31 Things You Didn't Know About Tom Brady

Tom Brady has lived a pretty charmed life since he arrived on the scene in 2001 as the New England Patriots’ starting quarterback. One of the most decorated players in the history of the NFL, he won a Super Bowl his first season as a starter—his first of five—and has gone on to win three NFL MVP awards and be named to the Pro Bowl a whopping 13 times. Brady has been a model of consistency and excellence on the field while leading the Pats, and that leadership has made him the de facto face of the NFL—the league’s preeminent star. The Patriots franchise has become the league’s gold standard of the new millennium with Brady at the helm, winning 10 or more games in 16 of the past 17 seasons, enjoying an undefeated regular season in 2007, and appearing in eight Super Bowls during that time period.

But even as an NFL superstar and one half of a high profile marriage, Brady is still a man of mystery. He’s known almost exclusively for his work on the field; there isn’t a lot else that the public knows about the golden boy. He has never been involved in any high profile off the field incidents, and has a relatively clean image (minus the MAGA hat). Once he leaves Gillette Stadium, it seems like he just goes back to being a regular guy. This is an impressive feat, considering Brady’s career began to blossom in the age of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle.

If you’re curious about Brady’s life beyond his wife, his kids, and his stats, we have you covered. Some of the facts on this list may leave you in awe, others may leave you flat out confused; either way, you’ll hopefully walk away with a better understanding of who Tom Brady really is. Here are 31 things you didn’t know about Tom Brady.

He was drafted by the Montreal Expos out of high school.

Tom Brady's decision to play football gave pigskin fans one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, but it came at the expense of baseball fans who missed out on an opportunity to know him as an average to slightly above average catcher! One of Brady's high school coaches thought he was more of a "sure thing" than Barry Bonds, which should tell you all you need to know about his skill that coach's ability to evaluate talent. In 1995, Brady was drafted in the 18th round out of high school by the Montreal Expos, but opted to pass over baseball for the gridiron and enrolled at Michigan instead. If you were an Expos fan (and judging by their attendance figures you weren't) this doesn't even register as one of the 50 saddest moments in franchise history.

He met Gisele Bündchen on a blind date.

The Brady-Bündchen power couple origin story began when a mutual friend set the two up on a blind date by describing Gisele as "a girl version of Brady" and Brady as a "boy version of Gisele." Bündchen later described it as love at first sight by saying "I could see it in his eyes that he was a man with integrity who believes in the same things I do." We're not really sure what any of those things mean, but we do know you've landed a great catch when you're dating not only the world's richest supermodel, but also a woman who sticks around after finding out that you got your ex pregnant at approximately the same time as your first date.

In 2005, he played with extremely swollen testicles.

When people talk about “Tom Brady’s balls” it’s usually in the context of deflating them, and it’s usually a stupid joke that you’ve heard no less than 1,000 times. But in 2005, the Patriots QB had them inflated, three times their normal size, in his non-team equipped ball bag. Said condition was caused by a sports hernia, and affected him during the final two weeks of the regular season, as well as the playoffs, which may explain why he lost in the postseason for the first time in his career. Still, to play through that pain shows he has the fortitude worthy of such a condition.

He sold his house to Dr. Dre.

Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen were living in a moated 18,000 sq. foot SoCal mansion that would make Robin Leach swoon, and Uncle Phil look like he was on welfare. It came complete with a six-car garage, seven fireplaces, nine crappers, and a gym with built-in monkey bars. Then they opted to sell it to the world's foremost headphones mogul, originally listing it at $50 million, before settling for a paltry $40 million. Whether or not Dr. Dre got the better end of the deal is unknown since the couple originally bought it for $11.75 million. But, if it's not just Monopoly money at that point, then when exactly is it?

As a rookie he threw for six yards.

You may think of Tom Brady as an immediate NFL success, he did win a Super Bowl in his second season after all. But, during his first year in the league, he was firmly glued to the bench, entering a game only once when Bill Belichick's squad was getting a Thanksgiving spanking at the hands and over the knees of the Detroit Lions (not a typo). In that game Brady got his first official listing on a stat sheet, right next to the words: 1-of-3 for 6 yards. For all we know his second season would've gone the same route, if not for a stroke of luck plucked straight out of a fairy tale...a Mo Lewis hit so hard it sheared one of starter Drew Bledsoe's blood vessels and almost killed him.

The Patriots considered drafting Tim Rattay instead of him.

Brady was famously skipped over until the 199th pick of the 2000 NFL Draft. During the first 198 picks, six quarterbacks were chosen, two of whom you may've actually heard of (Chad Pennington and Marc Bulger). Some may wonder how their team could've possibly passed him over, others will just look at the picture above. However, Brady could've dropped at least a dozen more picks if not for the persistence of Patriots quarterbacks coach Dick Rehbein, who helped Bill Belichick decide between Brady and Louisiana Tech product Tim Rattay. Rattay ended up getting drafted 212th overall by the 49ers, and passed for less than 5,000 yards in an eight-year career, before spending a few final seasons in the UFL. You can now find him back at his alma mater as a receivers coach, though in some alternate universe he's a four-time NFL champ who married a supermodel.

Kevin Youkilis is his brother-in-law.

Being drafted straight out of high school should tell you all you need to know about Brady's baseball prowess, but it turns out he's not even the best player in his family. At least not since 2012, when his sister Julie married the Greek God of Walks, three-time Red Sox All-Star Kevin Yoooouuuukkkilis. Said marriage not only got Brady a Mt. Olympus connection, but also consolidated two beloved Boston sports figures... at least for about two months, until the Red Sox replaced Youk and traded him to Chicago.

He won't sign photos where his mechanics look bad.

Approached by the Patriots head of media relations this past offseason with an autograph request, Brady declined by saying "I don’t want that one — look at my mechanics." Of course, if every quarterback held themselves to such a ridiculous standard, we're not sure there'd be a single signed Tim Tebow picture in existence.

His walkout song is Jay-Z's "Public Service Announcement."

Details on Brady's personal preferences are hard to come by, but he is reportedly a fan of both Tupac and Jay-Z, admiring the latter enough to "Reintroduce" himself to the Gillette Stadium crowd every home game for the past several seasons. If you wouldn't have guessed that, you're not alone.

Future NFLer Tony Graziani taught him how to throw a football.

Tony Graziani was a seventh round pick who threw for 496 touchdowns during his professional career. Still, his greatest contribution to football history had nothing to do with himself, but instead had to do with the passing of his knowledge to a quarterbacking pupil four years his junior, Tom Brady. At the time, Brady was attending a camp at the College of San Mateo where Graziani was a counselor. Since then Brady's gone on to have a slightly more distinguished career than Tony, but he's still 80 touchdown passes shy of reaching his pro mark, which is pretty freakin' impressive. Or at least it is until you realize 494 of those came during Graziani's eight-year stint in the Arena League.

He wasn't good enough to start for his 0-8-1 high school team.

Nobody can ever say Tom Brady's pigskin beginnings weren't humble. Well they could...they'd just be wrong. Brady never played tackle football until his freshman year of high school. During that first season he was a scarcely used outside linebacker and backup quarterback for a team that went 0-8, and failed to score a single touchdown. Brady didn't get the nod behind center until he was a sophomore, but even that wasn't necessarily because of skill. In fact it's because the starter from the previous season, Brady's best friend, decided to quit so he could focus on basketball instead.

He went to the same high school as Lynn Swann and Barry Bonds.

Which is to say that the greatest quarterback of all-time isn't even the best athlete to attend his high school. And also that DeflateGate wasn't the biggest sports-related scandal in school history.

He snacks on avocado ice cream.

It's possible you did know this one, since it's so disgusting that it went semi-viral. Usually we'd say don't knock it till you try it. But, in this case, feel free to knock away.

He maps his life out three years in advance.

Everybody wants to be Tom Brady, but nobody wants to put in the work because, frankly, the work sounds awful. Brady's regimen is so meticulous that it'd drive a lesser person (for example, all of us) insane. He plans his schedule three years in advance, does cognitive exercises to unwind before bedtime (which is around 8:30 p.m. both in and out of season), chows down on vegetable based ice cream, takes scheduled offseason naps, and completes football drills through the end of the season, even if he's eliminated before the Super Bowl. Currently his schedule into his 40s is mapped out. The only thing missing from it is something fun.

He plans on playing until he's 48.

There's a method to the madness behind Brady's three-year advanced scheduling, as it's intended to keep the Pats QB on the field for an unfathomably long time. By that we mean he wants to play through the 2025 season. While fellow legend Peyton Manning, who's only a year older than Tom, at times looks like he's 100, Brady still finds himself in the midst of the MVP conversation at the age of 38. Because of that we admit this isn't the year to doubt Brady's longevity since he enters Week 11 among the NFL leaders in passing yards, touchdowns, QB rating, etc. But we also remember that Manning won the MVP just a few seasons ago, in 2013. We guess what we're saying is...we'll check back in on this again in a year or two.

He dreamed of wearing new socks every day.

You must think it'd take something truly spectacular to motivate Brady to push himself to such extremes. You'd be correct. But the supermodel wife and the $120 million net worth are apparently just a bonus, as it appears all Brady truly wanted were fresh socks to cover his feet every day. Brady revealed as much while in college to teammate Aaron Shea, telling him "If I hit it real big. I want to be able to wake up, put a pair of socks on, and at the end of the day, I throw 'em away." As anyone else would've done, Shea asked him if he was serious, to which Brady replied "Yeah, that's what I want. I love new socks."

He took a nap in the locker room before his first Super Bowl.

Whereas older Tom Brady gets so wound up from games and practices that he needs to do mental exercises to chill out enough to fall asleep, younger Tom Brady was so carefree that he took a two-hour nap in the locker room before leading his team over the heavily favored Rams in Super Bowl XXVI. Brady reportedly woke up a half-hour before kickoff. Or, put another way, about midway through the national anthem.

He paid practice squad players for picking him off.

Last month a story came out about Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill trash talking practice squad players who picked him off, resulting in former coach Joe Philbin telling his scout teamers to take it easy on the franchise signal caller. It's a story that likely fills Miami fans with zero confidence in Tannehill, but it did lead to a great story coming out about Tom Brady from former teammate and wide receiver Donte Stallworth. Stallworth claimed that Brady was the exact opposite and actually paid taxi squaders for intercepting him. He then went on to say that comparing the two is like comparing "a rowboat to a battleship." And though he didn't specify which player was the rowboat, and which player was the battleship, we think we have a pretty good idea.

His dad spent $2,000 on highlight tapes to send to colleges throughout the country.

Tom Brady was not a highly recruited high school talent (at least in football). Because of this his family had to do some self-promotion, with his dad spending $2,000 on 60 highlight tapes that were eventually sent out to 54 schools. Some called back, some ignored, and some possibly still have them stacked in a room with all the other highlight films from D1 hopefuls they never got around to watching. In the end Brady narrowed his choice to five schools, with academics playing a major factor in his decision. They were: Cal, USC, UCLA, Michigan and Illinois. The Wolverines were the ones that eventually secured his signing day signature, which may've been due in part to...

USC passed him over.

You already know Brady was snubbed until the sixth round of the NFL Draft. But, believe it or not, it's a tradition that began in the amateur ranks. USC's offensive coordinator at the time, Mike Riley—the current coach of Nebraska—tried to sell it to Hall of Fame head coach John Robinson, but Robinson wasn't having it and refused to offer Brady a full ride. If anything it showed that Robinson doesn't play favorites. Why's that you ask? He and Brady were both graduates of the same high school.

Introduced himself to Patriots owner Robert Kraft as "The best decision this organization has ever made."

As a late-round pick on a team with four quarterbacks, Tom Brady was the furthest thing from a lock to make the Patriots roster. Still, despite a sobering experience on draft day, he immediately carried himself with a bravado that has frequently manifested itself during NFL Sundays over the past 15 years. Brady, who at the time backed up the highest paid player in NFL history, went to greet the team's billionaire owner, but was cut off when Kraft said "I know who you are, Tom Brady, you're our sixth-round draft choice." Brady responded with a line that only sounds good because it panned out "And I'm the best decision this organization ever made." It was a prophetic statement we have a tough time disputing. Though, to be fair, Aaron Hernandez probably said the same thing.

As a gift he gives Uggs to every player on the Patriots.

Tom Brady doesn't hock nearly as many products as he could, but one of the few businesses he is the face of are Ugg boots for men. In fact, he's such a dedicated company man that he routinely gives the products to teammates, breaking down the wall for 300 lb. lineman to proudly walk around in sheepskin footwear that was previously exclusive to hipsters and trend-conscious soccer moms.

He attended Dwight Clark's "The Catch" game.

Growing up in the Bay Area, Tom Brady's favorite team was the 49ers, and his idol, appropriately, was Joe Montana. Brady's family were 20-year nose bleed season ticket holders, and naturally were in attendance during the 1981 NFC Championship game where Dwight Clark made a back of the end zone snag to crush the hopes of the Dallas Cowboys and their fans. Nowadays you likely look at Tom Brady as the suave GQ cover model he is, but it's comforting to know that as a four-year-old, he sucked as hard as you or I. This is evidenced by the fact that he spent the first half of this iconic game crying because his dad wouldn't buy him one of those entirely pointless and stupid No. 1 foam fingers.

He never made the playoffs in high school.

One of many NFL records Tom Brady currently holds is: Most playoff games started by an NFL quarterback (29). Barring a catastrophic injury, he'll certainly add to that total this season. However, you, the average Joe, possibly played in more high school playoff games than he did, and even if you didn't play you tied his total of zero. As a junior his team went 6-4. As a senior they were slightly worse at 5-5. Those marks may seem shockingly mediocre for a team with the GOAT at the helm but, judging from their team picture, they look like they may've been severely undermanned.

He was an intern for Merrill Lynch.

As Brady continued to free fall from his projected third round draft selection, he braced himself for the real world. It’s something he and his Facebook team revealed when they found his old resume, showing that he had years of experience as a golf course sales rep, and spent two summers interning for Merrill Lynch. Later, in an interview about the prospects of not playing professional football, Brady recalled the tension of that day and cried, explaining his emotion by saying "I [didn't] want to have to be an insurance salesman, you know?" It was a moment that really hit you in the feels, especially if you were an insurance salesman and knew exactly what he was talking about.

His "personal guru" has been accused of being a "scam artist."

Alex Guerrero has been described as a lot of things: Tom Brady's best friend, personal trainer, business partner, guru and, also, a complete fraud. That last one was courtesy of a Boston Magazine report that details many of Guerrero's alleged improprieties, including how he befriended boxer Genaro “Chicanito” Hernández who, reportedly, gave him a $200,000 loan that Guerrero simply took off with. Soon afterward Hernandez died broke. Floyd Mayweather paid for his funeral.

Guerrero has also come under fire from the FTC who sued him for claiming he was a doctor whilst simultaneously declaring he had a miracle cure that could somehow heal diabetes, heart disease, cancer...you name it. Later in his career he advertised a drink he claimed prevented concussions. Brady endorsed it along with teammate Wes Welker. It was very similar to a product Russell Wilson got laughed at for promoting last year. The FTC backed off when Guerrero promised to reunite fools who bought the beverage with their parted money. Though you could argue that anybody who purchased an anti-concussion drink recommended by Welker deserved to be out a few bucks.

He was that kid other kids told to "Go long," and then didn't throw to.

Here's an excerpt about Brady's childhood that was relayed to The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins by one of his three sisters:

"Their kid brother insisted on playing in their suburban street pickup ballgames, refusing to be left out even though “he reached the height of the other boys’ belly buttons,” Julie says. The older boys would mess with him, tell him to run deep and then never throw him the ball. He would trot back to the huddle flushed and perspiring, and tell them, “I was open.” They would say, “Go long again,” and run him ragged."

If that makes you smirk that a guy with more than 400 career touchdowns and 56,000 passing yards was once the runt of his neighborhood backyard games then we've done our job. But, if it brings back painful childhood memories of your own, then we're sorry.

He talked to Jim Harbaugh for two hours to convince him to coach Michigan.

Jim Harbaugh is an outstanding coach who's already making diehard Michigan fans forget the dark period brought about by the Rich Rodriguez/Brady Hoke years. Part of the unofficial recruitment pitch that brought Harbaugh back to Ann Arbor involved a two-hour phone call from another Michigan quarterback: Elvis Grbac Tom Brady. Brady dialed up Harbaugh at the request of a friend, who waited a week to ask Tom because he was afraid do so after a Patriots loss. Less than a month later, Harbaugh was out as the 49ers coach and introduced as the head of the Wolverines program. If you're a Michigan man excited about the thought of being relevant again, thank Tom Brady. At least in addition to the $40.1 million in Harbaugh's contract, which probably played a slightly bigger role in getting him to move east.

His favorite TV Show is "Dexter."

Hopefully his similarities with the show's titular character start and end with his physical appearance. If not, we'll be sure to update this list in the future.

He caused a retired tight end to pull a hamstring after yelling at him during a charity event.

Tom Brady's competitive fire is the stuff of legend. It's on the same borderline-insane level as Kobe Bryant, and few others. It's how he turned himself from a slow-footed backup on an awful JV team into the greatest quarterback in NFL history. But it's not something he can turn off, as evidenced by anecdotes throughout the internet ranging from an eight-year-old Tom throwing golf clubs, to a training camp Tom breaking ping pong paddles after losing. Perhaps the most absurd example of Brady's need to succeed at anything, no matter how trivial, is when he played all-time QB in a charity football game to benefit disabled children and yelled at former teammate and tight end Christian Fauria to hustle. This resulted in a tweaked hamstring for the 38-year-old retiree, who then proceeded to cuss Brady out.

A couple of teammates stuffed him into a locker in high school.

That's okay. We're pretty sure things turned out okay for him.