Green Bay Packer’s Brett Favre Is No Ira Newble!
Many in Wisconsin have spoken laudatory words over the past couple of weeks about Green Bay Packer quarterback Brett Favre. He played football, he quit, and he will move on with his life. The footprint he leaves behind is in the world of sports. That may be enough for people like Brett Favre. But there are some in the world of sports who understand the larger and more important role they can have by affecting change. As I noted here on May 29, 2007, Ira Newble is such a man. He knows the sports arena is not where the true measure of a man is taken.
I wrote in part at that time that Ira Newble was working to end the genocide in Darfur, and asking sports figures to sign on to his efforts.
Newble is casting a wide net, reaching out to the 400-plus NBA players as well as athletes in the NFL and in Major League Baseball. (I bet every penny I have that Brett Favre will not sign it!) He’s also hoping for the support of his childhood hero, Muhammad Ali. It’s a lot of work, but he’s in for the long haul.
“This is bigger than sports, bigger than basketball,” Newble said. “This is about human beings, and how they are dying at an alarming rate because we are standing by and doing nothing.”
As I write in March of 2008 I still have no knowledge that Brett Favre even knows where Darfur is located, let alone offered to assist Ira Newble in a most important cause. If I have somehow missed Favre’s interests in Darfur, I would welcome the news. I would even do a post on it here!
This week there was a large story in the New York Times showcasing the work that Ira Newble does, even when other sports stars are more concerned with their contracts and paychecks.
For his part, Newble followed up on his letter-writing advocacy by taking what he called a “life-changing trip” last summer with the actress and Darfur advocate Mia Farrow to refugee camps in Chad near the border of Sudan. Tracy McGrady followed two months later.
But no matter how much they are prodded, the most leveraged of sports stars will continue to be the most careful because, as Newble said, “They have their contracts, their deals.” That brings us back to the Kobe Bryant public service announcement, the first of a series gradually being released and placed for broadcast by Aid Still Required, and also featuring McGrady, Steve Nash, Grant Hill and Baron Davis, among others.
The group is the brainchild of Hunter and Andrea Payne, who advised Newble before he undertook his personal letter-writing initiative.
Hunter Payne, a singer-songwriter, said that his group targeted practical, grass-roots strategies to assist Darfur — for instance, the reforestation of an area ravaged by drought, and the building and distribution of solar stoves so camp refugees will not have to search for firewood while risking atrocities at the hands of the Janjaweed and other armed militias.
“I’m not saying I disagree with the groups that have been going after China,” Payne said in a telephone interview. “But I believe that a broad-based approach works better for us. And in this case, it allows the athletes to be involved with less commercial risk.”
Fine, too, by Newble’s thinking.
“Hunter set up a more relaxed approach so the players could feel comfortable,” he said. “I’m all for it. People will probably listen more when it’s Kobe Bryant.”
In the meantime, Newble is preparing to play more basketball as a multipositional playoff defensive stopper, looking for a new N.B.A. home, not worried about a backlash for having spoken out in a manner that some might have interpreted as unhelpful to the league’s global blueprint for success.
“I love the game,” Newble said. “But I never thought I was in it just to dribble the ball up and down the court.”
I wish the same could be said for a former quarterback who threw a football on Sundays.
In other words one should use the microphone when given the chance.
Technorati Tags: BrettFavre, IraNewble, Darfur, NewYorkTimes, GreenBayPackers
You’re god damn right he walks on water in Wisconsin. It’s amazing how selfish and egotistical you are, seemingly without even realizing it. You sit here and write as if Ira Newble and people like him and people like yourself that are trying to do something about Darfur are SO much better than everyone else who isn’t. Well you’re wrong. Darfur is a great cause, of course it is, and I commend you and every celebrity that is out there trying to do something about it and raise awareness. The sad thing is, you’ve allowed that to make yourself completely blind to all of the other things in this world that also effect hundreds of millions of people. Wake up. Open your eyes. Darfur isn’t the only god damn thing going on in this world, and not every person can do everything, for everyone. Just because you’re sitting here crying because Brett Favre isn’t using his status in sports to raise awareness about Darfur doesn’t mean that he’s just being completely selfish and not using his status for anything. Just ask the countless number of people he’s helped while raising millions of dollars and a lot of awareness for at risk youths, cancer, and people with mental and physical disabilites, just to name a few. You may think I’m this upset about it just because he happened to be the quarterback of the team I root for, but in reality, it just flat out disgusts me that you have the nerve to call out anyone who is doing charitable work for a good cause. And if you don’t think any of the things he has done are good causes, you should seriously take a look at yourself, which I suggest you do anyway. Again, why don’t you spend your time actually doing something about Darfur, rather than calling out someone whose list of causes doesn’t include it. Maybe someone should call you out in a blog.
When the history books are written a question will need to be answered. Where were you when Darfur took place?
Activism and social awareness in professional sports is rare. Very rare. And when I see one like Ira Newble take a stand it makes me aware of how few care enough to place the greater good above a mere game.
I chose Brett Favre the first time in a post last year as he was playing with the fans through the media about if he would return to the Packers while Ira fought the battle for Darfur. I chose him again in this post because at the time this article was in the paper Brett was folding up his tent, crying, and leaving the state. In both cases when Ira was in the news for Darfur, Brett was in the news…..well……for Brett. SEE THE DIFFERENCE?
Brett Farve walks on water in Wisconsin, or so some seem to think. He could have used his position in sports to highlight for the couch addicts on Sunday what the rest of us already know. We need action in Darfur.
I stand by my post. Completely.
Ok, I just happened to stumble across this as I was surfing through the internet, so forgive me if I may have missed something in a previous blog or something along those lines, but…
Why Brett Favre specifically? You sound as if he has never done any sort of charitable work (which he in fact has, and quite a bit of it) There are many important causes in this country, let alone the world, that also need attention from people, and to call someone out just because they haven’t done anything for the one you feel most passionate about is a joke. I can’t claim to know what exactly it is that YOU do to help the situation in Darfur, but I would suggest that you take the time you spend writing useless, ridiculous, accusitory, character cutting blogs like these and put it towards doing something that actually matters and makes a difference. I shouldn’t have even wasted my time writing this, but people like you are a joke.
Darfur is a great cause, and obviously genocide is very serious and attrocious, but really, get over yourself. Put your time to better use. Brett Favre has done an enormous amount for charitable causes in this state alone, so quit calling out people that you obviously know nothing about.
We are talking genocide here.
“This is bigger than sports, bigger than basketball,” Newble said. “This is about human beings, and how they are dying at an alarming rate because we are standing by and doing nothing.”
Politics has no place in sports.