A day for Patriots San Mateo's Tom Brady leads New England's unlikely victory
SFGate
2/4/02
by Ron Kroichick

Tom Brady often played flag football as a kid on Portola Drive in San Mateo -- an asphalt "field" that stretched from telephone pole to telephone pole, with parked cars as formidable obstacles. Brady played a little game of tackle football yesterday -- on 100 yards of artificial turf at the Superdome in New Orleans, with an estimated 800 million people worldwide watching on television. As his family and friends back home bounced between jubilation and anxiety, Brady guided the New England Patriots to an improbable 20-17 victory over the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. The Patriots seized the victory only when Brady led them on a frantic, last-minute drive, culminating in Adam Vinatieri's dramatic 48-yard field goal as time expired. It was one of the most exciting games -- and one of the biggest upsets -- in Super Bowl history. The Rams strutted into the game as 14-point favorites, renowned for their high-powered offense and widely expected to leave the Patriots all but standing motionless on Bourbon Street. Instead, St. Louis sputtered most of the game, staged a furious fourth- quarter rally to tie the score 17-17 and then wilted in the final minute. That's when Brady, showing poise belying his age (at 24 1/2 he is the youngest starting QB to win a Super Bowl), marched the Patriots into position for the decisive field goal and earned the Most Valuable Player award. He improved his stock from third-stringer a year ago to starter this season when Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury, and he played so well the Pro-Bowl veteran never got his job back. Inside the family room of his childhood home, nervous silence gave way to raucous celebration the moment the football jumped off Vinatieri's foot. Nobody was more overjoyed than Barbara Vinatieri Albright, Adam's aunt; her husband works with Tom Brady's aunt at the San Francisco Police Department. "I feel 10 feet tall," Albright said moments later. "And to be among Tom Brady's family makes it even better." The scene on Portola Drive reflected the magnitude of the event. Brady's family, friends and former neighbors literally closed down the street; they circulated a petition with the signatures of every resident, and the city of San Mateo approved the request in two days rather than the customary 20.

BLOCK OF BRADY FANS
So the block party began at noon, more than three hours before kickoff, and only picked up steam when Vinatieri's field goal sailed through the uprights. Patriots jerseys were the attire of choice -- specifically, the No. 12 jersey of "Tommy" Brady, the wunderkind quarterback who lived on this very street little more than six years ago. All by himself, he turned a pleasant San Mateo neighborhood from fierce 49ers country into, well, the land of the Patriots. "Everybody here is pretty much a Brady fan," said Dave Aguirre, a neighbor on Portola Drive and one of Tom Brady's childhood friends. "The Patriots come along with it." Take away the California weather and this could have been any tree-lined street in New England. Patriots colors (appropriately red, white and blue) reigned, from those popular jerseys to the streamers wrapped around every tree to the good-luck sign plastered above the front door to Brady's parents' home. Tom Sr. and Galynn Brady, along with their three adult daughters, traveled to New Orleans for yesterday's game. That did not stop the Brady house from again becoming Patriots Central, as it was throughout the regular season. One of Tom Sr.'s brothers opened the house, and everyone showed up. Not surprisingly, emotions soared and sank with the fortunes of Tom Brady and the Patriots. Early in the second quarter, Brady scrambled on his famously tender left ankle, and his family and friends inhaled in unified anxiety.

LITTLE 'TOMMY' BOY
And when he fired a touchdown pass late in the second quarter to give New England a 14-3 lead, the crowd erupted in jubilation. It was quite a contrast to those long-ago, flag-football days, this gathering of childhood friends watching little "Tommy" star in the Super Bowl. "You talk about it when you're young, in the front yard: 'That could be us, ' "said Bobby Paul, another longtime Brady friend. "But you never really think it's going to be you. For someone who's like a brother to be doing it, it's amazing." The crowd on Portola Drive represented a tidy cross-section of Tom Brady's life -- from pals like Paul and the four Aguirre brothers, to relatives, to the principals of his alma mater (Serra High School's Mike Peterson) and East Bay football power De La Salle High School (Tom's uncle, Chris Brady). One photo in the family room revealed Tom Brady's initial allegiance. The photo showed Brady, all of 4 years old, wearing a Joe Montana 49ers jersey as he pranced around the Candlestick parking lot on Jan. 10, 1982 -- the day Dwight Clark made The Catch and vaulted the 49ers toward their first Super Bowl title. On this day, it was all about the Patriots. They nearly cemented the game on a long fumble return early in the fourth quarter, but a penalty negated the play and set up a Rams touchdown. "I'm stressed," said Nancy Gonis, a lifelong friend of Tom Brady's mother. The stress only became more acute as the Rams tied the game on Kurt Warner's touchdown pass to Ricky Proehl with 1:30 left. As it turned out, that was just enough time for Brady -- a backup to Pro-Bowl veteran Drew Bledsoe at the start of the season -- to take the Patriots downfield and give Vinatieri a chance. Back on Portola Drive, it was just like the old days -- only with a little more riding on the outcome. "I can still see Tommy in the middle of the street, tossing the ball to the other kids," said Terri Brady, Tom's aunt. "And it wasn't that long ago. That's what's unbelievable."