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Never Give Up

Hey all --

An advance copy of Never Give Up, Tedy Bruschi's book with Michael Holley, showed up in our mailbox a couple of weeks ago, and seeing as we've been taking so much vacation time lately (don't know if you've heard, but training camp starts soon), we got a chance to read it.

The book begins with a foreword by Tom Brady, who says that he quickly began to emulate Bruschi when Brady arrived at his first training camp, in 2000. Bruschi says that of his teammates, Brady is one of the ones that he is closest to, along with Mike Vrabel.

Here is the opening paragraph of Bruschi's prologue, setting the stage for what is to come for the standout linebacker:

"I should have known that the first Sunday in February 2005 was going to be one of the best of my career, because it began perfectly. It was two hours before the kickoff of Super Bowl XXXIX, and I was on the field, happily scanning the Alltel Stadium seats. I found the family section of the half-empty stadium and ran toward my wife, Heidi, who was with two of our three sons. I've been to four Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, so I know that the final game of the year is not only the longest and has the longest halftime show of the year, it's also the longest pre-game wait of the year. After a while, anxious players and devoted fans just want the action to start. Imagine my boys, both under five years old at the time, sitting patiently with Heidi for two hours. I ran to their section and did something that I'll never take for granted again: I picked up my sons and brought them to the field so I could run and play with them."

The images of Bruschi with T.J. and Rex on the field were beamed all over the world, the father doting on his sons just hours before the biggest game of the season.

As we all know, Bruschi's life changed less than two weeks later. But few know that he told team owner Bob Kraft and Bill Belichick that he was going to retire, believing his career was over. Kraft actually came up with a job for Bruschi -- "organizational trainee" -- that would pay him a generous salary and keep him with the Patriots. But Belichick suggested Bruschi might just take one year off, as Carolina linebacker Mark Fields did when he learned he had Hodgkin's disease.

The idea stuck with Bruschi.

Bruschi is quite honest in the book, discussing his lower-class upbringing in California, his fears and confusion after the stroke, the sadness at not being able to hold and play with his boys in the weeks after the stroke, how it stung when one younger teammate said he thought Bruschi was coming back for the paycheck, and the extended fight he and Heidi had over his returning to the football field. Heidi needed quite a bit of convincing from as many doctors as possible.

He shares letters from fans, and how other stroke survivors became one of his major inspirations for his return.

One of the things that we thought was funny was in Bruschi's re-telling of January's AFC divisional playoff game against the Chargers in San Diego. According to the co-captain, quarterback Philip Rivers -- the one that screamed that Ellis Hobbs was "sorry" after the game -- was one of the players talking the most during it.

Bruschi is already revered around these parts, and this book will likely make him more of a hero than he already is. The book is released on Aug. 17.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments 0