The story hid in plain sight for 38 years, the last half of which consisted of Tom Brady being a star NFL quarterback. Only today, the anniversary of Terry Bradshaw’s 1983 supposedly minor (but ultimately career ending) elbow surgery, did the nugget emerge that Bradshaw used an assumed name when he entered the hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana: Thomas Brady.
“Tom Brady! How lucky am I?” Bradshaw told Ed Bouchette of TheAthletic.com. “There’s no question he and I are linked at the hip -- same initials, same number. I had hair back then. I was a sex symbol. I had it all going then.”
Bradshaw hasn’t previously mentioned the connection, and if he has no one noticed. We interviewed him at the Super Bowl in early 2020 and described him as “the original TB12,” a perfect opening for a “well, you know” sort of story.
Bradshaw shared a “well, you know” sort of story to end his brief chat with Bouchette.
“Let me tell you this, and you’re only going to get this from the original TB, all right?” Bradshaw said. “I went 4-0 in the Super Bowl. All right, first one. The second one to do it was the greatest of all time, Joe Montana. All right? He tied my record, never broke it.
“Then comes Tom Brady. I’m 4-0, Joe’s 4-0. Brady wins his seventh. Win eight, win nine, who cares? Now you take seven victories but you subtract his three losses and you come up with four. Four, four, four. That’s all I got to say and I got to go.”
And there went the original TB12.
