ameras flash and confetti flies through the air Fans stay long after the football game to cheer the young quarterback of the New England Patriots as he lifts the Vince Lombardi Trophy for winning the Super Bowl It is a night of firsts For that quarterback Tom Brady it is his first Super Bowl in his first season as starter Because he played so well in the game he will win his first Super Bowl Most Valuable 1 Player MVP award Even though his team the Patriots has been around for forty years it is the team s first Super Bowl victory All these firsts are just the begin ning of a long run of success that Brady and the New England Patriots will have together Yet it almost did not happen The Patriots very nearly did not win that game and Brady was not supposed to be their starting quarterback He might Ame The image of Tom Brady celebrating a Super Bowl victory became a familiar sight to American football fans over the course of his record setting
Introduction OO IMANILANTHIEFINITION not even have been drafted by a National Football League NFL team because he had trouble getting playing time in college Come to think of it his sports career could have gone in a very different direction because he started out playing baseball One of the greatest careers in NFL his tory almost never happened This book is the story of how all the pieces fell into place to make that career possible It is a story of beating the odds and continuing to try hard even when things go wrong It is the story of how Tom Brady kept going kept throwing and kept surprising
APTER An unlikely Football Star om Brady grew up around sports in San Mateo California near the San Francisco Bay area His parents Tom Sr and Galynn took him to professional football and baseball games from an early age His three older sisters were star softball players Born on August 3 1977 Tom Jr was four years old in 1981 when the local San Francisco 49ers played one of the greatest play off games in NFL history Tom s parents took him to that game and the 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys on a last minute throw from Joe Montana to Dwight Clark Many years later Tom would be compared with Hall ofFame quarterback Montana Sports were a big part of Tom's early life With his older sisters as an influence Tom developed a competitive drive that would seem to mark him as a future athlete There was just one problem he did not always seem particularly
An unlikely Football Star Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers shown here in 1981 at the game young Tom Brady attended was a four time Super Bowl winner and Brady s boyhood idol
