Chad Greenway was breezing dry-eyed toward the end of Tuesday’s 25-minute retirement speech when the now-former Vikings linebacker was forced to pause 19 seconds and then 10 more to compose himself.
“I have to pull it together here,” he said. “Hold on.”
The man with 1,334 tackles had another difficult one to make. Fighting off his emotions, he had to thank his mom, Julie, and his late father, Alan, for what they meant to his career, his marriage to Jenni, his fatherhood to young daughters Maddyn, Beckett, Blakely and Carsyn, and, well, an entire life that began 34 years ago on the family farm in Mount Vernon, S.