The Leaders and Best
“Bill Belichick reveals when he knew Tom Brady was going to be special: No one could have expected Tom Brady to have such a remarkable career… But Tom was special his rookie year. Even though he didn't play, (he showed) his leadership with the other rookies in the class…Tom took them every day after practice and would run them up and down the field in their offensive plays and was clearly a leader on the field.”.
By the dawn of the new millennium, Tom Brady had already learned to be a leader at UM. I was at the 2000 Orange Bowl the last time we played Alabama. Brady led the team back twice from 14-point deficits in regulation, then threw the game-winning score in overtime;* It was the first overtime BCS bowl in history.
Who would’ve guessed it would be only one of many historic events in Brady’s next 20 years? Maybe Bill Belichick---because he saw what Tom learned at Michigan---something that enabled his athletic success but was in fact more important. He learned to be a leader.
Yes, while Brady was setting records in the NFL, Alabama went on to highly visible successes at the college level. But is that visibility really the highest goal a college program can achieve? Or is it to teach young people to be leaders, like Tom Brady? And how does Alabama compare in that department?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Orange_Bowl
*Alabama failed to match UM’s score by missing its extra point try.
December 29th, 2019 at 12:05 PM ^
We don't have any leaders on this team anywhere remotely close to Brady, who is one of the greatest of all-time in all of sports.
If you think anything other than 'Bama curb stomping this team is going to happen then I have some nice swampland to sell you.
December 29th, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
You apparently have limited experience. I don't think anyone compares to Brady in sports. But my comments were not confined to sports.
When I was on the faculty at Harvard, I noted that UM had produced many more faculty there than other schools in the Big Ten. I recently did a search of the faculty database and found UM had produced 5 times as many as OSU or MSU, for example. I doubt Alabama did much better. And in leadership positions at Harvard, the discrepancy was likely far greater. When I was there, I was not aware of any of the above schools having produced department chairs. But UM grads/fellows had been chairs of at least 3 departments there. That’s because UM produces leaders in the academic field.
December 29th, 2019 at 12:53 PM ^
I will be sitting in a circle with crystals all around me humming the mantra "Brady is a Leader...Brady is a Leader...Brady is a Leader", so I can make emotionally make it through the dismantling that Alabama is going to do to us on January 1st.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:20 PM ^
I am not a fan of bravado or doomsday talk. Can we just talk about x's and o's, lightning in a bottle with a magic moment. My prediction for a Michigan victory over OSU was predicated on Field's inability to throw a ball with ice on it and the referees calling pass interfence to the letter. (Being a realist, I stayed away from anything like convincing or dominating.) By the end of the first quarter I was doing yard work, going to the library, and then the grocery store.
It doesn't pay well to be negative.
December 29th, 2019 at 6:45 PM ^
I find acknowledging reality makes the pain go away quicker. Rip the band off all at once I say.
For the last 10 years at least, I start watching the game and usually by the 3rd quarter I am going to the gym or mowing the lawn. Only time it almost bit me, I was mowing the lawn and my wife comes running out of the house yelling "we are going to OT!!!". That was with Hoke and Gardner at QB I believe.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:59 PM ^
You apparently have limited experience.
How presumptuous.
When I was on the faculty at Harvard
Ah, that explains it.
But my comments were not confined to sports.
Huh, I don't seem to see where I implied they were. It's pretty clear I was simply relating the point of Brady's leadership vs 'Bama in the 2000 bowl game to this year's team as they prepare for 'Bama.
December 29th, 2019 at 4:27 PM ^
Harvard is over rated. We could beat their football team.
December 29th, 2019 at 4:27 PM ^
Harvard is over rated. We could beat their football team.
December 31st, 2019 at 10:58 AM ^
You apparently have limited experience. I don't think anyone compares to Brady in sports.
Except maybe Drew Henson.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:28 PM ^
If you think anything other than 'Bama curb stomping this team is going to happen then I have some nice swampland to sell you.
I have no idea how we'll look but I don't expect Bama to bring its A game. After five consecutive playoff appearances, the Citrus Bowl has to be a huge letdown.
December 29th, 2019 at 6:47 PM ^
I completely disagree. Saban will have his team jacked with mantras such as "Show the world that we should have been in the Playoff" or "Don't let a B10 team embarrass you and make you the laughing stock of the SEC".
December 29th, 2019 at 6:54 PM ^
You clearly don’t understand how important football is down south
December 29th, 2019 at 12:10 PM ^
Nice post. Btw, technically speaking, the new millennium started in 2001.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:56 PM ^
Side note - from what I’ve read on multiple sources, there is no Year 0. The calendar flips from -1 BC to 1 AD. Just a point of interest
December 29th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
hedging outcomes with a pre-emptive moral victory? nice.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:06 PM ^
User name checks out.
December 29th, 2019 at 3:05 PM ^
OP lacks tiger blood for sure.
December 29th, 2019 at 12:17 PM ^
There are a lot of Eeyores on this board.
December 29th, 2019 at 12:35 PM ^
How many Marvin's are there?
December 30th, 2019 at 7:18 AM ^
Eeyores galore.
Need more fans with moxie! :)
December 29th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
It’s easy for Belichick to make that claim now. But you have to wonder how different history would be for him if Drew Bledsoe doesn’t get his rib cage crushed.
Brady would have no doubt have had a HOF career regardless, but maybe he does it with another team.
BB caught one hell of a break with that injury.
December 29th, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
BB did keep Brady as the fourth quarterback on the roster his rookie year, so he clearly saw something.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:09 PM ^
if he knew he was going to be that special they would have taken him earlier than round 6
December 29th, 2019 at 4:21 PM ^
"Brady would have no doubt have had a HOF career regardless..." I don't know. There's a lot to be said for being in the right organization, too. Imagine if he'd wound up in Cleveland or Detroit.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:11 PM ^
The main goal by far is to win football games at the college level something Alabama has done at historic levels the past decade
December 29th, 2019 at 2:49 PM ^
Says a man who will soon part with money.
Pretty sure the "main goal" is to educate people.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:34 PM ^
Tom Brady was well trained to be an NFL quarterback because UM fans toughened his skin by demanding every week he be sat so Henson could play. NO one thought Brady was the better quarterback at the time except the female fans who thought he was hot. I’m just happy he doesn’t hate UM for how much shit we all talked.
December 29th, 2019 at 1:52 PM ^
Nah, that's revisionism.
It didn't take long in 1999 to see that Brady was outperforming Henson in their platoon. In fact, a lot of fans were irritated with Carr for keeping the platoon going as long as it did. It arguably cost us both of our losses that year.
Henson was very raw when he came here. He had the physical tools but didn't put everything together until his junior year (2000), when he really did emerge as a star. It's still a shame that we didn't get one more year from him.
December 29th, 2019 at 3:17 PM ^
for a guy with such a good memory of the time you seem to forget Brady wasn’t a junior in 2000 (as you say) that’s when he was drafted...after his 5th year.
but other than that, good take!
December 29th, 2019 at 3:41 PM ^
I didn't say that. Read my post again. Henson was a junior in 2000.
Before you call someone out, you might want to double-check that you actually understood what they wrote.
December 29th, 2019 at 4:10 PM ^
THAT’S revisionism.
I can’t tell you the number of times I heard our fans saying shit like “Carr is totally stifling Drew’s development by playing Brady instead!!!!! He needs to just name Henson the full time starter and let the Heisman discussion begin!!!!”
If the UM fans got to vote on making Brady or Henson the starter, Henson would have won in a landslide and it’s disingenuous as hell to suggest otherwise.
December 29th, 2019 at 6:41 PM ^
Of course there were fans who wanted Henson - there are always going to be people calling for the backup QB. My objection is with the idea that no one supported Brady. Fans argued about it all offseason.
But right off the bat, Brady played really well as a senior - in week one he led us to a last-minute win over ND. As the weeks went on, fewer and fewer fans wanted the platoon to continue. When Henson played poorly in our two losses, Carr finally stopped it and most fans were wondering why it took him so long.
December 29th, 2019 at 2:02 PM ^
Absolutely! I was at just about every home game during Brady’s run. Second to “Go Blue” was the phrase “put in Henson!” from the crowd.
December 29th, 2019 at 3:50 PM ^
This is an example of how the media influences peoples' perceptions.
Henson came in with massive hype and there were definitely some people who wanted him to start, but it was never a consensus - it was a big offseason debate among the fanbase. Then during the '99 season Brady definitely outplayed him and the fans rallied behind him.
But it made a better story for the media to claim that Brady was hated, like Navarre actually was a couple years later, and the story has been repeated so much that after 20 years, even some Michigan fans accept that at this point.
December 29th, 2019 at 4:17 PM ^
Rallied behind him my ass.
Most of the fans felt that the reason Henson wasn’t playing at an All American level was because Carr was stifling his development by making him share time with Brady and they wanted him to quit dicking around and just name Henson the starter.
That was by FAR the consensus. There were some Brady supporters, but they were damn small in number and, if he hadn’t become the GOAT, there would still probably be some fans bitter that DH didn’t become a legend and saying it was all Carr’s fault for playing Brady instead.
The media had nothing to do with it.
December 29th, 2019 at 6:32 PM ^
You’re absolutely falling for the media narrative.
After the ‘99 MSU game, when Henson threw a killer interception and then Brady nearly led us back, the vast majority wanted him to play out the season.
But we’ve since had two decades of the media repeating this story that Brady was unloved and mistreated at Michigan and people internalize it.
The truth is, Brady didn’t have a great junior year and our offense was mediocre. It was fair to open up the competition. But he took a big step forward as a senior and that was clear within a few games - and certainly by MSU.
December 29th, 2019 at 9:20 PM ^
I’m not falling for shit because I lived through it.
Like most UM fans I thought Henson was going to be a star. But, unlike most fans, I eventually came to the conclusion that he just didn’t seem ready and that Brady was the better option if we wanted to win games right now.
The general reactions I got ranged from people saying Henson needed game reps to reach his potential and, even if Brady was playing better, it was better in the long run to start Henson anyway. To people acting like I’d just called their grandmother a whore. A few levelheaded people I know had the same conclusion that Brady was the better option in the present, but even we all believed that DH was going to eventually burst through and be a star.
Support for Brady was few and far between and it took him becoming the GOAT for much of the fan base to embrace him and suddenly develop amnesia about Drew Henson.
Since all fan bases are, by their very nature, irrational hypocrites, I’ll tolerate a lot from my school’s one. But the one thing I won’t sit by and suffer is this revisionist “Oh I always loved Brady and thought he was amazing” bullshit.
Drew Henson was THE most hyped recruit of the post Bo era and, in part because of his HS career and in part because he was a local boy, there were very few in the fan base who weren’t absolutely in love with him and Brady caught a lot of shit as a result. People can deny it all they want and give me a hundred thumbs down, but it doesn’t change the truth.
I repeatedly saw first hand the treatment Brady got and a lot of UM fans owe him a big apology instead of this “We were with you all along champ” garbage. And we’re damned lucky he’s a big enough man to not hold a grudge and is still involved with the school.
December 29th, 2019 at 6:35 PM ^
It wasn’t just the massive hype but also the fact that he was the local kid from right up the road in Brighton, while Brady was some kid from California with no with any rooting interests among the local fan base. That’s what happens when you let the local yokels with no perspective have too much influence in decision-making.
December 29th, 2019 at 6:28 PM ^
Very true. Brady was an afterthought because Henson was the hometown hero, having gone to high school in nearby Brighton. Much like another hometown hero, Shane Morris, it was obvious to anyone with a shred of objectivity that Henson seemed to lack the feel for the game that Brady had. Sure, Henson had measurables, but when he was in the game he seemed very mechanical, sometimes threw erratically, and just lacked the intangibles that Brady seemed to have to play up to the moment. For instance, had Brady played the entirety of the game against Moo-U we likely would have won and gone 11-1. Undoubtably, Coach Carr felt pressure to play the golden boy from Brighton so as to prevent him from transferring, or worse still, leaving football to take-up baseball full-time. In the end, it was moot and Henson flamed out of both sports. Yet one more cautionary tale why not to cave to parochial pressures from fans and media to play the local kid or hire the alum if it is not the best move for the program.
December 29th, 2019 at 2:02 PM ^
“The orange bowl was the last time Michigan played Alabama”. yeah uh that was the last time we played alabama, I mean there was also...never mind, yes.
December 29th, 2019 at 2:09 PM ^
I thought the highest goal a program can achieve is the National Championship? Otherwise why buy all the gear and play all the games. Just put a coach in a room with 80 kids and teach them morality.
December 29th, 2019 at 4:18 PM ^
“Those who stay will be morally sound individuals.”
December 29th, 2019 at 9:24 PM ^
Different type of kid today than those that wore the Michigan uniform in the last 90's by the likes of Woodson and Brady. Tom Brady is a no doubt a football legend but to me Charles Woodson is the greatest to ever wear a Michigan football uniform. Woodson did everything at both the college and pro level. He is a class act as well as Brady. I can tell by watching his expressions on TV that he is embarrassed by Michigan's program today as he played on a team in a stretch of the greatest players to ever be assembled on a Michigan football team, Brady, Ray, Jansen, Bacus, Griese, Steele, Dhani Jones, Sam Sword, Renes, and more I have not mentioned. These guys held everyone accountable around them. Carr found himself with a loaded roster and these were Moeller's recruits. Michigan was really good and tough at that time, however, the Big Ten changed drastically as did the game. Michigan is relevant again but regionally instead of nationally. Back in 1997 they were nationally relevant. It's much better than Nebraska who has absolutely dropped out of sight from college football relevance.