Mark McHale was just a few weeks on the job as an assistant football coach at the University of Southern Mississippi and making his fi rst recruiting trip into rural Mississippi when the tips of a few high school coaches changed the course of a young quarterback's life and the fortunes of the USM program. The coaches told McHale he needed to visit Hancock North Central High School to see a youngster named Brett Favre. McHale heeded the advice and detoured his weekend trek through Kiln, Miss.

What McHale found was a strong-armed quarterback in a run-oriented off ense who was short on polish, but plenty long enough on grit and confi dence to make the coach believe the player was worth a closer look over during the 1986 season. It took a while, but the more McHale looked the more he liked until he fi nally was able to convince his fellow coaches that the kid from Rotten Bayou was worth consideration for a scholarship in their recruiting class for 1987.

After Favre's season ended, the days became weeks and the weeks became months. And with National Signing Day just hours away, Brett Favre was on the verge of seeing his football career at best continue in a lower college division, or at worst, end all together.

Then, as so often happens, fate intervened. A defensive player whose name nobody can now remember, changed his mind at the last minute and bypassed a scholarship from Southern Miss in favor of another school. The Golden Eagles gave the grant they were saving for the defender to Favre, primarily because they thought he could play in the secondary if he didn't make it at quarterback. But again, Favre fooled the experts. In a vintage rags-to-riches story, Favre made the most of his only chance to play college football by going from the last of seven quarterbacks on the Golden Eagles depth chart to starter before October arrived in his freshman season. In 10 to 4, McHale and Favre, with the help of award-winning sportswriter Tim Stephens, detail how the coach’s persistence enabled the gifted, but raw youngster to prove himself at college football's highest level and lay the foundation for becoming the winningest quarterback in NFL history and its only three-time consecutive Most Valuable Player.