Julian Edelman, who caught more
season), gets his first start,
at quarterback, for Kent State,
throwing three interceptions.To n y R o m o
tosses his first
NFL touchdown
pass, in mop-up
duty behindDrew Bledsoe.Aaron Rodgers makes
Keep going? Brady is older than 59 members of
Congress. On that fateful day in 2000, when 198 other
players were summoned into the NFL workplace ahead
of Brady? Bill Clinton was president. There have been
six presidential elections since. Remember, too: Brady’s
longevity-to-the-point-of-absurdity is coming in pro foot-
ball, a sport in which careers are notoriously nasty, brut-
ish and short. And there hasn’t been any sign of falloff.
Retirement has its appeal—golf, time with the family,
business opportunities—but it is outstripped by the lure
of continuing to work. And so it is that Al Michaels, 77,
the voice of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, has consulted
with and confided in Brady. Their pregame broadcast
production meetings, once f illed with football shop talk,
now veer toward weightier topics and shared experiences.
Says Michaels, “When I see Tom, I think, Damn, you can
go at that level no matter what you’re doing, and I feel like
I can. It’s just a cool thing, the kind of symmetry.”
Michaels isn’t alone in finding inspiration in Brady’s
longevity. UFC fighters, European soccer players, pro
golfers, athletes of a certain maturity—they all try to see
some version of themselves in Brady and come seeking
his counsel and inspiration. Comb social media and you’ll
find teachers crediting Brady with their decision to get
back in the classroom, pilots referencing him when they
decided to stave off retirement.
Even though serving as a standard-bearer for manipu-
lating time only adds to his pressures, Brady welcomes
the opportunity. “If people want what I want, then I’m
there to help them,” Brady says. “If they don’t? All right, let
them do their own thing. No problem. But if you come to
me and you say, ‘Hey, how can I have a career like yours?’
I’d be very happy to help anybody.”
At the same time Brady readily admits that he holds
no secrets; he, too, looks to others. His wife. His parents.
Towering athletes—Montana, Jordan, Steve Young—who
came before him. But he also turns to a sort of council of
elders, who’ve lived well and lived long. Ageless Tom Brady
might work alongside teammates half his age, but he
often socializes with men twice as old, many of them suc-
cessful entrepreneurs or titans of industry. They neitherwant nor need a selfie or comp tickets or the nimbus of
Brady’s celebrity. These friendships come without the whiff
of transaction.
The tribal elder in this circle might be Sam Reeves.
Armed with a wealth of stories he tells in a slow Southern
drawl, Reeves made his fortune as a cotton merchant. He
recently gave up bodysurfing but still plays 150 rounds
of golf a year. He’s 87, but he puts his functional age
in the early 60s. “I’m not really paying attention to the
chronological,” he says.
Reeves recalls meeting Brady while playing golf at
Pebble Beach “maybe 20 years ago,” and the two have
been close friends ever since. “I didn’t know much about
him,” says Reeves, “but he was so gracious.” Through
Reeves, Brady has met various other wise men, including
Jimmy Dunne, 65, vice chairman and senior managing
principal of Piper Sandler investment bank.
When Brady is in the company of these wise men,JO
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SECOND VERSE...
Season 2 in Tampa started fast for Brady: He threw for
at least 300 yards in five of the first 10 games, including
a Monday-night win over the Giants in November.