Never Give Up by Tedy Bruschi

Author:Tedy Bruschi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2010-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

7

IT’S ALL ON US

As the team began preparing for Week 2, I was approached by Bill Belichick’s assistant, Berj Najarian, and asked a question that he’s rarely had to ask and I’ve rarely had to answer: “Do you want to go to the next game?”

The next game was in Charlotte against the Carolina Panthers. I had talked with Bill about my stroke, my heart procedure, my retirement, my desire to play again, and the six-week strength program I was going to use to get back on the field. But we had never talked about my personal “game plan”; was I going to travel with the team or not? It was September, and I had been on planes several times since the stroke, so I no longer had a fear of flying and developing another blood clot. I decided to travel and support my teammates against the Panthers, a team we beat in February 2004 to earn our second Super Bowl trophy. But a few days before the second game of the season, it was more important for me to be a supportive big brother than a supportive teammate.

My sister, Natalia, was engaged to a man she had been seeing for several years. He had been battling cancer in the beginning of their relationship. The cancer went into remission, and then it came back shortly after they got engaged. Early in training camp, I had gone to Los Angeles to see them both, when the physical toll on Natalia’s fiancé began to be pronounced and noticeable. Unfortunately, his condition reached a point where it was just a matter of time for him. He died a couple of days before the Carolina game.

I felt for his family and was sad for Natalia. I didn’t have a lot of energy and enthusiasm to give the team after that, so I didn’t think it was a good idea to make the trip. The only teammate I talked to about the situation was Tom Brady. Tom’s girlfriend at the time was the actress Bridget Moynahan, who has been in movies such as I, Robot and Coyote Ugly. Because Natalia does hair and makeup for many celebrities, she has developed a friendship with some of them, and Bridget is one of those friends. Both Tom and Bridget knew what was going on with Natalia’s fiancé, and Tom talked to me about it at length. As usual, he was encouraging and supportive at a time when there really isn’t a right thing to say. I know I was in an extremely reflective mood that week, but I can’t say for sure that it was my mood that led to another decision: I wasn’t going to travel to any of our games until it was time for me to play. It was the right decision for me. Most of the time, players don’t travel if the team doesn’t plan for them to play. There are some exceptions where a guy is questionable and playing is a game-time decision. I wasn’t in that category; it was strictly a countdown to Week 6 for me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.