The College Recruitment of Tom Brady
This story has been told several times, but I thought I would link it in case anyone had never read about it before. This new article includes several of his high school recruiting highlights.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2563825-the-college-recruitment-of-tom-brady
September 24th, 2015 at 11:52 AM ^
NFL quarterback of all time. Who knew?
September 24th, 2015 at 11:58 AM ^
Tom knew, and that is all that mattered.
September 24th, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^
I didn't read the article - because, well, I am frankly just too lazy to click the link - but wasn't Hoke his primary recruiter? I thought I read that somewhere at some point...
September 24th, 2015 at 12:00 PM ^
Great contribution.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:03 PM ^
September 24th, 2015 at 12:05 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 24th, 2015 at 12:06 PM ^
Hey, at least I was honest!
In reality, I hate both SB Nation and BleacherReport, because they have all those banners and take a week to load. So I try and avoid them.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:15 PM ^
You really should upgrade from that 28.8 Kbps modem.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:16 PM ^
Does it make sense to upgrade when you have a second landline anyway?
September 24th, 2015 at 12:06 PM ^
I think Hoke was hired to the position vacated by Bill Harris, Brady's primary recruiter in Fall 1994. Brady graduated in spring 1995 so I am assuming there was probably some overlap, but it sounds like Harris did most of the heavy lifting.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:10 PM ^
Thank you, Leaders, for your insightful reply to my post.
Now was that so hard, Brando? Hmmmmm??? Remember, it takes 43 muscles to frown, but only one Hershey bar to smile...
September 24th, 2015 at 12:15 PM ^
The article said the campus visit was January 1996, but it had to be 1995. I also see no mention of Lloyd Carr. I have often wondered about the success of the 1997-99 seasons, and how much of that was due to Carr and how much to Gary Moeller, especially with recruiting. Chalk this one up to Moeller.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:36 PM ^
It was 95. You can see a clear shot of Brady rushing the field with the rest of the team after the win over OSU that year, the Biakabutuka game.
Brady had to have committed to Moeller since the restaraunt incident didn't happen until May of 1995.
September 24th, 2015 at 6:55 PM ^
It's odd because I remember people saying Hoke played a big role in his recruitment, but in this story they never even mention him.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:01 PM ^
What, Michigan didn't entice him to come by promising him a timeshare at QB with Drew Henson? :)
September 24th, 2015 at 12:07 PM ^
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September 24th, 2015 at 12:12 PM ^
I concur. Indeed, I contend that with just better players, coaching and luck, UM would have played in every NC game EVER!!!
September 24th, 2015 at 12:15 PM ^
Agreed, just imagine that the greatest NFL QB of all time had to battle in college for playing time as LC wanted to keep his promise to Drew Henson, what a shame.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^
I used to think that too, but then I remember changing my opinion a little after seeing that picture of Brady shirtless at the NFL draft combine. I can't post pics, but he looked like an out of shape computer scientist. I wonder if maybe, just maybe he didn't really get serious-serious about football until the NFL, and if maybe that played some role in Lloyd's decision to give Henson time.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:37 PM ^
was also pretty damn good. Better athlete, bigger arm, the kind of kid college coaches drool over. If memory serves from those who were able to watch practices back then. Henson was outplaying Brady frequently.
September 24th, 2015 at 2:23 PM ^
it is hard to measure how a QB handles a pressure in practice. I suspect Brady plays better in games than he does in practice. Did you see him in the combine? He stunk. When asked why, he said "because it was stupid". Brady isn't the kid of guy who does a ton of stuff just to please other people.
The other thing practice couldn't measure was committment. Brady was all-in, Henson wasn't. Henson wanted to be a pro baseball player more than he wanted to play football. Which is too bad--he would have been better off sticking with football, but that is some serious hindsight.
September 24th, 2015 at 7:00 PM ^
Henson proved he was worth the hype in the 2000 season. Had he come back for his senior year, he had a good chance at winning the Heisman and probably being the first overall pick.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:54 PM ^
I honestly think we win the MSU game with Brady playing the entire game. Henson played a miserable 3rd quarter and part of the 4th. Brady brought us all the way back to within 3 points under 7 minutes.
But the Illinois game....that's an infuriating loss regardless, I'm sorry to say. I don't know what happened to Henson, he might have injured himself because his stats for that game were 2/3 passing for 9 yards. Brady played 99.5% of that game. And we still blew a 27-7 lead in the second half. That game got more and more spooky as it went on with Illinois getting off big play after big play. And then the ball gets hiked over Brady's head.
I do remember being pissed watching Wisconsin play in the Rose Bowl that year since that was the second year in a row we beat them head-to-head yet those a*sholes were playing in Pasadena. But that Orange Bowl game later that night was still pretty damn amazing.
September 24th, 2015 at 2:40 PM ^
I still think the MSU game in 1999 is tough to put on the QB situation. We gave up 400 yards in the air to Bill Burke. That's awful. And our defense should've been able to hold a 20 point lead at home to Illinois. We may have still played for a MNC in 1999 if we had beaten Illinois.
And all of our 2000 losses were heartbreaking. Blowing double digit leads sucked. I still think we play for the MNC that year if we don't crap the pants in the second half against Purdue and NW. People were giving us benefit of the doubt because we lost at UCLA without Henson.
I am trying to forget 2001. Just the worst fall ever.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
September 24th, 2015 at 12:14 PM ^
September 24th, 2015 at 12:26 PM ^
Question...
It says that Tom wasn't on any college radar after his junior year in the summer of 1995, so that's when his dad started sending out tapes.
Then it says: "The next step was getting Brady to visit campus, which took place in January 1996. Harris said the visit was vital in helping Moeller verify that Brady indeed held a committable offer."
Moeller was fired in May of 1995, yet he is mentioned multiple times in this article.
Am I missing something, or is this Bleacher Report...well, being Bleacher Report.
EDIT: Nvm dates are off. Everything is a year late.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^
has the years wrong.
Brady was a HS Sr. in 1994-95, Moeller was still the coach at Michigan in Brady's Sr. football season.
Brady was a RS Fr. on the 1995 team.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:59 PM ^
about Tom Brady's recruitment to Michigan. And basically this account confirms that Brady picked Michigan because it showed the most interest in him and offered everything he and his family wanted for him. It also confirms that his dad got interest in only a handful of schools based on the tape he produced.
The reason Tom was lightly recruited was because his team was pretty bad and and he started late playing football and he was mostly considered a baseball prospect who got drafted by the Montreal Expos.
What's more, one thing I realized when I met Michigan athletes when I was around campus, was something I found universal with them, not just football players, but all athletes there, is what great character they possessed. And the other major character trait I found in them was their competitiveness.
Tom Brady might be one of the most competitive players to ever go to Michigan. And Michigan fans didn't like him as much as Drew Henson. That's just true. They came to respect and think of him in great terms after he led the team to an Orange Bowl win. But his whole career at Michigan was a battle for respect and command of the offense.
But as far as recruitment, things were drastically different in that business back then. And as this article notes, Tom picked Michigan ultimately because it showed the most interest in him as a competitor and gave him an opportunity that few others were offering.
Gary Moeller was the coach in 1995 until he wasn't. He was removed in the spring and replaced by Lloyd Carr.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:21 PM ^
left Michigan for Stanford THE DAY AFTER SIGNING DAY??!!?? That is such BS! Michigan should have let Brady out of his Letter of Intent!
September 24th, 2015 at 12:34 PM ^
chuckle out of "committable offer"
September 24th, 2015 at 12:23 PM ^
an issue with dates. Says he visited campus in January 1996. He was already there after finishing his true Fr. season
September 24th, 2015 at 12:42 PM ^
The OP title had me worried for a moment that it was another one of those articles wherein the story-behind-the-story has the recruit getting wined, dined and more by big time boosters.
September 24th, 2015 at 12:47 PM ^
Tom Brady deflated balls at Michigan or if to him, those balls were perfect
September 24th, 2015 at 12:50 PM ^
And I finally put together where I had heard of Junipero Serra before, newly sainted by the Pope.
September 24th, 2015 at 2:39 PM ^
Dear lord, the music on that "bombs" tape is so damn 90's
September 24th, 2015 at 5:02 PM ^
September 24th, 2015 at 7:07 PM ^
http://umgoblue.com/index.php/2012/02/remembering-tom-brady-a-story-you-havent-heard/
Another interesting story about Brady and how he had to deal with the Henson hoopla.