The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Age has done little to slow down Brady
In an era when more and more football stars are retiring young, Register columnist Chip Malafronte says what we’re witnessing with 39-year-old Tom Brady is something extraordinary.
After binge-watching old episodes of Mad Men I’ve decided my new career objective is to one day have a job where it’s perfectly acceptable to display top-shelf liquor in my office.
Not that I even drink the hard stuff. I just love the idea of mixing myself an Old Fashioned anytime someone walks in, then sitting in a leather chair and swirling it around the glass to appear sophisticated and businesslike while discussing important affairs.
Alas, things are different nowadays. It’s looking like the only way to accomplish this is to become a bartender or discover a way to time travel back to 1966.
• Time waits for no one. Unless you’re Tom Brady. At 39, he’s one of the oldest starting quarterbacks in NFL history and on the verge of winning yet another Super Bowl championship.
It’s only been a year since Peyton Manning captured another ring at 39. But the Broncos won in spite of their aging QB, who’d briefly lost his starting job late in the season and very much looked the part of creaky, timeworn quarterback making his final hurrah.
At some point, it happens to all the game’s greats. Someday age will catch up to Brady. It just might be a while.
Because he’s been nothing short of spectacular this season, most of it played without his main target, Rob Gronkowski. Last Sunday he was at his best, making mincemeat of the Steelers secondary and turning what should have been a difficult test into a turkey shoot.
In an era when more and more football stars are retiring young, or being retired by younger, faster, stronger opponents, we’re witness to something extraordinary. Brady’s managed to avoid injury and diminished skills to make everyone forget he should be well past his prime.
He says he wants to play until he’s 50. That’s crazy talk. But we’re not writing it off yet.
• How wonderful that the Australian Open decided to make this year’s finals an old-timers weekend. Too bad the only way to see it live was to stay up all night or set the alarm for 3 a.m. Well worth the effort, though, since it might be the last time we see the Williams’ sisters and Federer-Nadal in a Grand Slam final.
• The dodgeball game between the NFC and AFC at the Pro Bowl was the most entertaining all-star game activity we’ve seen since Larry Bird retired from the 3-point shooting contest. Every sport should replace their allstar game with a dodgeball tournament.
• Gary Fencik, a Yale football star in the mid1970s and still the career interceptions leader for the Chicago Bears, was honored in New York this week by the Ivy Football Association. He was an all-Ivy receiver at Yale before converting to one of the hardest hitting free safeties in NFL history, and a leader of the famed 1985 Bears “46” defense.
Among the Yale football dignitaries on hand was Calvin Hill, who recounted the one and only time he faced Fencik in the NFL.
“I was playing for the Browns and looking forward to playing against him and showing him a thing or two about being a pro player,” Hill said. “I caught a short pass from Brian Sipe and figured I would run right past Gary. It was scary the way he hit me, and I had been hit plenty of times by Dick Butkus and Jack Tatum. Gary extended his arm to pick me up and says, ‘Coach Cozza said to say hello.’ I’m thankful I only played one game against him.”
Fencik, who earned an MBA from Northwestern, is a partner and head of business development for a Chicago-based private equity investment firm with over $20 billion under management.
• News the Celtics will wear a small GE logo on their iconic uniforms is a sign of things to come in professional sports. And it won’t stop until the corporate logos replace the team logos.
• Quinnipiac men’s basketball is still struggling to find consistency, but freshmen guards Mikey Dixon and Peter Kiss are two talented cornerstones to build around for the next three years.
• Yale, with freshmen Miye Oni and Jordan Bruner, is also set up extremely well for the future. They are two of the Ivy League’s top six rebounders and in the top 20 in scoring. The Bulldogs, behind only undefeated Harvard and Princeton, are looking strong to make the first Ivy League tournament in March. Harvard comes to New Haven on Feb. 11; Princeton is here Feb. 17.
• Arizona State’s hockey team, in Hamden this weekend to play Quinnipiac, has a defenseman who’s a shoo-in for the all-name team — Joey Raats. And, as luck would have it, he’s from Las Vegas. Of course, he is. No truth to the rumor that he was coached by Johnny Roast Beef, the guy from that thing in the old neighborhood.
• Few broadcasters have a voice that can make even the most mundane college game seem like the most important matchup on the planet. Brent Musburger is one of those people. His final broadcast is Tuesday. He’s retiring to run a sports handicapping business in Las Vegas.
• Most people associate Musburger with his signature line, “You are looking live ...” My two favorite Musburger moments are his call of the Celtics’ playoff win over the Hawks in 1988, an epic duel between Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins. After a key Bird drive to the basket, Musburger famously said, “You are watching what greatness is all about.”
And, of course, there was Musburger’s interview with Apollo Creed, direct from the champ’s “palatial gym” in Rocky II, which roused Rocky Balboa out of retirement.
What other sports reporter can claim they helped change the course of movie history? Now that I think about it, maybe that should be my new career objective.