If you’re choosing sides in this developing fracas between ESPN football analyst Marcellus Wiley and former Vikings quarterback great Fran Tarkenton, just ask yourself this question: Can I trust a man who routinely goes on the air pantsless? If the answer is yes, you’ll appreciate these quotes, presented to you fresh from the oven.
Tarkenton, of course, started the whole thing by ripping Brett Farve, who was (is?) considering coming out of “retirement” to play for the Vikings. Whatever happened to loyalty? asked Tarkenton. Wiley, a former Pro Bowl linebacker, called Tarkenton “a grumpy old man” for the comments. This caused Tarkenton to fire back at Wiley, and now Wiley is responding to Tarkenton … let’s play the feud!
Wiley appeared on 790 THE ZONE on Thursday to respond to Tarkenton’s latest broadside.
“Yeah his response, I heard how he dedicated a line or two to me as he called my football career minimal, that was cute, and then from there he just started rambling on about his businesses and how he’s doing well in the recession and all those kind of things. It was pretty interesting.”
But what about Tarkenton’s original point, that Favre is showing disrespect to the Packers; the team that showed him so much respect through his long career?
“As I took Fran’s comments, I had no problem with him having a public opinion about Brett Favre coming back or not. I have the same division between should he come back or not as well. I think most people have an opinion towards that. When you say ‘OK, come back and fail’, hold on now Fran. You’re part of the fraternity, the special fraternity of guys who played in the NFL, and one of the rules in the code of conduct is you don’t want another guy to fail. … I said that he sounds like a grumpy old man because who says that? I mean the next statement out of someone’s mouth like that is ‘hey, get off my lawn’ and ‘leave me alone’.”
It is not known if Wiley was wearing pants when he said this. Of course, Tarkenton’s credibility is also in question: Remember, he once was a co-host with John Davidson.
4:20 pm on May 29th, 2009
Fran must have forgot when the Vikings hired a new coach (by the name of Bud Grant who led them to 4 Super Bowl appearances) he didn't get along with him and demanded to be traded from the Vikings, giving up on the city and team that was a championship contender, he got traded to the Giants and only looked forward to one game, their game against his former team the Vikings….(yes after some years with the Giants he returned to the Vikings to LOSE 3 Super Bowls with them)…
but what was he saying about loyalty again?
4:40 pm on May 29th, 2009
The Tark has always been a cheap hustler post NFL; especially in business. See this report published quite a while back; "Since retiring from the NFL in 1978, Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton has portrayed himself as an "entrepreneurial dynamo," to borrow a phrase from the jacket of his 1997 book, What Losing Taught Me About Winning. As the title suggests, he has built a thriving career by peddling the notion that his "finely tuned business acumen" (that jacket again) is something you, too, can acquire if you heed his pearls of wisdom.Last week Tarkenton's business reputation suffered a big blow. He agreed to pay $154,187 in fines after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused him of helping direct a multimillion-dollar fraud. Tarkenton did not acknowledge wrongdoing, but the SEC alleges that his software firm, KnowledgeWare, claimed $8 million in phony revenues in 1993 and '94. Toward the end of each quarter, when it became apparent that the company wouldn't reach its revenue goals, the SEC says, KnowledgeWare sent products to resellers and other customers, then booked those transactions as income even though the customers were told they wouldn't have to pay unless they made a sale. That's accounting fraud, designed to hide a struggling company's true condition from investors.Even before this slap on the wrist from the feds, the three-time Super Bowl loser's reputation as a businessman was wildly inflated. KnowledgeWare, which Tarkenton founded in the early '80s and took public in '89, had degenerated shockingly by the early '90s. "As a software executive, Fran was in way over his head," says Mitchell Kertzman, the former CEO of Powersoft, a competitor. Industry insiders say KnowledgeWare put out a series of products that simply didn't work well, something Tarkenton never acknowledged. When Tarkenton had a chance to unload the company in '92 for $360 million, or $23 a share, he spurned the offer and held out for more than $40 a share. When he was finally forced to sell two years later, he got only $4.77 a share. But Tarkenton took care of himself, negotiating a $300,000 annual consulting fee with the new owner, Sterling Software of Dallas. He also received $6.4 million in Sterling stock options. (He no longer has any relationship with Sterling.)Last week Tarkenton's lawyer said his client was "pleased to have this matter resolved" and had "long since moved on…to other business ventures." Given Tarkenton's history with KnowledgeWare, that's a scary thought."