The letter from Brett Favre arrived a few weeks ago at Rodney Allison's home in Lubbock, Texas. Favre wanted Allison to make his way northeast to Canton, Ohio, this summer for the legendary quarterback's induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Supremely touched by the invitation, Allison - who was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach when Favre played at Southern Miss before eventually becoming the head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (2003 to 2008) - planned to attend before family matters nixed his trip.
So on Saturday night, Allison was sitting in his favorite chair inside his west Texas den with his wife and mother, watching his most famous pupil from 1,387 miles away when a remarkable thing happened.
Close to 20 minutes into his 36-minute acceptance speech, Favre said: "For those of you who don't know, I was offered one scholarship, and that was Southern Miss. And I was happy to take it, and I was determined to prove them right. Jim Carmody, Curley Hallman, Jack White, Rodney Allison, Jeff Bower, Steven Maples were coaches that made an impact on my college life."
Back in Lubbock, Allison felt his chest swell with pride.
"Egotistically, I guess you kind of hope he'll say something," Allison said during a phone interview Sunday. "But it's such a big stage, and there are so many people he wants to thank, you kind of wonder, 'Will he mention me?' When I heard my name, it just confirmed that I had done something to help him along the way. Now I'm just a very small part of that, and mostly at Southern Miss, but it meant the world to me."
Almost immediately, Allison's phone lit up. He received texts, emails and Facebook posts, including one from son Sloan, who played for his father at UTC, then stuck around to finish his career under new coach Russ Huesman, quite possibly one of the guttiest, most decent and selfless acts by any Moc ever.
And the father-son dynamic certainly gripped the elder Allison as Favre talked about his relationship with his late father Irv, who had coached him in high school in Kiln, Miss.
"That stuff with his dad," Allison said. "About how his dad never really complimented him. I thought about Sloan and me. I wasn't afraid to compliment Sloan, but there was a lot of tough love, too. I could be hard on him."
Allison recalled attending Irv Favre's funeral on Christmas Eve in 2003.
"We normally have a big Christmas Eve celebration," Allison said. "But that year I went to the funeral. I probably didn't get home until after midnight."
Allison is home now in Lubbock, where he runs the Double T Varsity Club, which is Texas Tech's in-house lettermen's group. The MVP of the Southwest Conference after guiding the 1976 Red Raiders to a 10-1 record as their quarterback, it is a perfect final act for his long career in athletics.
"You go to lots of places and you're a nobody, just another person in the crowd," Allison said. "But Lubbock was my place, Tech is my school and people still know me here."
The coach still breaks into a smile each time he recalls two stories about Favre that most people don't know.
"Understand that we had no money at Southern Miss," he said. "You got one pair of practice shoes and one pair of game shoes at the start of practice. They had to last all year. You couldn't even get a new jockstrap until you turned in the old one.
"Well, we had a quarterbacks meeting and Brett was bored. He was holding a red marker and a black marker in his hand, and instead of taking notes, he started drawing a checkerboard on his game shoes. The coaching staff was furious."
Those shoes weren't the only athletic equipment Favre failed to respect, however.
"You know how you put your quarterback in a yellow, green or red jersey so that the defense won't hit them in practice," Allison recalled. "Well, Brett wouldn't wear them. He'd throw them in the same trash can every day, and we'd have to have a manager get them out. He just wanted to be like everybody else. No special treatment."
Saturday night was the most special treatment of Favre's career, and he made sure to set one final record: longest acceptance speech ever.
"A nearly perfect speech for him," Allison said. "That's Brett. He's just always been a very passionate, emotional person."
Passionate. Emotional.
And if his old Southern Miss quarterbacks coach be any indication, very loyal, too.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.