Before Tom Brady seized his first slice of NFL history—before one ring, before seven, pre-immortality—few considered former pick No. 199 capable of, well, making any history at all. That group included Brady himself. (Sort of.)
“Early in my career, I wasn’t thinking about collections; I was just trying to make the team,” writes Brady to Sports Illustrated, in an email exchange last week. He follows that sentence with a crying/laughing emoji. He knew. Even then.
“… over time, you realize certain moments carry weight. I started saving jerseys, helmets and handwritten notes from teammates. Not because they were valuable, but because they held meaning to me. They were relics!”
Brady would adapt his process to curate the (more and more) history he made as time went on and his fame went up. He focused less on milestones and more on memories that mattered to both him and those around him. He still has many of those items—a lot, he writes—at his house. But he doesn’t have as many as he used to, not with the Hall of Excellence opening Wednesday at The Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
This is the Hall of Excellence: a sports museum from a partnership between Brady and the Tom Brady Family Collection, the hotel, sportscaster Jim Gray and his wife, Frann. She watched as Jim collected hundreds of items over 40-plus years. She not only put up with the volume and scarcity of the items but helped choose which ones to include in the museum.
The significance of excellence, history and sports played a significant role in both hitting Brady from various angles at various points along his transformation to the greatest quarterback—most would say football player—who ever lived. He was a sports fan, first. In childhood, in San Mateo, Calif., he collected cards, devoured games and—his words—read stories in Sports Illustrated. “When I got a chance to live out my dream on the field, I never forgot what it felt like to be inspired by greatness,” he writes.
This is the Hall of Excellence: history’s elite entertainers, with items used or worn by Elvis Presley and the Beatles; Jackie Robinson’s bat from the season when he broke the color barrier; the late Kobe Bryant’s McDonald’s All-American gear; Billie Jean King’s most iconic tennis dress; a golf ball smacked by Tiger Woods in his first Masters triumph; all of Brady’s rings; worn gloves from Muhammad Ali’s first bout—he long called it his toughest—against George Chuvalo, and Shohei Ohtani’s bat from last season’s World Series triumph.
Brady inspired greatness and collected items of vast historical significance for nearly 20 years. Early in his career, he also grew close with Gray, who, Brady notes, has interviewed nearly every athlete featured in the Hall of Excellence—and there are hundreds of them. Having helped Gray write his book, I couldn’t miss the related notion he kept raising: He wanted, eventually, somewhere, somehow, to find a home, something more permanent, for all he had collected. Guess who else also had a lot of stuff, after, you know, making a lot of history?
Brady did.
They started talking. They found a partner in the Fontainebleau. (Disclaimer: I would become the writer for the project, meaning audio scripts, item descriptions, case inscriptions, more audio scripts, labels for items, a Wall of Excellence and more audio scripts. In sum: 660,000 words.) And, here, the chance to swap impressions of this Hall with Brady.
This is the Hall of Excellence: Vince Lombardi, Lionel Messi, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, LeBron James (the actual goal from his NBA career scoring record), Joe DiMaggio (one bat from the 56-game hitting streak) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It’s Bill Russell. It’s Jack Nicklaus. It’s Simone Biles (the leotard from her first gold). There’s a centerpiece to the space, too, the Trophy Room, which sits in the back right corner, with every major tournament trophy that can be won in sports alongside a combo-E-G-O-T—Oprah Winfrey (Emmy), Justin Timberlake (Grammy), Clint Eastwood (Oscar) and Oprah once more (Tony). She also loaned her Presidential Medal of Freedom for display.
It’s a cast of audio narrative stars. Morgan Freeman is the voice of the Hall of Excellence. But on the phone/app tour that will spin through history of all sorts, in all places, through all eras, individual artifacts are voiced by Oprah, Brady, Jim Nantz, Bob Costas, Marv Albert, Mary Carillo, Mike Emrick, Andres Cantor, Gray and Snoop D-o-double-g. There’s even a song that will debut at the opening—XLNC, by will.i.am.
There’s no collection of sports memorabilia with the historical heft of items in the Hall of Excellence—not with Babe Ruth (his bat from the called shot), Mike Tyson, Roger Federer, Michael Johnson (those gold shoes), Katie Ledecky, Eric Heiden (five golds, one Games, those skates), Novak Djokovic (racket from when he broke the all-time major singles record), Reggie Jackson, Aaron Judge and others. There’s no sports museum anyone’s aware of that comes close to the breadth or depth therein. (The closest: The Jim Irsay Collection from the late Colts owner.)
Brady writes that “a bunch” of athletes reached out to him, ostensibly inquiring about what’s in the museum or about being in it. He shares one remarkable exchange with SI. “When a certain legend who shall remain nameless called me from his own exhibit and said, ‘This is better than the Hall of Fame.’ ”
We can forget that, those of us who follow sports. Someone like Brady presents as so maniacal, so singular in focus, that maybe the first thing we think about Brady isn’t that he enjoyed the hell out of his broke-all-the-records career, too.
This is the Hall of Excellence, a celebration of rarer-than-rare feats: cases for Brady, Bryant, Ali; for single-season records or athletes who changed the world around them or fighting or baseball or golf (with baseballs and golf balls signed by U.S. presidents in one display). Brady’s case recalls a walk-in closet of his athletic career—letterman jacket from Michigan, draft card from the No. 199, red blazer for making the top 50 NFL players of all-time.
He’s not far from Bill Belichick, his coach for six Super Bowls in New England; Belichick’s most frequently worn cut-off, short-sleeved hoodie is displayed, next to Andy Reid’s red cape from that triumph in LVIII in Las Vegas and the late Don Shula’s Hall of Fame blazer, alongside Belichick’s call sheet for the infamous Tuck Rule Game. Which isn’t too far from SI’s presence in the Hall—that famous Hank Aaron career home-run-record cover; no words, just three numbers, 715.
I received blueprints for the museum while covering the last Olympics. Upon return, I taped the floor plan on the ground near where I write, where it still sits, gathering dust and tearing in spots, stained with water and coffee, and covered in court documents for other stories. This is not the version visitors will see. But it’s my favorite. I attempted to evolve the concept of excellence in sports in 400-plus ways, from how it forms, to how it adapts and overcomes and fortifies and burdens, to the history it yields, the feats we’ll never stop discussing, all the way to the greatest such excellence in sports history: A museum, in other words, with a narrative arc.
The soul of that remains. As do the impressions. I came to see the museum not as sports history, nor as a lap for history’s best athletes to jog and bow. Instead, I came to see the Hall as a space that tells the story of America—and several other countries—over roughly the last 100 years. Sports, that tethered; sports, that significant; only now, there’s a museum to match that feeling, that generational history; that glorious, jaw-dropping, amazed or angered feeling that comes out in ways that only watching sports can turn reasonable, adult humans into unrecognizable monsters of emotion.
“When you walk through the Hall, you’re seeing America evolve—through culture, music, film, even fashion,” Brady writes. “We have Jackie Robinson breaking barriers, Muhammad Ali taking a stand, Serena changing the conversation. These aren’t just items on display, they’re moments that shaped generations …”
His favorite, non-Brady item: Robinson’s bat. Or: Woods’s ball from the Masters. “This Hall, it’s about people who used their platforms to move the world forward. That’s American history.”
Visitors might even glean some new info about icons like Brady. Here’s one: Brady, for all the Joe Montana comparisons throughout TB12’s career, describes Joe Cool as the gold standard for quarterback play back then. But his real guidepost was Steve Young, not Montana. “He showed me something different,” Brady writes, “how to battle, how to adapt, how to keep growing … Being in the Hall alongside him feels full circle.”
On a recent tour, Brady loved the immersive nature of the space. He didn’t simply see other forms of greatness alongside his own. He felt it. Heard it—the crowds roaring, audio from pivotal moments, the narration tour. “It’s emotional,” he writes. “You can feel the weight of what these moments meant to people. I promise you it will give you goosebumps.” Example: The cleats he wore throughout the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.
Excellence, to Brady, is consistency over time, intention, effort, even maniacal drive and failing, too. (Michael Strahan of those Giants who foiled Brady titles is also featured.) That is the Hall of Excellence. As is Brady, or anyone else, he writes, who “changed the game, elevated the standard, or used their platform to move the world forward. LFG.”
And, in this way but not too many other ways, perhaps not even in a single other way, this makes Tom Dude-Won-Almost-Everything Brady, GOAT among GOATs, separate from semantic debates, more like the rest of us. Awed, in other words, by excellence in sports and the history that such excellence stamps, live, forever, from Bobby Jones to Rory McIlroy—and from Jordan’s six rings to Brady’s seven.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Hall of Excellence Through the Eyes of Tom Brady.