Tom Brady Reveals the Real Reason His Mom Kept Him Off the Football Field Until Freshman Year

Tom Brady’s story is as unique as it gets in sports history. He went from being drafted 199th overall with minuscule chances of seeing first-team football to becoming a Super Bowl champion seven times. It sounds like a fairy tale, but Brady had to work harder than most to stand on the football field.

Brady grew up in San Mateo, California, in the 1980s, when baseball ruled the streets. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Barry Bonds, who starred for the Pirates and the Giants.

Tom’s peers had a head start over him because his mother, Galynn Patricia Brady, was against her son playing tackle football from an early age. Nowadays, parents take their kids to youth camps and hire trainers for rapid growth. Brady did not have that luxury.

Despite being the youngest of the four Brady siblings (three older sisters), he wanted to surpass all of them. He even wrote an essay in school titled ‘Tom Brady’s Sisters.’ Tom Brady said this during the inauguration of The Hall of Excellence in Las Vegas:

My mom [Galynn] didn’t let me play football until I was a high school freshman. She didn’t want her little boy to get hurt. I was the youngest of four with three sisters who were all better athletes than I was at the time. And I always wanted to be known as something different than Maurine, Julie, and Nancy’s little brother.

Brady was enrolled in the nearby Serra High School, famous for baseball, but failed to break into their roster. It forced him to switch to football, a game he had never played in primary or junior high.

His team never won a game. In fact, they went 0-8 one year while Brady sat on the bench as the backup quarterback.

“I was the backup quarterback; they never put me in the game. The fact that I can look at it many years later, from being a 14-year-old kid to almost turning 48 now—it’s pretty amazing,” Brady added.