March 7 -- First off, I'd like to set the record straight: I'm not retiring. Speculation to that effect was widespread after last week's GMT appeared later than usual. Late as in the way I tell people I'm in my late 20s. "How late?" they ask, to which I reply, "38."

But another 38-year-old is calling it quits. Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre announced his retirement this week after 17 NFL seasons that were -- for better (three MVPs; Super Bowl title; career leader in wins, touchdowns, yards, consecutive starts) or worse (most career interceptions) -- unforgettable. Favre didn't just play in Green Bay, he was the Dairy State's Biggest Cheese for the better part of the last two decades. There's been a foul stench in the Dairy air all week as Cheeseheads have tried to come to grips with the end of an era.

As I watched Favre openly and uncontrollably blubber through his farewell press conference, I couldn't help but think of the singular moment that found Favre on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. It was Super Bowl 31 in New Orleans, and I was there as a reporter. On the second play from scrimmage, Favre hit Andre Rison for a 54-yard touchdown. As Rison strutted into the end zone, Favre yanked off his helmet and thrust it in the air as he sprinted across the Superdome turf. I write for a living, yet I'm having a hard time describing Favre's emotion in that moment. Joy? Exhilaration? Whatever it was, it was pure. Almost a childlike purity.

Maybe that's why I thought, as I watched Thursday's press conference, of my nine-year-old son's just-completed basketball season. The Bombers of the Abilene Youth Basketball Association won their first four games of the season and looked unstoppable. My son, blessed with his mother's athletic genes (and my geeky, girl-repellent passion for sports), wasn't just one of the best players on his team but in the entire league, averaging seven points in 12 minutes in games that often end up with scores like 10-6.

Then came the fifth game. My boy couldn't buy a basket. Shots went halfway down but popped out. He had his usual number of steals and rebounds but only scored two. They lost by a deuce. Afterward, he was in tears, thinking he'd cost his team the game. The next week, he scored nearly half his team's points but missed a pair of free throws with a minute to go. Another loss. More tears, followed by this self-flagellation, "I stink in the last two minutes!"

My knee-jerk response was to console, then correct him. If that was going to be his reaction to losing a non-conference, regular season youth basketball game, what would happen when he fell short in something really important later on in life? Like the season-ending tournament two weeks later? (Kidding. I promise.)

But then I considered more carefully what it was exactly that evoked that emotion. It wasn't simply childish pouting over an undesirable outcome. It was that he'd poured so much of himself into each of those games that something had to come out when it was over, be it joy or sorrow.

And besides all that, he comes by his emotion honestly. His dad's been crying over sports all his life.

It started early. I was a four-year-old in Oakland A's pajamas the first time I saw "Brian's Song." When it was over I ran into my room and threw myself onto my bed in tears. I finally composed myself at age 10, just in time for the U.S. to upset the Soviets in the 1980 Olympic hockey semifinals. I still haven't gotten over that one. In fact, I defy you to watch highlights of that game and not choke up. What Joseph McCarthy would've given for such a lead-pipe cinch of a litmus test to ferret out the Commies.

Crying isn't just for kids. Or retiring football players. Another Joe McCarthy, the one who managed the New York Yankees for 16 seasons, was in uniform on July 4, 1939 when the words of a dying Lou Gehrig echoed around the Stadium, "Today (day day), I consider myself (self self) the luckiest man on the face of the earth (earth earth)."

Golf's had its share of lachrymose moments, many of which have come during Favre's NFL tenure. At the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island, Mark Calcavecchia bawled on the beach like a baby after urping a 4-up lead with four holes to play against Colin Montgomerie and squandering half a point.

At the 1994 U.S. Open, Arnold Palmer walked misty-eyed up Oakmont's 18th fairway, knowing it would be the last hole he'd ever play in a championship he cherished and at a course not far from his native Latrobe where he and his Army finally succumbed to Jack Nicklaus at the Open more than 30 years before. There wasn't a dry eye in the house (Palmer's included) a decade later when The King made his 50th and final appearance at the Masters.

Every sport has its Weeping Willows. In the NFL, it's Dick Vermeil. College basketball has Roy Williams. Golf's town crier is Ben Crenshaw. It's always duct season for Gentle Ben, who hunched into a bawl after winning the 1995 Masters a week after the death of his teacher and mentor, Harvey Penick. Crenshaw's sentimental spigot was flowing again in 1999 when he captained the U.S. Ryder Cup team to the greatest Sunday comeback of all time.

One of Crenshaw's troops that day was another noted softy, the late Payne Stewart, who earlier that summer had sunk a pressure-packed par putt to win the U.S. Open, a year to the day after surrendering the Sunday lead to a boo-hooing Lee Janzen at The Olympic Club. A month after that historic Ryder Cup comeback, all of us were in tears over the news that Stewart had died in a plane crash.

Tiger Woods' display of emotion following his win at the 2006 Open Championship inspired many. (WireImage.com)

The game's two greatest living players -- if not the best, period -- haven't been immune to emotion either. Jack Nicklaus fought through 18th hole tears at the '86 Masters to shoot 65 and win his sixth and final green jacket. He shed a few more in 2005 when he played Augusta National for the 45th and final time.

Tiger Woods, to my knowledge, has cried at the end of two tournaments: once because his dad was there and once because he wasn't. After winning the 1997 Masters, Woods melted into his father's embrace just months after Earl Woods had nearly died. A month after "Pops" did pass in the summer of 2006, Tiger won the British Open at Hoylake. Upon holing out at 18, he hugged caddie Steve Williams. He proceeded to let go of his emotions but not Williams until he'd turned his sidekick into a giant Kleenex.

Maybe crying is childish but in a good way. It reminds us that sometimes, no matter how old we are, things hurt. And that a well-placed shoulder can do wonders. Tom Hanks' Jimmy Dugan famously said there's no crying in baseball. But remember, that was fiction. When it comes to crying, our sports heroes are in a League of Their Own.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. An archive of his columns can be found here. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.