This column by contributing writer Dave Kindred first appeared in The Sporting News dated Feb. 11, 2002, under the headline, "Red, white and blue — and Brady," after the Patriots defeated the Rams, 20-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans. Tom Brady was named the game’s MVP, the dawning of a dynasty and beginning of a Hall of Fame career.
Asleep on the locker room floor an hour before he would do one more piece of magic, the kid quarterback Tom Brady woke up and felt ... well ... he didn't know how he'd feel, playing his first Super Bowl, this being the end of a season in which he became a star after being a nobody, this being an American festival so dressed up in red, white and blue that ... Wait.
You never saw so much red, white and blue. If it's possible to have more than enough red, white and blue in these perilous times, Super Bowl 36 came perilously near that patriotic overload. There were dancing Statues of Liberty gussied up in the colors, hundreds of torch-bearing damsels testifying to our national spirit. Red, white and blue lights twinkled in the arena dark at the singing of our national anthem. One wondered, if briefly, about the colors of Rudy Giuliani's Skivvies. On the other hand, a Bourbon Street reveler one night chatted up a soldier: "Where are you from?"
The square-cut man with an American flag patch on his shoulder said, "Fort Bragg."
Gulp.
Fort Bragg sends out heroes. Its Special Forces warriors do the hard stuff that makes our soft lives possible. If Fort Bragg's warriors want to show Osama bin Laden a thousand patches of red, white and blue in a Super Bowl awash in red, white and blue, here's the proper way to think about that: Hooray, hooray and damn hooray.
So those wonderful colors warmed us, and we all felt good, and there, in the Patriots' locker room, on the floor, rousing after his nap, the kid quarterback Tom Brady wondered when they'd get on with the game.
A smile much later, Tom Brady the Super Bowl MVP, his Patriots 20-17 winners, and the kid quarterback was telling reporters: "It took so much danged time. I hope you all enjoyed the pregame show. We hated it."
Even ol' Abe Lincoln got a call in this first Super Bowl since September 11, 2001. As former presidents Ford, Carter, Clinton and Bush recited lines from Lincoln, we heard in the Superdome words designed to rouse a nation to a determination for freedom and equality — a determination as necessary in the 21st century as in the 19th. We heard the famous Lincoln quote, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history."
Nor, fellow football fans, could the Rams escape history. As often as the Rams' kaleidoscopic offense has created astonishments, the lessons of football history remain true. Power wins. Smashmouth wins. Defense wins. Hit the other guys harder than they hit you, you win the most games. The more important the game, the more important it is that you be the aggressor.
Listen to the percussive sounds of the winner's defenders. Linebacker Bryan Cox: "We wanted to hit Marshall Faulk early and on every play." Cornerback Ty Law: "We challenged them physically." Linebacker Ted Johnson: "We hit them hard today."
And listen to the happy, lilting voice of Tom Brady, 24 years old, the youngest quarterback ever to lead a Super Bowl winner, a kid who took a pregame nap: "When I woke up, I didn't think I'd feel that good. I told myself it's a football game. It just comes down to playing football. ... I felt calm and confident."
Such a world, Tom Brady's. A sixth-round draft choice a year ago, taken with the 199th pick, he threw three passes last season, completing one. As backup to Drew Bledsoe, a star with a $103 million contract, Brady's place in the Patriots' system was reflected in the team's 2001 media guide:
Bledsoe's bio filled 26 pages; Brady's three-quarters of a page. But an injury to Bledsoe gave Brady the starter's job in Week 3. His won-lost record from then on: 14-3.
To say such work, let alone a world championship and Super Bowl MVP award, exceeded Brady's ambition is to call Britney Spears a blonde. Duh. Asked his realistic hopes for this year, Brady answered: "I was hoping to be a far better player at the end of the year than I was at the beginning."
Now, 29 seconds left in Tom Brady's dreamworks ... tied, 17-all ... Patriots on their own 41 ... Brady's play call is “64 Max, All In," which means every offensive lineman puts his big behind between the Rams and Brady and keeps it there ... while three wide receivers run patterns into the middle of the field. Nothing conservative. No waiting for an overtime. “We were playing to go out and win the game." Brady said.
The kid gets it to wide receiver Troy Brown, who takes the pass 23 yards to the Rams' 36. Another Brady pass, a short one, his fifth completion in a minute, and Adam Vinatieri's 48-yard field goal wins it, and, much as the Patriots in red, white and blue uniforms had won their first playoff game in a snowstorm 15 days earlier, there suddenly arose from the Superdome floor a snowstorm of confetti whipped up by wind machines, and the confetti fluttered down around Tom Brady's smiling face, and the confetti was, of course, red, white and blue.