New evidence in the form of text messages appear to show that former NFL great Brett Favre knowingly obtained welfare funds from the state of Mississippi to build a new volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi. Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Tank Williams discuss the idea of Favre, a multimillionaire and Mississippi legend, stealing funds from the poorest state in the United States. Tank, who is from the same region of Mississippi as Favre, shares his thoughts on how something like this happens, and is looking for there to finally be some accountability in this twisted scandal. Charles believes we need to take a long look at Favre’s legacy and start judging him for for what he’s done as a person, and not just as a football player. Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video transcript

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CHARLES ROBINSON: I mean, first and foremost, as someone who grew up in Mississippi, it's a poor state, OK? Public funds there, particularly when they're appropriated to help the people of Mississippi-- I want to know how you would feel, as a native, seeing money like that that goes to build a volleyball building-- help out the volleyball team at Southern Miss, which-- by the way, and the person involved, Brett Favre, made $138 million just in career earnings.

That's not counting any of his endorsement money, both during his playing days and afterward-- or any of his investments or anything else. Instead, Brett Favre uses his star power, it appears here, to draw funds away from a welfare fund to build a volleyball stadium. Frankly, I think, personally, Brett Favre probably could have just taken that money out of his own pocket, said name the building after me-- let's just build it. $8 million-- I think I can cover that.

TANK WILLIAMS: Well, yeah-- well, let's just speak in legalese. Like, Brett Favre and I-- we're from the poorest state in the country. And I think everyone knows that. It's always on the national headlines. But, more importantly, I think this just speaks to that good ol' boy system that we're accustomed to seeing all over the country-- all over the world for that matter. And, you know, it's just disappointing that he took advantage of that because Brett Favre is from the same area that I'm from. We played against his high school. They were our rivals.

And so he has grown up around poor Black people. He's grown up around poor white people. And so it's not one of those things where it's just, like, this racial dynamic. It's a thing where it's a cultural dynamic, where you have someone who was raised in this system-- somehow, in some way was always just kind of able to rise above, like, all the things that happened to him. Once he retired, everyone just looked at him. I mean, especially in the state of Mississippi, I mean, Brett Favre can't do any wrong.

Now, if you talk to some people down from my area, there are a lot of people that love Brett Favre. There's a statue up in front of the stadium. Then there's some other folks who know how he was in high school and how he was in college and may feel a certain kind of way about some of the things that have been said about him and how he's kind of perceived on the national light.

But, ultimately, this is just a totally bad situation. You hate to see it happen. And you would hope that now, in this day and age-- that there's people that would try to hold him accountable, whereas in the past years and decades before, people would do this all the time. And it seemed like you're just [INAUDIBLE] go scot-free-- you know, kind of let it blow over for a 1/2 year or so. And then you just go right back to doing whatever you wanted to do before.

CHARLES ROBINSON: I think it's interesting because you talk about maybe how he's perceived during his career versus how he's perceived now. And what I think is interesting is he does not look like a good person to me. He does not. I don't know-- I don't know any way you can see the litany of things that Brett Favre has allegedly been involved in-- this included-- and walk away thinking, this is a great guy.