Super Bowl media day is a chance to learn a little more about your favorite NFL superstars — even while they’re telling a story about fishing in Minnesota. Just ask Tom Brady.
Gather ‘round for Tom Brady’s childhood story about puking up chewing tobacco
We finally learned what GOATs can’t eat.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
“I’ve had a lot of great memories. I remember my uncles gave me chewing tobacco for the first time when I was really young. We were fishing, it’s a pretty good story. We went sunfishing and on the way home I said ‘I want to try it,’ and they said ‘Look, if we give it to you, then you can’t spit it out until you get home.’ It was like a 30-minute drive back to my grandpa’s farm. So of course they give it to me, and within five minutes I’m outside of the car throwing up all over the place.”
A tiny inquisitive Brady chewing tobacco until he puked because his uncles enforced a weird arbitrary rule that if he was going to try chewing tobacco, darn it he wasn’t going to spit it out.
I admire this kind of pseudo parenting. It’s a move only an uncle can get away with. As a parent you need to worry about the long-term health of your kid, the potential fallout of what it means if he’s up all night sick to his stomach — how those two things will impact your sleep schedule. As an uncle you’re totally free to be like: Yeah kid, chew this until you barf.
I appreciate Brady’s story because something not-so-dissimilar happened to me when I was six. My uncle was in town visiting, and I woke up in the middle of the night thirsty. They were on the balcony of our apartment smoking, and I stumbled into the living room wanting a glass of water. I saw a sweaty glass of water sitting on the coffee table and took a big old swig. It was awful. Easily the worst water I’d ever drank.
Frantic, my mom raced in. She saw what happened out of the corner of her eye — a skill only moms have. She slapped my back and made me cough. Kept asking me if I was OK. She paced around and called the 24-hour doctor on the phone, and all I remember was my mouth tasting like Christmas smells.
Turns out my uncle had poured himself a 20-ounce glass of gin — a favorite of his in the early ‘90s. I’d downed about half of it in a second. I threw up about 30 minutes later.
Tom Brady and I have a lot in common.
