insights and providing advice on business interests with leagues, teams, and sports conferences.
He Still Works as a Brand Endorser and Public Speaker
Ultimately, Brett Favre has spent his post-retirement life leveraging his football career’s popularity and achievements. He still serves as an endorser or spokesperson for multiple brands. Some of the brands in his portfolio, past and present, include MasterCard, Hyundai, Sears, Nike, Sensodyne, and several others.
He is also a public speaker, traveling around the company, giving speeches to paid audiences. It has not been an entirely smooth sail in this field. In May 2020, he was embroiled in a controversy about the misappropriation of $94 million in Mississippi’s state Department of Human Services.
Brett received $1.1 million for two speaking appearances he did not deliver. Since the news broke, the former Packers quarterback has pledged to return the sum.
Favre has Maintained His Charity Work
He established his charity, Brett Favre Fourward Foundation, in 1996. Since he retired, the charity has remained part of his yearly endeavors. Ran by his mother, Bonita, Favre continues to direct his efforts at youths who are ill. Since its creation, his charity has donated more than $3 million to charities in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Besides his foundation, he has also worked alongside Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. His efforts with the charity over the years earned him the Chris Greicius Celebrity Awards in 2007.
His 20-Year Career Produced Several Personal Achievements, including 11 Pro Bowl Nominations
When he joined as a second-round #33 pick in 1991, Brett was a man with zero prestige. Then-NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue infamously mispronounced his name during the draft. However, after retirement, everyone knew his name, thanks to an exceptional array of personal achievements in 20 years.
Within a year of joining the league, he was named in the Pro Bowl. He went on to receive ten additional nominations in 1993, 1995-1997, 2001-2003, and 2007-2009. He was also named the NFL passing touchdowns leader four times, earning the first three consecutively between 1995 and 1997. The last came in 2003. His performance between 1995 and 1997 also earned him three NFL Most Valuable Player awards, the first quarterback to record the feat.
His passing skills being one of his standout qualities, he was also the NFL passing yards leader twice, in 1995 and 1998.
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Aside from his individual achievements, of which there are more, he was also a Super Bowl champion. He won the XXXI Bowl in 1997 against the New England Patriots, winning by 35-21. Other noteworthy achievements for Brett include:
NFL Offensive Player of the Year3x First-Team All-Pro3x Second-Team All-ProGreen Bay Packers No.4 Retired JerseyNFL 1990s All-Decade Team and 100th Anniversary All-Time TeamMultiple NFL records, including most career interceptions thrown and most consecutive starts by a player.
At the end of his career in 2011, Brett Favre held the NFL records for the all-time leader in passing touchdowns, passing yards, and quarterback wins. Since retiring, he has also been named in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, achieving the feat in 2016. A year before, the Green Bay Packers inducted him in their Hall of Fame.
Brett Favre’s Career Has Also Earned Him a $100 Million Net Worth
His medal and award-laden career ensure Brett will go down in the history of the NBA. But it also means he lives like a rich man, having amassed a net worth of $100 million fueled by his long career. Between his first contract in July 1991 and his last in August 2010, Brett made $137.8 million in career earnings.
The Green Bay Packers quarterback signed a total of six contracts during his playing career. He signed the most financially significant in March 2001, when the Packers committed him to a $101.5 million ten-year deal. Even though he was in the twilight of his career, his last contract was a huge one-year $16 million deal.
Endorsements, which are a core of his post-retirement earnings, have been major moneymakers for the quarterback. At the peak of his career, he made between $7 and $9 million per year from endorsements. Although no longer as much, endorsements and his business ventures have allowed Brett Favre to maintain his place among the richest NFL players in the world.
Brett Favre’s 24+ Years Marriage Has Produced Two Children
In 1996, Brett Favre married his long-time girlfriend, Deanna Tynes, years after they met while in high school. Long before the couple got married, they gave birth to their first daughter, Brittany Nicole, on February 6, 1989. Their second daughter, Breleigh Ann, on July 13, 1999.
Although mostly known for her marriage to the legendary quarterback, Deanna Tynes is a published author and charity founder. After surviving a breast cancer diagnosis, she founded The Deanna Favre Hope Foundation to support women with the disease and increase awareness.
She also wrote and published the books, Don’t Bet Against Me and The Cure of the Chronic Life: Overcoming the Hopelessness That Holds You Back.
His daughter, Brittany, is a Law School Graduate
She is the daughter that was born before he came into the limelight. Still, Brittany’s exceptionalism has made her one of the most famous names in the Favre family. She was initially married to a man named Patrick Valkenburg, and their marriage produced a child, Parker.
After a protracted divorce, she met another man, Alex Mallion. She had her second child, Alex, making Brett Favre a grandfather for the second time. Despite raising two children, Brittany completed college and went to Loyola University College of Law, earning her JD. She graduated in May 2015 and currently specializes in sports and entertainment law.
As for her sister, Breleigh, she was a volleyball player at the University of Southern Mississippi, her father’s alma mater. She attended Oak Grove High School and was named Lamar Times’ Pine Belt Player of the Year in her senior year. She was also named All-State First Team and Second Team in 2016 and 2014, respectively.
Brett Favre’s Parents were School Teachers
His mother, Bonita Ann, now serves as the manager of his business interests and charity works, but she was once a schoolteacher. She and her husband, Irvin Ernest Favre, both worked in the role in the Hancock County School District. Brett Favre’s father is a descendant of Simon Favre, a notable figure in West Florida Native American history.
Besides being a teacher, his father was also his high school football coach at Hancock North Central High School. As a coach, Irvin helped Brett secure his start as a football player, running offensive plays that displayed his strength and attracted college scouts.
His father, also known as Big Irv, died on December 21, 2003, after suffering a heart attack on a Mississippi highway. Following his death, Brett and his mother, Bonita, co-wrote and published the book, Favre, discussing their family and his untimely death.
Another noteworthy member of the Favre family includes his nephew, Dylan. He played quarterback for the Cedar Rapids Titans in the Indoor Football League. He played for Pearl River Community College, Mississippi State, and the University of Tennessee-Martin at the college level.
Instructions:
Discuss his first retirement, why he came back, his second retirement and what he has been up to since then.
Discuss the achievements of his career…include his net worth here.
Revamp the info on his family members, who they are and what they are up to.