Brainwashing Your Kid Carefully

Bob Sturm, the co-host of the noon to 3 pm show on The Ticket, grew up in Wisconsion and is a huge Green Bay Packer fan much in the same way I am a Dallas Cowboy fan. But Bob has taken fandom a little further than I have on a couple of fronts and, since one of these ways relates to a theme of this blog, I thought it worthy of discussion.

First, Bob got a tattoo of the green and gold Green Bay "G" on his shoulder a couple of years ago. Bob, like me, doesn't really seem like the tattoo type and, although I heard the story at the time, I can't recall what led to the decision to do it in his early to mid-30s. This will probably come as a bit of a surprise to DC Mom, but on occasion I've thought it might be kind of cool to do something similar with the Cowboy star. Again, though, I'm not really the tattoo type.

I find the second thing he did fascinating, particularly in light of (1) recent news and (2) my stated purpose of this blog...chronicling my own obsession with the Cowboys and my efforts to brainwash my children. Have no illusions, I consider the brainwashing of children in this manner a worthy and admirable endeavor, but I did not go quite as far as Bob, who named his son Brett, in honor of his favorite player of all time, one Brett Favre.

Brett (Favre, not Bob's son) has been on the athlete retirement yo-yo for the past couple of years and last year he "retired" from the Packers and ended up (after months of drama) playing for the Jets. Now, I imagine Brett playing for the Jets did not cause much heartburn for Bob. The Jets don't play the Packers much (and didn't last year in the regular season) and there's not a rivalry of any kind between the two teams. To me, this was kind of like Emmitt going to play for the Cardinals...a cute little sideshow, but no real betrayal.

But now, Brett has "retired" (again), this time from the Jets and is trying to fanagle himself onto the Minnesota Vikings...the longtime hated rival of the Packers. Bob has openly mocked and ridiculed the Vikings on the air for years. And it appears that part of the motivation for Brett joining the Vikings is to stick to the Packers (who they play twice a year), because Brett thinks the Packers tried to push him into retirement before he was ready. Now, Bob has to explain to his son that his namesake, the very symbol of Dad's favorite team, the team he is teaching his son to love, has betrayed that team, is joining the hated rival and is openly gunning for them.

Bob's essential error here was connecting his son too much to the player, not the team. I mean, if you are young Brett, don't you consider for a moment pulling for your namesake, even though he is playing for the Vikings. And what if, as a result of rooting for big Brett, little Brett starts to kind of like the Vikings...then becomes a fan of the Vikings. What a disaster that would be. I'm sorry, Bob. These decisions have to be better thought out. Tattoo...OK. But the kid-naming thing carries too much risk.