Brady, Buccaneers visit White House
WASHINGTON — Bucs quarterback Tom Brady turned to President Joe Biden Tuesday and joked about his own age.
“And personally for me, it’s nice to be back here,’’ the 43-year-old Brady said. “We had a game in Chicago where I forgot what down it was. I lost track of one down in 21 years of playing and they started calling me Sleepy Tom. Why would they do that?’’
Brady, who despite winning six Lombardi Trophies with the Patriots, hadn’t been back to the White House since 2005 until he joined his Bucs teammates on the South Lawn, where they were honored by Biden for winning Super Bowl 55.
Biden praised the Bucs for sticking together during a difficult 7-5 start and coming together to win eight games in a row, becoming the first team to win a Super Bowl in its home stadium.
“It didn’t look good at one point,’’ Brady said. “We were 7-5 and struggling a little bit as the President alluded to. But we found our rhythm. We got on a roll. A lot of people didn’t think we could’ve won. In fact, I think about 40 percent of the people still don’t think we won. You understand that Mr. President?’’
Biden joked about his own football career at Delaware and called up receiver Chris Godwin, who hails from his home state of Pennsylvania.
Godwin said during earlier conversations he had an instant connection with Biden. Godwin said Biden called him to wish him luck before Super Bowl 55.
The Glazer family presented Biden, the 46th President of the United States, with a No. 46 jersey.
Brady nodded to tight end Cameron Brate, to whom he threw the Lombardi Trophy across the Hillsborough River during the Bucs’ celebratory boat parade.
“We’re not going to throw the trophy today, right Cam?” Brady said.
The Glazer family attended the event, including Bryan, Joel, Avram, Ed and Darcie Glazer Kassewitz.
Biden turned to the assembled Bucs players behind him and told them to get vaccinated.
“Amen,” head coach Bruce Arians said.
While walking outside the White
House earlier, left tackle Donovan Smith posted on Instagram a conversation he had with Brady.
“You got residency here?” Smith asked the seven-time Super Bowl champion.
“It’s been a long time for me,” said Brady, who hadn’t visited the White House since 2005.
Although the visit was mostly ceremonial and celebratory in nature, politics are around every corner of the White House.
As their Bucs teammates toured the State Floor, Smith and Bradley Pinion, who are members of the team’s Social Justice Committee, met with Vice President Kamala Harris about voting rights.
Bucs quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen made a visit to the White House with the Indianapolis Colts in 2007 after they beat the Bears in Super Bowl 41.
At the time, however, he said the most impactful moments did not occur at the White House but rather when the Colts visited wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital.
“The really specialness, which I really hate our players won’t get, was going to Walter Reed Hospital on the way to the White House,” Christensen said. “Because by the time you got to the White House, you were so humbled and so touched about what sacrifice really looks like, what humility really looks like, that when you got to the White House, all you could be was grateful. There was no strutting. It was just grateful.
“A lot of guys have never been to the White House and it’s a cool deal. To meet a president of the United States and have pride in our country. For an hour and a half or two, it’s not about policy, it’s just about being kind of proud.”
It was the first visit by a Super Bowl champion to the White House in four years. The last team to accept an invitation was the Patriots in 2017. Brady did not make that trip, however.
It also marked the first time a team from Tampa Bay has celebrated a championship with such an invitation.
After the Bucs won Super Bowl 37, the war in Iraq prevented a visit to the White House. When the Lightning won their first Stanley Cup in the 2003-04 season, there was a lockout of NHL players. Last summer, the Lightning were denied again due to COVID-19.
Brady, who did not venture to the White House after any of his previous three Super Bowl wins, made the trip on Tuesday, the birthday of his wife, model Gisele Bundchen.
The White House visit kicked off a week of reflection for the Super Bowl 55 champions. On Thursday, the team will receive its championship rings during a private ceremony in Tampa. But even that event was affected by COVID-19, with protocols calling for players, coaches and front office staff to be seated apart from their families.