Reflections on a young Brady
SCSU’s Andruzzi illuminates the side teammates, friends know about the star
The first time Tom Brady jogged out to join the Patriots huddle, one of the brawny, veteran linemen saw the innocent excitement and wondered if the new quarterback really knew what he was in for.
“When he first came in, happy-go-lucky kid, coming in the huddle like that, ready to throw the ball around, you wanted to wipe that smile off his face,” Joe Andruzzi said. “But we followed behind him, he was our new leader.”
A few months later, in Super Bowl XXXVI, Brady was a still a young quarterback, but he made himself easy to follow.
“Young gun, coming in that huddle with a minute and a half left and looking at the 10 of us,” Andruzzi remembered, “and he looked at everybody in that huddle and he wasn’t that rookie quarterback biting his fingernails, wasn’t nervous, and he said,
‘Hey, guys, let’s go do this thing.’ ”
Brady then positioned the Patriots for the winning field goal to beat the Rams and win the first of his seven Super Bowl rings. After leaving the Patriots, retiring, unretiring and generating all the drama, Brady, the most successful quarterback of all time, announced last week he is retiring from the NFL with a brief video posted on social media. Friends like Andruzzi, who see the sides of Brady that do not make the tabloids, believe this retirement is for real.
“The way he explained it, the way he spoke, seemed more sincere and more serious,” Andruzzi said.
Andruzzi, 47, played at Southern Connecticut and made the long, hard journey from Division II to become an NFL starter on three Patriots championship teams. In 2007, he was diagnosed non-Hodgkin’s Burkitt’s lymphoma, which ended his career. “I came in [Gillette] stadium [in ’08] and I was still 80 pounds lighter,” Andruzzi said. “I was still bald, and he came over and gave me a big hug, said ‘praying for you, thinking about you.’ ”
Andruzzi is a survivor, and his friendship with Brady has endured. Since Joe and his wife, Jen, started the Joe Andruzzi Foundation in 2008, it has raised and donated more than $10 million to help 40,000 families victimized by cancer in New England, including $1.3 million for Connecticut families. The Andruzzis will be touring the region, stopping in Connecticut in November, to say thank you to businesses and care givers in marking the foundation’s 15-year anniversary. During the pandemic, the Andruzzis’ work has broadened.
“We also give many people food assistance, which started in 2021,” he said. “Being able to help and pay it forward knowing the last two years, cancer was still there, even though we were dealing with COVID. Cancer didn’t go anywhere.”
Brady has always been ready to help, spending time with cancer patients whenever Andruzzi would bring groups to training camp.
“Tom’s a great person, he’s genuine,” Andruzzi said. “I called him once because a young teenage girl had a dying wish to meet him, and we got him into the hospital and that girl had a blast of a day, hanging out with Tom. I was just a sloppy, old lineman. I only protected, but Tom standing there, taking pictures with her, signing autographs. Unfortunately cancer did take her from this world, but she had that moment to spruce herself up and tell everybody that Tom Brady came to see her. The little things that count in life, that you sometime forget, that doesn’t make it on the front page of the news. Tom is a great friend, a great supporter that understands the needs of certain people at certain times.”
Some of Andruzzi’s lasting memories of Brady are locker room scenes, where he’d do his pressers, rather than set himself apart from teammates on a podium. The linemen would often lurk in back of the pack of reporters, and unload cans of “silly string” all over their superstar quarterback who was at heart one of them.
“He always had your back on everything,” Andruzzi said. “He didn’t shoot you down. He’d get knocked down, sacked, you’d pick him up and he’d say, ‘No worries, let’s get him on the next play.’ ”
Loss of a legend
Norman Bailey, who starred on Hartford playgrounds, at Northwest Catholic and at UConn from 1980-83, passed away last weekend. Bailey, 61, was highlighted in the book, “Oh, what a move! Profiles of Hartford Basketball Players, 195484 written by Howard Greenblat and Michael Copeland.
“In neighborhoods in Hartford and throughout Connecticut, Norman Bailey was the Michael Jordan of our time,” Copeland posted on Facebook. “At 6-5 and 205 pounds, Norman was an athletic marvel. He had presence that was transcending. Whether he was dressed in his UConn uniform or dressed for a night on the town, Bailey was a picture of a star.”
Bailey was known for soaring above the rim.
His throw-down against Villanova in February 1981 is still considered one of the all-time dunks by a UConn player. “I don’t name my dunks,” Bailey told The Courant’s Woody Anderson at the time. “If I did, that one would be X-Rated.”
Services for “Stormin’ Norman” will be at The First Cathedral on Feb, 10, 10 a.m.
Networking in-state
With John Neider’s commitment to UConn this week, Jim Mora and his staff continue to keep the best Connecticut players home. Mora has made good on that promise as Neider’s high school coach, Law-Milford’s
Chris Haley, noted.
“Since Coach Mora and his staff arrived, the flow of information and communication with Connecticut high school coaches has been phenomenal,” Haley said. “Whether it’s spring practice invites or camp invites, just being present at the state banquets, there’s a really good flow of information.”
Sunday short takes
◼ We learn Thursday if Bloomfield’s Dwight Freeney will be a first-ballot inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. Impact and longevity during his career as an NFL pass rusher, Freeney checks all the boxes.
◼ The J. Robert Donnelly Husky Heritage Sports Museum, in the Alumni House on the UConn campus, will be open to the public two hours before and one hour after men’s and women’s basketball games at Gampel Feb. 15, 18 and 22.
◼ The CT Whale’s Kennedy Marchment, the reigning Premier Hockey Federation MVP, is working on another award. She was player of the month in January with nine goals and five assists in 14 games as the Whale chase a playoff spot.
◼ UConn’s Brian Esposito, after a long career as a minor league player and manager, has joined the Padres major league staff as catching coach.
◼ Rico Brogna has also had a lot of jobs in baseball, from player to coach to minor league manager. But he has come back home to take over as head coach at his alma mater, Watertown High. Gotta love that. Brogna, by the way, did a first-class job presenting his old manager, Terry Francona, with the AL manager of the year award at the Baseball Writers’ New York Chapter dinner Jan. 28.
◼ The Empire State Building is a New York landmark, yes, but the nature of the city makes its landmarks world famous attractions, and it is often lit to pay homage to national or international events. So lighting up the building in the colors of the Super Bowl teams, yes, even including the Eagles, shouldn’t have bothered anybody, But then, this is 2023.
Last word
Now that the WNBA has embarked on a “super team” kick, it’s going to be harder and harder for the CT Sun to rebuild, retool, or whatever one wants to call it. In other sports, a resourceful front office can find and develop hidden gems and remain competitive, but there are no Tampa Bay Rays in basketball. As we’ve seen in the NBA, once enough elite players gravitate to one place, the rest of the league is playing for draft picks.
We’ve also seen examples, in Brooklyn, matter of fact, where putting multiple stars together doesn’t necessarily mean they will play together well, but the superstar-laden team now in New York, including Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, Courtney Vandersloot and Sabrina Ionescu, could greatly improve the WNBA’s profile, and it would be a shock if the league’s next final, maybe the next several, has anyone but the Liberty and Aces competing.