Teenage Tom Brady Wrote a Paper About How Crummy it is Being a Kid Brother

Being a kid brother really smells. I wouldn’t know because I’m the oldest, but it’s one of the oldest tropes in popular storytelling. The youngest is always the annoying tag-along.

So, oh man, if you’ve always imagined Tom Brady as some kind of Beaver Cleaver, you’re going to love his Throwback Thursday post on Facebook.

That school paper, written when Brady was a senior at Juniperra Serra High School in San Mateo, Calif., is a first-person non-fiction account of Brady growing up in household full of high-achieving older sisters, and in it you can see the I’ll-show-you competitiveness that has fueled Brady’s legendary career.

"Being brought up in a family with three sisters and no brothers sometimes caused me problems. My three sisters Maureen, Julie and Nancy were always participating in their own activities, seemingly oblivious to what their young brother was doing."

This sets the emotional tone of a piece is neatly constructed and well-paced (though a little stiff), with understated drama. Young Brady describes a household that demanded a lot, sisters that excelled in sports, and people who were always asking him, “You’re Maureen and Julie’s brother, aren’t you?”

"I wished I would be recognized as an individual and not as another Brady."

Brady would be drafted by the Montreal Expos that year, and three years later would win the starting quarterback job at Michigan. Then he was a sixth-round pick of the New England Patriots, and then Drew Bledsoe got hurt and …

"But no matter what awards people might give me or what records I might break, the most meaningful thing to me is when I succeed not only in athletics, but life, the individuals who will always be there to support and recognize me will be my three sisters, Maureen, Julie and Nancy. And hopefully, just maybe, one day people will walk up to them and say, “Aren’t you Tommy’s sister?"

He got an A.