SI Sportsman of the Year

is Brett Favre

NEW YORK — Brett Favre’s standout season for the resurgent
Green Bay Packers has earned him the title of 2007 Sports
Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, making him the fourth
quarterback to win the award in its 53-year history.
The 38-year-old Favre joins fellow quarterbacks Terry Bradshaw
(1979), Joe Montana (1990) and Tom Brady (2005) as recipients of
the award, given to an athlete who symbolizes the ideals of
sportsmanship.
Favre, a three-time NFL MVP, said in the cover story of the
magazine’s Dec. 10th issue that leadership is about finding ways to
raise his team’s level of play.
“You do that by setting an example, by doing things the right
way. I’ve always shown up, I’ve always been prepared, I practice
every day,” Favre said. “I practice hard. I study. No matter what
happens on the field, I never point blame at anybody else.
Everything I do comes back to leadership, the example I want to
set.”
Favre has started a quarterback-record 249 consecutive games,
and this year surpassed Dan Marino for career touchdown passes and
pass attempts. He is 450 yards away from breaking Marino’s career
record of 61,361 yards.
Favre has had one of the best seasons of his 17-year career,
completing 67.4 percent of his passes for 3,412 yards with 18
touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
He’s on pace to surpass his career marks in completion
percentage, yards passing and fewest interceptions per attempts.
The magazine also recognized Favre’s history of philanthropy,
including his Fourward Foundation that’s donated more than $4
million to charities in Wisconsin and Mississippi and assisted
Mississippi’s Gulf Coast counties after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade won the magazine’s award last year.

 

Solid choice.

But it will get drilled from all angles on here in 3,2,1...

 

(Madden circling on telestrator) Here's a guy who's having a great comeback season ...

 

So I guess the first eight months of the year don't count?

 

If Dan Patrick is reading this thread, he'll be pissed. He's going to announce the winner tomorrow night and he didn't want to know, according to what he said on his show last week.

 

Dan Patrick still has a show?

 

Not a bad choice ... solid guy, HOFer having the best season of his career. Tough because his season's not over yet, but there were no other overwhelming choices for it.

Beats having one of the Red Sox win it and giving Boston another cover.

 

MacGregor basically wrote a profile last year of Favre though that read like a Sportsman of the Year story. Will be interesting to see how they make it read differently.

 

Not bad, but I would have preferred the Colorado Rockies, mainly for giving their playoff (or was it World Series?) share to the family of the minor league coach, and their play from late September to mid-October was pretty impressive too.

 

Beat me to it. Great play, great story, good hearts.

 

Link to Alan Shipnuck's fine story on it.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/magazine/specials/sportsman/2007/12/03/sportsman.2007/index.html?eref=T1

 

That would have been a good choice, especially in light of how much fun they had (and how much fun they were to watch) down the stretch.

I'm not much of a fan of naming an entire team, but I wouldn't be able to argue against that choice.