University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Four Favre Memories: Tim Hallman
8/2/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The Southern Miss athletics department will interview former Golden Eagles about their favorite memories of Brett Favre as No. 4 enters the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. Offensive lineman Tim Hallman is the focus for Tuesday's edition.
Hallman was a senior during Favre's freshman season in 1987. It was just Sept. 10 when Favre made the first and biggest impression of his legendary career. Southern Miss was hosting Tulane on a hot day in M.M. Roberts Stadium, and there had been a few unfortunate circumstances that led the 17-year-old's early, but not premature, debut.
"When they put him in, he had no practiced a lot," Hallman said. "With Coach [Jim] Carmody, you wouldn't play back then unless you performed in practice. When we saw him come in, we thought he had lost his mind. We didn't know who this guy was and hadn't taken many snaps with him."
The potential talent question was not the only thing on the team's mind.
"We just knew he was a kid from the coast with the last name 'favor,'" Hallman said. "Nobody knew how to pronounce it. It wasn't characteristic of Carmody to put him in, but everything worked out perfectly as we well know. That was impressive."
The lasting impression that Favre left on his teammates carried well into his storied NFL career, and Hallman fondly remembers arguably the greatest but unheralded tradition that any old friends could share.
"A lot of former players, five or six of us every year, would take a guys trip to Green Bay," he said. "We always wanted to go in December when it was a tundra. Going up there and watching Brett evolve over the years to becoming a superstar was unbelievable. We looked forward to that more than anything else over the year.
"We would try to get with him but he was always busy, including when he was hunting Friday or Saturday, but we might get golf in with him on a Monday despite it being 30 degrees."
Favre's simplicity was something quite familiar to his Southern Miss contingent, and they truly realized how little the fame affected him in his pro career.
"Brett had started becoming a premier quarterback in the league, and we would see a couple of paychecks on the floor or in the seat of his car," Hallman said. "We would tell him and he would say, 'oh yeah I gotta take those to the bank.' That was just him, and we definitely got on him about that."
But there was one more memorable moment Hallman had to share regarding Favre's persona, and it came back on Oct. 10, 1990, when No. 6 Florida State came into Hattiesburg.
"It was also Brett's birthday," Hallman said. "I remember the Hattiesburg American talking about that fact and also that a team that was No. 1 in the country the previous year was coming in. One time when he got off the ground, the FSU players were standing over him and singing 'happy birthday' to him. He came back to one huddle kind of laughing despite being black and blue, and we asked why and he told us."
The ceremony for Favre's induction will be televised live on ESPN at 6 p.m. CT from Canton, Ohio.
