Brett Favre

Favre grew up in Kiln, Mississippi, where his father Irvin was the local high school football and baseball coach and his mother was a special education teacher. He had two brothers and a sister, and his aunt, grandmothers, and other relatives lived nearby. Favre and both his brothers took turns quarterbacking their high school football team, but Brett was the best. Irvin Favre told William Plummer in People, "He was rawboned brute strength, plus he was smart." In an article in Sports Illustrated, Favre told Leigh Montville that most people assume

Brett Favre

he inherited his throwing ability from his father, but joked, "Now I think I got it from my mother. She got mad at me last summer and threw a pastrami sandwich and hit me in the head. Hard. She really had something on that sandwich."

Kiln is a small town in a rural area, and Favre was completely unnoticed by college recruiters. In 1987, after being rejected from many other schools, he finally got a scholarship to the University of Southern Mississippi as a defensive back only because another player decided not to take it. Favre initially played both that position and quarterback, but he was the seventh quarterback on the depth chart for the team. By the time his freshman year started, he had worked his way up to number three. By the second half of the second game, Favre threw two touchdown passes, helping Southern Mississippi beat Tulane. Shortly after that he was the starter. Favre noted that like him, most of his teammates had been rejected by bigger, better-known schools with stronger football teams. "We thrived on that," he explained to Montville. "We'd play Alabama, Auburn, and there'd be stories in the papers about how we'd been rejected by them. We'd come out and win the game."

Favre's longtime girlfriend, Deanna Tynes, became pregnant during his sophomore year, but they did not marry. Favre recalls that he was not ready. However, the couple remained together, and raised their daughter, Brittany.

By the end of Favre's junior year, the team had altered its offense to make the best use of his abilities. Pro scouts began to take notice. During the summer before his senior year, he was injured in a car accident that required him to have 30 inches of his intestine removed. But five weeks after that surgery, he led his team to a 27-24 win over Alabama; the team finished the 1990 season at 8-4. Favre played in the Senior Bowl and the East-West Shrine game. At the Shrine game, Jets scout Ron Wolf noticed him, but the Atlanta Falcons drafted Favre before New York could. The Falcons gave Favre a three-year contract worth $1.2 million in 1991.