Advertisement
Commentary
Buc up, New England. Tom Brady will always be ours
Resume
Becoming a New Englander is something that creeps up on you — you don’t fully notice until it’s happened. I once swore I would never get used to the weather or the rugged self-reliance, but after 20-plus years of Boston life, I get excited about blizzards and call out requests for “Roadrunner” in bars. I’ve managed to raise children who drink iced coffee in the winter and wear shorts when it’s 50 degrees out. It’s their birthright.
Also their birthright: Tom Brady.
The California native surely never planned to spend his life bound to a place with (let’s be honest) not quite three months of outdoor pool weather. And yes, he left for Tampa, but who hasn’t, for a spell? We all know that renting a Gulf Coast AirBnB for February vacation and a pandemic-era remote-work week does not formally make you a Floridian. Brady dedicated most of his farewell Instagram to thanking the Buccaneers, with no mention of Patriots Nation, and boy, did that sting. (He did eventually share two Patriots' posts, thanking the team and fans.) But no matter, his legacy belongs to the New England kids.
We’ve raised an entire generation of locals who don’t know a world without Brady, a world without a culture of "winning against most odds" or standing tall and haughty when the rest of the country roots against you. And the glory rubbed off, even to the older folks. Even if you didn’t follow sports religiously, his exploits were part of the culture, a soundtrack running under decades of everyday life.
Remember the days when we still gave written directions, and you could always use a Dunkin Donuts as a landmark? TB12 is the same: There’s a Brady story for every occasion, a personal tale linked to his on-the-field exploits, a parable about football and community and absurdly proud New England-ness.
When I want to talk about unbridled enthusiasm, I go back to Super Bowl XXXVI, the 2002 one, Brady’s first ring. I was there, on assignment to cover Patriots fans for the Boston Globe, sitting in nosebleed press seats in the New Orleans Superdome. Hours before the game began, I watched Brady run out of the tunnel and straight across the field, 100 yards of golden-retriever energy, thrilled to be present, no matter what came next. He seemed almost as gleeful before the game as he did when the Pats improbably beat the (then) St. Louis Rams.
His sense of wonder wore off, replaced by a discipline that bordered on self-parody but also worked completely, so who’s to argue? Meanwhile, the stories kept coming.
When I want to talk about perseverance, I pull out Super Bowl LI, in 2017, the “comeback” game. I drove my teenage daughter home from a Super Bowl party during the third quarter, and she innocently asked if the Patriots would win. The score at the time was 28-3. “Anything is possible,” I told her. “But, you know, it’s pretty unlikely.” An hour or so later, I was gaping at the TV screen in awe. Anything is possible.
When I want to talk about resilience, I turn to Super Bowl LII, the very next year. We were at another kid-friendly watch party. The Patriots were losing to the Eagles, and the teens in the room couldn’t fathom a reality that didn’t include a come-from-behind win. “They still have five minutes left,” they said, with utter confidence. “They still have three minutes.” “They still have a minute and a half.” When I drove one boy home after the game, he was contemplative. “I guess I now understand what it means for your team to lose,” he said. Then he vowed to watch replays of the previous year’s win before he went to bed. You find ways to go on.
And when I want to talk about living in the moment, I think about the gloriously warm day in February 2019, days after Super Bowl LIII, when I let my daughter skip school to go to the Patriots’ victory duck boat parade. Call me a bad parent, but I thought long and hard about that decision, and ultimately landed here: She could either have a rare day she’d remember forever, or she could have another Tuesday in school. So there she was on Boylston Street, capturing a glimpse of His Tom-ness on her cellphone, cementing herself as a Patriots fan for life.
Not everything Brady did, on or off the field, was perfect. (Even Dunkin' once made that sandwich with meat stuffed between two pieces of French toast.) Deflategate was not his finest hour. We learned, when he hosted Saturday Night Live in 2005, that he isn’t great at comedy. He could get caught up in a fawning celebrity culture that felt stunningly out-of-touch. He’s been clumsy about national politics. He might not be the most fun person at a cocktail party. He’s clearly not strong on gracious goodbyes.
But politics, light banter and conscious role modeling haven’t been Tom Brady’s jobs. His job was to play, and he did that better than anyone.
To take him as your own, as New Englanders did, was to watch someone pass through your living room wearing a suit full of glitter. Little specks fall off, lodging in the floor, in the walls, on your sweater, so that years later you still find them here and there, a sparkle of good memory.
Brady may never set foot in New England again. He may not miss us at all, and his final omission might dampen his shine. But hey, we’re self-reliant. We know that we were here, raising a crop of believers, capturing a bit of Brady glow. And we’ll claim him as one of our own, a New Englander forever, like it or not.
