Terry Bradshaw sort of used 'Tom Brady' as alias once... in 1983 originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Every once in a while, coincidental "on this day" moments are almost too good to believe.
Well, Quirky Research on Twitter sent shockwaves through the NFL news cycle on Wednesday when it unearthed this amazing story of when Terry Bradshaw checked into the hospital using a "Thomas Brady" alias.
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With Bucs quarterback Tom Brady being only five years old at the time, it's purely coincidental. Nevertheless, Bradshaw confirmed to The Athletic's Ed Bouchette the story was true. He also added, that hospital visit to repair a muscle tear in his elbow that would ultimately curtail his accomplished NFL career was the start of Brady's trajectory to being an all-time great NFL quarterback.
"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?" Bradshaw told Bouchette. "He tied my record, never broke it. 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."
Though it wasn't Bradshaw himself who thought of the alias, it's still an incredible coincidence. Charles Boyd, who was the administrator of the Shreveport, Louisiana hospital at the time, said in the newspaper clipping that they often used assumed names to keep the press away. And using the same initials as Bradshaw's, Thomas Brady apparently was the first alias that came to their minds.
Bradshaw clarified the story in a Tampa Tribune story the same year.
"I didn't know anything about it," Bradshaw said of the alias.
"When I woke up after the operation, a doctor came into the room and told me they had used an alias so I'd be able to rest without being bothered. He said, 'Your name's Thomas Brady.' That's how it happened.'"
While one TB12 was at the end of his career trying to repair his elbow, another TB12 was probably just getting into the sport he would go on to dominate for decades. Incredible.
