Tom Brady wound up playing college football across the country from the San Francisco area. There’s a reason he didn’t end up at nearby Stanford.
Tom Brady Explains Why He Didn’t Attend Stanford
Being that Stanford was down the road from where he played his high school football, it’s been somewhat of a mystery as to why the greatest quarterback of his generation, if not ever, landed in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Brady recently explained why he didn’t wind up in Palo Alto in a joint Instagram post by All College Football, Topps, and Fanatics Collect.
“I was not smart enough to get into Stanford, OK?” Brady said. “Actually, I got recruited a little bit. I went there (for) a camp and Bill Walsh looked at me and was like, ‘No, we don’t want him.'”
The admission came after Brady pulled a Damon Dunn trading card. Dunn, who played receiver for four seasons with the Cardinal, had stints in the NFL, NFL Europe, and XFL.
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A large part of Brady’s college recruitment was facilitated by VCR tapes that he and his father mailed to schools. Brady also wanted to find a school where academics were important, as well.
“Probably the ones that we did hear from and ultimately pared the list to were Cal-Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Michigan, and Illinois,” Brady’s father, Tom Brady Sr., said. “Those were the final five schools Tommy was considering. If athletics didn’t work out, he’d be proud to have a degree from a great academic school. Those were five pretty darn good schools, so he had a pretty good list there.”
Then-USC offensive coordinator Mike Riley wanted Brady badly. Brady Sr. said Riley was the only coach who attended one of his son’s games in his senior year. John Robinson, the Trojans’ head coach, wasn’t as interested.
Michigan, on the other hand, was enamored with the young passer.
“When (the tape) came to our office, they forwarded it to me since (West Coast) is my territory,” former Wolverines assistant coach Bill Harris said. “So I was the first person to look at it, and I liked what I saw. Then I showed it to Kit Cartwright, who was our quarterback coach. Kit said he looked pretty good.”
The two brought the film to Michigan head coach Gary Moeller, who felt Brady was a “kid who can play quarterback for Michigan.”
The rest, as they say, is history.