I’m not sure if you caught this brief, fleeting image on your flat screen when the New England Patriots’ AFC Championship playoff game ended last night.
Rain-be-damned, with the most sincere, boyish, heartfelt grin, quarterback Tom Brady wrapped his arms around an aging Bob Kraft and the owner, in turn, did the same. If you didn’t know differently, you’d swear they were father and son. I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed a more genuine moment watching professional football for the past 42 years.
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I think it’s fair to say that Kraft did not find self-expression easy when the trophy was handed to him. I’m not so sure I’ve ever witnessed such a dominant turnaround in any football game. Devoid of the storybook comeback by the hapless Colts, and without most of the distasteful bravado we so often see in such televised professional athletic events, I think it’s fair to say what we were watching was the culmination of a complete transformation – a very human transformation.
At the beginning of this NFL season, any number of sportswriters, bloggers, hacks and talentless people with a keyboard, mouse and a functioning “Enter” key, had quickly written Brady off. His best days were behind him. He was too old. He was washed up. He was a shell of the man that had led our beloved hometown team to five previous Super Bowls. He has given us his best. His legendary athletic career: kaput.
And while statistically yesterday was nowhere near his best, it was no less a testimony to sheer willpower and the type of leadership reserved for Brad Pitt war movie roles and the histories that fill endless tomes written about endless deeds of heroism in endless libraries.
And amidst this sort of near-mid-life transformation of this man, he came forward with an act no single individual in the NFL ever thinks of doing: Tom Brady gave back millions of dollars so his team could, down the road, become better.
If, after that midfield hug with the Patriots’ owner, and once his career finally does come to a close, Tom Brady is not hired as the general manager of the organization, I would be more than shocked. It’s as if he has been groomed for the role ever since his Topsiders left Ann Arbor.
I tried to ignore today’s game. I’ve had enough football since late August to satiate even my most incessant cravings for the game… the NFL… Collegiate football … the Friday Night Lights of the high school season, just completed a little over a month ago.
A tear crept slowly down my cheek as I huddled under four afghan blankets, sick as a dog, watching only the second, third and fourth quarters of this match-up. I was glad I was alone. I didn’t want to explain to anyone what that tear was for, but I suppose I have to now.
There are not many genuine moments in the show-business of televised athletics. There are only so many chest-thumpings and bizarre end zone histrionics that one can stomach, or fingers pointed to the heavens after home runs or lionesque roars after thunderous slam dunks. One would think, these days, that every goal scored in ice hockey was an Olympic Mike Eruzione shot-heard-round –the-world.
But Brady’s sincerity in wrapping his arms around the team owner says it all for me. At that moment in time getting paid millions of dollars to do something whose success depends upon a clearly-felt passion is meaningless. Brady would be doing this even if they were paying him $30,000 a year and Giselle was making him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.
We’d all be so lucky to wake up each day with this feeling in our hearts.
Sean Walsh’s column One On One appears here weekly. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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