Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times. Mark Leibovich

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was more than just some ­fast-­talking operator. The job of being a sports agent, Yee said in an interview with Sacramento’s Sactown magazine, allowed him to be “very creative in the sense that it’s very fun to try to procure a client that you have a big vision for and then see the client paint the picture.” Yee compared his work to “a white canvas” waiting to be realized. “Then I see what I would consider to be a beautiful painting. And then I try to find the person who can paint that.” I figured maybe I could humor Yee enough so that he might help me become a speck on the beautiful canvas of Tom Brady’s life.

      Yee told me to keep in touch. We checked in every year or so. Yee once tried to pitch me on doing a magazine story on another of his clients, an extreme wheelchair athlete I’d never heard of (Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham) who I guess is a big deal in “the extreme wheelchair” space. Then, a few days before the Fourth of July weekend in 2014, Yee called out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to grab lunch with Brady in New York the following Wednesday. Uh, sure, I said, I would do my best to be available, maybe move a few things around.

      I made reservations at a restaurant in SoHo called The Dutch. Brady approved, via Yee, which I took as an affirmation of my class and refinement. But then Yee went dark and stopped answering my calls and emails for several days. Part of me wondered if I was being pranked. I took a train up to New York from my home in Washington on the night before the appointed Wednesday. Brady’s email was waiting for me when I woke up the next morning. He offered robotic pleasantries, as if the email were composed by Siri.

      “Good morning,” it read. “I hope you’re having a good week.” We confirmed our lunch. But an hour later, I received another email from Brady. He said he wanted to call “an audible” (audible!) and asked if we could meet at his apartment instead of the restaurant. Sure, sure, I said. Where was that?

      ­Twenty-­third and Madison, Brady said.

      I was in the cab on the way there when it occurred to me that any number of homes might be found at ­Twenty-­third and Madison. So I emailed Brady back to ask for a more precise address.

      “Hahaha, I wish I knew the address,” he replied.

      Brady didn’t know his home address? Another point in favor of the prank theory. At the very least, Brady’s casual ignorance of this most basic personal data reinforced the notion that he did not dwell in the pedestrian realm of slobs who must remember street addresses. He wrote back that he lived in the only skyscraper on the block, next to a McDonald’s. Rupert Murdoch had apparently paid $57.25 million for four floors in the building.

      I admit to having been nervous. In fact, I don’t recall being this nervous before interviewing anyone in my entire ­career—­and I’ve interviewed presidents, a bunch of CEO and celebrity types, and even the guy who used to host The Apprentice. Sports pedestals are funny that way. Athletes often constitute our earliest objects of allegiance. Staying starstruck is an indulgence of our arrested developments, even for jaded ­middle-­aged ­reporters—­sweaty ones, in this case.

      This was one of those de-luxe apartments in the sky that the elevator opens directly onto and takes up the entire floor (­forty-­eighth). Brady stood waiting for me. He wore a newsboy cap, tan corduroys, and a V-neck sweater over a T-shirt (in retrospect, the newsboy cap was sort of ridiculous). He is ­six-­foot-­four and appears taller in person. That’s partly because it’s hard to determine a football player’s height when he is seen on TV surrounded by other large persons. But Brady also stands tall as a default posture. Nothing about him slouched.

      My goal for this visit was to convince Brady to let me check in with him during the season for a magazine profile (and also, if I’m being honest, to become his best friend). His young son and daughter were running around. Brady introduced me to a nanny, whom he addressed as “babe.” He calls a lot of people “babe,” apparently, both male and female. He said “awesome” a lot.

      We moved to a side parlor with a view of Midtown Manhattan. Brady left for a minute and then returned with a plate of almonds and water in two blue bottles. Gisele, I had read, had endorsed the supposed health benefits of spring water kept in blue bottles that are exposed to direct sunlight. “Yeah, she puts the bottles of water in the sun and it energizes or charges them or something,” Brady confirmed. I took a sip and felt myself energized.

      We talked about football, about Boston, about the Bay Area, where Brady grew up (where I used to live) and the University of Michigan (which we both attended, ten years apart), and our kids (we both had three). It became evident that Brady and I were the same person and had lived the exact same life.

      Brady kept talking about “taking care of my body,” “preparing for football,” and leading a life that would “optimize” his ability to endure an NFL season at “peak performance.” He mentioned “lifestyle choices” that he wanted to promote. He had started a health, fitness, and wellness ­enterprise—­TB12—­with his closest friend, personal guru, and “body coach,” a guy named Alex Guerrero. “TB12 is a way of life,” Brady said, increasingly giving off an infomercial vibe.

      He was quite conspicuously pitching a new ­product—­the product being the lifestyle that works for Tom Brady. Not only that, Brady is betting that TB12 would help him play longer and better than anyone else ever has. But this formula need not only be exclusive to superstar quarterbacks. It can work for you, too, whether you’re a weekend tennis player, would-be marathon runner, or just someone who’s willing to pay to be more like the quarterback for the New England Patriots. Brady would be the product’s chief lifestyle missionary and poster child.

      On the surface, it all sounded straightforward; Brady and his friend Alex were starting a ­high-­end gym and fitness program. But he was also trying to convey something loftier here. He was determined to subvert the expectations of how long a superstar quarterback could play like one.

      “The decisions that I make, about what to eat and what to drink and when to sleep, those are choices not everyone wants to make,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Fuck it, I want to go to Shake Shack.’ And I’m like ‘No problem, but that’s going to catch up with you at some point.’ ” (It was now clear that Brady and I in fact did not live the exact same life.) Brady said he has played with many teammates over the years who are ­content—­thrilled—­to have survived ten years before retiring. “They’ve played ten years eating pizza and drinking beer, that’s fine, people have proven you can do that,” Brady said. “But I’ve already played fifteen years, and I want to play longer. I don’t know how much, but I want to play over twenty, I know that.”

      Brady seemed a little shy at first but overall was pleasant and laughed easily. He did say a few things that stuck out to me: professional football players as a group, he observed, tend not to be the most normal and ­well-­adjusted cohort in society. His teammates over the years have included “not that many assholes,” on the whole. He also told me a hilarious story about a fellow football player and close college friend, one that involved pizza, a fire in West Quad, and a photo of a bong in a damaged dorm room that ran in The Michigan Daily. Relatable!

      At one point I gently raised the topic of concussions. Did the growing evidence about their toll give Brady any pause? This is sometimes not the easiest subject to bring up with a football player, especially one you’ve just met. (“Nice to meet you, Mr. Coalminer, any thoughts about black lung?”) Brady kind of shrugged it off. But he also mentioned something about how Guerrero had a “system” and “technique” to help him deal with head trauma. I later learned that Brady had endorsed a dietary supplement that Guerrero had been selling, called NeuroSafe, that had dubiously promoted faster healing from concussions. “There is no other solution on the market that can do what NeuroSafe does,” said Brady in a quote attributed to him in 2011 for a NeuroSafe print ad. “It’s that extra level of protection that gives СКАЧАТЬ