(Courtesy of Celadon Books) (Courtesy of Celadon Books)
By Michael Grant on

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Lars Anderson has written 13 books, but he has never had an experience like this one.

The New York Times bestselling author’s latest work examines the NFL’s greatest winner. Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness profiles Tom Brady. The seven-time Super Bowl champion has achieved success at a level once unimaginable.

Anderson aims to paint a portrait of the man behind the greatness and the cost of excellence. He wrote the book without Brady’s cooperation, relying instead on more than 350 interviews with people who know the quarterback. Brady will be released on Sept. 29 and is available for preorder now.

We recently spoke with the former Sports Illustrated writer and current University of Alabama faculty member about his new biography.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Why write a book about Tom Brady?

Lars Anderson: “Brady is my 13th book. My 12th was called A Season in the Sun, and it was about Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl season with Tom as the quarterback. That book came together really quickly. The reason for that book was that I had written a previous book called The Quarterback Whisperer with Bruce Arians…

“So, I have a little bit of understanding of Tom through Bruce, through doing that book, and through talking to coaches and players. Then I was contemplating what to do for the next book, and my wonderful literary agent, Susan Canavan, just threw it out there. She’s like, ‘You’ve got to write Brady, and you’ve got to write it f*cking big.’”

What was it like to begin this project?

“Nothing comes close to the amount of effort I put into this compared with all the other projects I’ve done in my career. I tried to match Tom’s obsessiveness. I wasn’t like this early of a morning writer before. At around 4 a.m., when I woke up, man, I didn’t roll out of bed. I bolted out of bed. I used to be able to sustain my concentration and write for 45 minutes consecutively. With Brady, I could do it for four to six hours, nonstop.

“It’s crazy, man. I don’t get it. But I knew it was going to be a gargantuan task. So I called my good buddy Armen Keteyian. I asked, ‘How did you and (coauthor) Jeff Benedict—they co-wrote the Tiger Woods book—begin?’ He said, ‘Make a timeline.’ I spent a good six to eight months just working on that timeline.”

Did you receive any additional help?

“I brought in essentially three college students who worked full-time for a long stretch, doing interviews, fact-checking, and all that. I had a team. I brought in a guy who was the former top sports editor at al.com, which is Alabama. I’m based in Birmingham. We would meet every week. I put together this structure. I had my own personal editor working with me daily. And these reporters were doing this work while I was doing the work; I was focused on the writing. It hummed along. And it was really hard. I literally lost some friends because I was so committed to this thing. They didn’t intentionally go away; I was just busy. And I’ve got three small kids. I went after this as hard as I possibly could. I’m proud of the final result.”

What do you consider the most interesting detail in the book?

“I’m a big scene writer and a big believer in anecdotes. The description of Tom after Tampa lost the game, and I forget who it was to, but it was the game before the day the divorce was finalized. And the picture of him sitting in front of his locker, full uniform on. Everybody in the locker room is showered and dressed, and people are coming over to him. He was almost in a catatonic state. Obviously, I wasn’t there, so I had people recreate this scene for me. Tom Brady looked so unlike Tom Brady. Like, this is a broken man, completely broken. And to me, that is the other side of it.”

Why did that scene resonate so deeply with you?

“I think I was able to capture that emotion pretty well because I’ve been through it. I’ve been through a divorce. I have small kids. My kids are nine, 10, and 10, and I got divorced five years ago. It was the worst moment of my life. Because I’ve been through it, I know how hard it is. Man, it’s not fun. It is the absolute worst. I could relate to that. And I think all writers bring their own perspective to everything. I think my experience perhaps helped me write that scene with more power.”

What did Tom Brady’s greatness cost him personally?

“He lost his family. That’s a pretty big cost. He lost daily face-time with his kids. Personally, I don’t know this, but I think he’s still searching around. And for him in particular, because he had such a wonderful relationship with his own father. His dad is almost like the second most important character in this whole book. He fell short of the dedication and devotion that his dad had shown him. It compounds the pain for Tom because he’s fully aware. He’s a smart dude. This is a smart, calculating, highly intelligent person. He’s very self-aware. He knows that he wasn’t his dad to his kids. He has talked about it. And when he talks about it, he gets emotional. That’s one thing I really appreciate about Tom: he has emotional depth. That is rare among athletes, I think.”

Does your book include an example of Tom Brady’s ultra-competitiveness?

“I do—a couple, but one at Michigan (stands out). I think going into his senior year, he and Drew Henson were battling for the starting quarterback position. Tom is playing in an intramural basketball game. A guy on the other team is just yapping at Tom. Just giving him sh*t about Drew Henson. (Brady) tells his buddy, who was like the point guard late in the game. Tom passes the ball to him. Tom said, ‘Just run past me as fast as you can.’ Tom set a pick. His legs were like oak trees planted into the ground, leaning forward. That kid ran into Tom and knocked him into Never Never Land.”

Are there any additional details about Brady’s relationship with Bill Belichick?

“It was like a slow-acting poison. Gisele and Tom went over to Bob Kraft’s house late in his career with the Patriots. Gisele essentially told Kraft, I think she said, ‘Bill doesn’t treat Tommy like an effing man.’ Bill consistently, throughout Tom’s career, absolutely eviscerated him in team meetings. One famous anecdote is when he said, ‘Johnny Foxborough could have made that f*cking throw.’ And Tom took it. So the other players saw that. There’s a lot of psychology going on there with Belichick, the other players, and with Tom. That sort of cemented Belichick’s status as the iron-fisted ruler because ‘if he’s going to do that to Tom, who’s now won three, four, or five, six Super Bowls, what is he going to do to me?’”

What did you think of the infamous roast?

“The roast was an epic disaster. I’m not sure what was going on with Tom or why he did that. I do know there was a big reckoning for Tom. The next day, his children called and said, ‘Why did you allow so many people to say those bad things about mom?’ It’s a tough question to answer. If you’re cynical, and maybe you should be, well, Tom let others do his dirty work, or he just can’t let go of the limelight, or he wanted the $2 million or whatever he was getting paid. I don’t know why. It just seemed out of character. This is the most disciplined dude I have ever studied. And that was the most undisciplined move you could possibly make because you’re opening up the possibility of your kids getting hurt.”

What’s one takeaway you hope readers gain from your book?

“That all of us are flawed and that we all kind of want the same things. What separated Tom from everyone else was one thing, and it’s the most basic thing in the world. It’s what all of us teach our kids. Work hard. He simply outworked everybody.”

About Michael Grant

Born in Jamaica. Grew up in New York City. Lives in Louisville, Ky. Sports writer. Not related to Ulysses S. Grant.

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