It's funny to read stories like this. Per The Athletic, former Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw once used a fake name to check into a Lousiana hospital back in 1983. Out of the craziest odds, he chose the name "Tom Brady."
We all know a Tom Brady now—you know, that guy with seven Super Bowl rings? When Bradshaw used the fake alias, the current Tampa Bay Buccaneers and former New England Patriots star quarterback was only five years old.
Here's more on the story of Bradshaw's injury:
“Tom Brady! How lucky am I?” Bradshaw told The Athletic in a brief interview before he said he had to return to work. “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 laughed, but 38 years ago it was no laughing matter when a doctor in his hometown of Shreveport, La., operated on his ailing right elbow, an injury that ultimately ended Bradshaw’s career even though his surgeon proclaimed his injury “minor.”Dr. William Burdick told the Shreveport Times in 1983 that Bradshaw’s ailment was “the same thing as tennis elbow. Classic tennis elbow is on the outside of the elbow. This was on the inside. He should do fine.”But Bradshaw did not do fine. Against his doctor’s advice to wait until later in the summer to start throwing, he threw passes at Steelers minicamp in May and re-injured the right elbow. He would play in just one game, completing 5 of 8 passes for two touchdowns in the 15th game of 1983 that helped beat the New York Jets and put the Steelers in the playoffs.The Hall of Famer told The Athletic last year that he wished he had had Tommy John surgery after that re-injury but opted to retire instead after the 1983 season.
Bradshaw on Brady:
“Everything Tom Brady has today is because of me, do you know that?” Bradshaw laughed. “Think about it. Every record he owns he had to go through me. Get used to that, Tom Brady.”Bradshaw again cackled into the phone.“Oh my goodness. Let me tell you this, and you’re only going to get this from the original TB, all right? 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.”
This story is hilarious, and it just seems unreal.
