The Longest Yard

New York Giants linchpin Michael Strahan dishes on the pains of training camp, the trials of golf and the joys of early retirement.

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When the New York Giants drafted Michael Strahan with the 40th pick in the 1993 NFL Draft, they were expecting big things from the start. Despite playing his college ball at relatively obscure division 1-AA Texas Southern, Strahan had established himself as one of the game’s elite prospects. He was a Wrst team All-American in 1992 and ended his career as the school’s all-time sack leader with 41.5 quarterback takedowns.  The organization was confident that Strahan would produce immediately. What they likely didn’t expect was the run of continued success and dominance that Strahan has enjoyed over the past 15 years.

Strahan always had talent, that’s for sure, but there was nothing in his scouting report that indicated he’d go on to become the NFL leader for sacks in a single season. How could they have anticipated that this kid, a boy who grew up in Germany and had only been playing organized football for Wve years, would go on to become one of the most feared players in the entire League? But that’s the thing about Michael Strahan: He’s unpredictable. And it’s not just his style of play that’s enigmatic. He’s established himself as one of the League’s most outspoken players— on a variety of issues. Over the past few years he’s been involved in highly publicized spats and disagreements with fellow coaches, most notably his current head coach Tom Coughlin.  That shy kid who first came to New York many years ago has given way to a gregarious man, one whose engaging likeness is plastered all over billboards and commercials.

So yes, a lot has changed for Michael Strahan over the years—both in his life on the Weld and oV it. We at The Green Magazine caught up with Strahan just prior to the start of the 2007 season. We were lucky enough to catch him during what was a tumultuous oVseason, marked by a long hold-out and murmurs of a possible retirement. He ultimately decided to return to the gridiron for at least one more year. He felt he had some unWnished business.

You often talk about your days as a young man growing up abroad. Your father was in the military and you were raised in Germany. How did that experience shape your life? Yes, absolutely. I think it’s probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It just seems like everything in my life worked out in a certain special way. When I say that, I mean that the things that I experienced as a young man have helped me as I’ve gotten older. I was born in Houston and we lived in North Carolina and Maryland. But we moved to Germany in 1981 when I was nine years old. Living in Germany taught me how to get along with everybody—all races, religions and colors. It didn’t matter who you were or where you were from. Living abroad also provided me with the opportunity to travel to other countries across Europe. And of course, I got the chance to go to East Berlin before the wall was down.

It must have been very powerful to be living in Germany during the days when the wall was falling. Oh, of course. But even before that, I had the opportunity to cross over into the old East Berlin. You would put your passport against the window and the guards would say, “If you take pictures of women, children, soldiers or vehicles, we’re going to destroy your camera.” It was amazing to me that some people were living like this in the 1980s. To experience things like that and to travel the world—as a child—was invaluable. I was given the chance to go to Spain every summer and to visit places like Paris and London. You name the city and we were there. It was something that you just can’t duplicate now.

American football was not exactly a popular sport in Cold War Germany. So when did you start getting involved in football? Well, I had played football before moving abroad, when I was seven and eight years old in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I watched it on TV and I was like any other kid. I thought, “I can do that.” But I honestly never thought it was going to be my career, especially growing up in Germany where I didn’t even play football in high school. And when I was 13 my brothers and friends always teased me about being a little overweight. They called me Bob, which meant booty on back. I bought the Herschel Walker work out book. I did push ups and sit ups, and my dad saw the way I was working out, working to change myself. He recognized that I was tired of being messed with, so he started to work out with me. He would say, “Why don’t you come with me?” So during the summers we’d wake up at 5:30 a.m. and go running. Now, did I always want to do those things? Absolutely not. Did he try to push me? Yes. He deWnitely pushed me to do a lot of those things. But I stuck with it, and looking back I see how much stronger it made me. It’s still one of the highlights of my life—I got to spend all that time with my father, which was a great thing.

So your dad played a major role in convincing you to take up the game? When I was a senior in high school my dad said, “You know what? You’re good enough to get a football scholarship.” So he put me on a plane and I Xew to Houston. I stayed with his brother—my uncle—for Wve months so I could go to high school and play football that fall. And after all that I had one scholarship oVer from Texas Southern University. I took it and the rest is history.