Standing at six feet six inches, wearing a backwards baseball cap lettered with “Gronk Nation,” Gordie nodded to his youngest brother, Glenn, ten years his junior, pecking at a computer in the family room.
“What’s up, Bro?” Gordie asked. “Is there any food?”
It is a question asked often among the Gronkowski boys. Weighing 250 pounds, with wide shoulders and a posture that belies his history of back injuries, Gordie wore plaid shorts and a white T-shirt that revealed big biceps. On each wrist was a silicone band advertising the family website. He hunted through the refrigerator, discovering a foil tray filled with breaded chicken and rice, a personal favorite—Mom’s homemade chicken soufflé. Within seconds, he was spooning it into his mouth.
At twenty-eight, Gordie was more than ten years removed from high school graduation. The past decade had been a whirlwind of success and setbacks, of achievement and injuries. In 2001, he walked onto the baseball team at Jacksonville University, honed his skills, and became a power hitter and star first baseman. After redshirting, he had an outstanding first year, in which he was a freshman All-American and named Freshman of the Year in the conference, before a back injury derailed his steep ascent. But he rehabilitated the ruptured disk, fighting his way back to success. After his senior year, Gordie was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels, only to suffer a recurrence of pain. Since then, the injury had alternately flared then minimized.
Throughout his career, Gordie remained mentally tough and continued to work, playing baseball in ten cities, several more than once.
By the fall of 2011, with the summer season a memory, he planned a move to Cincinnati, yet another city, his eleventh new home in the past ten years. His business degree was about to be put to use: he planned to run several of the family’s businesses in Ohio, where G&G Fitness is known as The Fitness Store.
This was a major demarcation in his life. Barring any unforeseen shift, he will not play professional baseball again. But he left the game on his terms.
Many athletes find it hard to walk away from the sport they love. Like addicts, they keep being drawn back. For examples, look no further than Brett Favre or Dominik Hasek, men who attempted comebacks despite being past their prime, with an eye on one final shot at glory. That fall, Gordie was mostly content with his decision to leave the game that has defined his life.
“I’m twenty-eight,” he mused. “I’ve pretty much accomplished everything I can. If I hurt my back again, I’d be pretty upset.”
So that’s it? Baseball is really done?
Hesitation crept into his voice, but only for a moment, replaced by resolve.
“You know, I probably . . . I probably . . . I’m happy where I am right now. I did everything I wanted to do. This is the perfect year to go out, after six years of being a professional. I had a great year with Southern Illinois. We made the playoffs, even though we ended up losing. I’m happy and the back is healthy. The third game this year, I fouled a pitch off my foot and was in a walking boot for three weeks. I thought, you’ve got to be kidding. A year ago, I wondered if I should have come back for another year, so I was second-guessing myself. Right now I’m looking forward to joining the real world. I like a new challenge, and working for Pops is a great opportunity.”
Paychecks in the independent league are puny, which was another reason for his decision. Still, his words betrayed a hint of wavering.
“I’m probably done, even if someone calls with a good offer. Seeing my brothers succeed will take my mind right back into sports.”
While a teenager, Gordie was a star athlete in high school, yet remained unsure of his future. As graduation approached in 2001, his parents encouraged him to start making decisions about life.
“Mom and Dad asked what I wanted to do,” he said. “I’m the oldest son, but I was a shy kid. I didn’t know about a job or career.”
Both his parents dispute Gordie’s claim to shyness.
“Gordie loves people,” said his mother, Diane. “I used to joke when he played baseball that I was going to keep track of how many hitters got on base, because that’s how many guys were coming to dinner that night. Gordie stood there and talked to everyone who made it onto first base. He learned their life story. Everybody was his friend.”
It was through those games that Gordie formulated a career plan.
“I liked baseball and thought I could keep playing,” he said.
Harking back to his own days as a high school athlete seeking admission to a college program, Gordy knew his son needed to get serious. Bill Hurley, a former teammate of Gordy’s at Syracuse and part owner of a company called Collegiate Scouting Network, helped the Gronkowskis create a profile for Gordie to query colleges. The one-page sheet included a headshot and vital statistics like height and weight, academic information, and details about Gordie’s successes at baseball.
Father and son located a periodical from 1999 listing more than fourteen hundred men’s collegiate baseball programs throughout the United States that offered scholarships. Today most of this information could be tracked online, but they were working at the dawn of the Internet age. They began a systematic approach and contacted colleges that caught their interest.
“Each night we read through a few entries,” Gordy recalled. “We found the coach’s name and then crafted a letter and faxed it to him. The next day, when Gordie got home from school, he made a follow-up phone call. I showed him how to do the first one, then left him alone to sink or swim.”
At first Gordie was nervous about phoning a coach, unsure if he was saying the right things. But the experience forced him to become more outgoing and self-reliant. A decade later, he believes the process made him a better person.
“I didn’t know how to do any of that stuff,” Gordie said. “A follow-up call? What does that even mean? But my dad taught me that other people can only do so much for you. If you want to achieve, you have to do it yourself, because you don’t always know what others are doing. Are coaches really calling scouts on your behalf? I started to feel more comfortable with each call.”
In the course of four weekends, father and son traveled to eighteen colleges, setting off on a Thursday and returning the following Sunday. They visited various areas of the country and tried to squeeze in as many meetings as possible.
“We got in the car with a stack of videos we had made,” Gordie said. “We were looking for colleges that would give me an opportunity to play.”
New Haven, Central Connecticut, and Ithaca were one weekend. Ohio State, Liberty College, Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth were another. Eventually, they ended up in the South. As they ventured farther from home, Gordie became more disillusioned.
“We weren’t getting much feedback,” he admitted. “We were in Florida and planned to spend a day at the beach, but it was pouring rain. We figured, we’re here to visit colleges, so let’s go to Jacksonville. I had contacted them and received a return letter.”
An assistant coach at Jacksonville University was a fellow northerner, from Michigan, also a large man. Joe Fletcher took one look at Gordie. Perhaps seeing a younger reflection of himself, he was intrigued.
“OK, so you’re a big boy,” Fletcher said. “Can you swing a bat?”
“Yeah,” Gordie smiled. “I can do all right.”
NCAA rules prohibit tryouts for a college team. But no such rules apply to community colleges. Gordie found himself at nearby Tallahassee Community College, a powerhouse at its level. After smacking the ball in impressive fashion, Gordie was offered a spot with Tallahassee.
“That’s when I knew I had something to work with,” he said. “Jacksonville was one of the few programs to show any interest. They gave me the opportunity, and I took advantage of that.”
Gordie arrived at Jacksonville University in September 2001 as a walk-on first baseman. His redshirt year proved a valuable time to become acclimated to college baseball. Redshirting is common in collegiate sports, particularly football.
“Whe
n you go into your freshman year, there’s a good possibility that you’re not going to play, or you need more time to develop,” he explained. “As a redshirt, you train and practice and do everything with the team, but you don’t play in games unless another kid gets hurt. That way, your second year becomes your freshman year.”
In the interim, Gordie grew three inches, to six feet six, and added nearly thirty pounds. He also became accustomed to a year-round schedule. Teammates from the South played baseball for twelve months, and their output showed. Contrast that to Gordie’s senior year of high school, when he competed in only fifteen games. Back in Jacksonville in fall 2002, he was ready to perform on the field. But nothing was handed to him.
“I sat the first nineteen games,” Gordie recalled. “There was another freshman ahead of me who was a lefty. There’s a little advantage for a guy who bats left and plays first base because it’s easier for him to catch the ball. He had an advantage, but it came down to skills, attitude, and mental toughness.”
When his fellow first baseman struggled with hitting, Gordie was inserted into the lineup. Butterflies and nerves got the best of him for a few innings until he calmed himself and focused on fundamentals.
“My shortstop threw me a two-seamer and the ball took off, moving across the diamond at more than ninety miles per hour,” Gordie recalled of his first college game. “It hit me in the chest and I was credited with an error. Then I struck out in my first at-bat. The next one, I hit a laser to left field, but it was caught, so now I’m oh-for-two with an error. My first game, and I’m embarrassed already. It was terrible. I believed this was my opportunity to shine.”
In his third at-bat, Gordie recorded a single, and later added a double, to finish the day 2–4. He felt redeemed, and in typical Gronkowski fashion, focused on the positives.
“Bat five hundred and you make it to the Hall of Fame,” he preached.
But Gordie found himself returned to the bench for another two games before an opportunity to pinch-hit in the seventh inning against rival North Florida.
“We were down five to two at the time, two outs and a guy on second,” Gordie said. “I got a hit and my first RBI. It was a huge situation and I responded. Now I’m three-for-five. In the next game, I was given a chance to play and went three-for-four. That was it. I played the rest of my career.”
“His first year, he was just learning,” confirmed Terry Alexander, Jacksonville University’s baseball coach. “First base is a really difficult position to play and be good at. At this level, guys are throwing in the high eighties across the diamond and into the dirt. Balls are coming off aluminum bats at one hundred miles per hour, and you’ve got to field it. You can stick a tall guy over there to catch it in the air, but you better have a good athlete, because it’s a very demanding position. That position can win or lose a lot of games. If the ball bounces off your glove, maybe the shortstop gets the error, but you’ve lost the game. A good first baseman eliminates that error.”
By season’s end, Gordie had been named Freshman All-American, Freshman of the Year in the Atlantic Sun Conference, and most valuable player of the conference tournament. The team advanced to regionals before losing to Florida State.
“I was the youngest guy on the team, and I was a part of our success. I was batting fourth where power hitters swing. Everything came together and I was thinking, Wow. Maybe I won’t graduate college. Maybe I’ll get drafted before then!”
Because of his strong season, Gordie was invited to play in Topeka, Kansas, in the Jayhawk League of summer collegiate teams. He was excited about the prospect of playing summer baseball and living with a host family. But after only three games, a twinge in his right leg grew into cause for concern.
“Something wasn’t feeling right,” Gordie said. “I had been playing baseball year round and thought I was just burned out. It was a tweak and I was frustrated, but figured I better let my coach know about it.”
After consulting with his coach, Gordie reached a decision: he would take the summer off from the sport to rest his body and prepare for his sophomore year in September. So in 2003, he returned to Western New York. But the rest didn’t last long. He trained with his brothers under the tutelage of Demeris Johnson.
Although no one knew it, somewhere along the way Gordie had ruptured a disk between his lumbar and sacrum. This is a painful injury, but paradoxically, when he worked out, the hurt diminished. So he kept exercising.
“You feel better after a workout because things get stretched and the nerve isn’t pressing against the liquid that squirted from the disk,” Gordie explained. “I started doing heavier squats, heavier bench presses, and I felt good.”
During the fall of his third year in Jacksonville—his sophomore season—he continued to train with the team, competing in intrasquad practices. During second semester, as baseball season approached, the pain flared again.
“I felt good during workouts, but once I got home, everything tightened up,” he said. “I had trouble sitting in class. I wasn’t sleeping. When I’d go out to have a few drinks with my buddies, I felt worse, because alcohol dried my body out. But I kept playing and started the season. I was twenty years old and coming off a ridiculous freshman year. I didn’t want to let anyone know what was going on if I could tolerate the pain.”
Nerves tingled down his right leg, stretching from knee to heel. On the field, he struggled to hit the ball. After twenty games, it was time to see a trainer.
“I probably should have gone earlier, but I just don’t know,” Gordie lamented, shaking his head. “Anyone who has had back pain can appreciate how weird it is. I didn’t think it was my back. I thought it was my leg, because the pain was going down my right side. But trainers thought I had a herniated disk, so I was sent for an MRI. The results came back that I completely blew it out.”
Gordie was given the option to play through the pain. Doctors assured him that no further damage would result by continuing to play baseball. But the coaches recognized Gordie’s daily struggles.
“I talked to Mom and Dad,” he said. “How much pain am I supposed to take? I couldn’t sit through a class. I wasn’t enjoying my regular, everyday life, let alone baseball. After examining all the options, my parents suggested that I should get this taken care of.”
Within a week, the surgeon for the Jacksonville Jaguars operated on Gordie, cutting a tiny slit into his back. Jelly from the ruptured disk, which had been pushing against nerves, was dissolved using high-intensity lasers.
“It was a simple surgery and I was in and out,” Gordie said. “Mom came down for Easter 2004. She helped me that first week, because I couldn’t really walk. I couldn’t carry books or anything for a while. I had to let that disk heal again, and you hope that it does.”
Years later, Gordie looks back with second thoughts. He realizes now that perhaps he rushed back to baseball too quickly. Jacksonville was not in contention to compete in regionals his sophomore year, but he played the final fifteen games that season, returning less than two months after surgery.
“It’s great to have goals and dreams,” he said. “But sometimes it’s better to take a step back and get your body healthy again. At the time, all I wanted to do was play sports. I was a young kid thinking I had a shot at the major league.”
His father reflects on that time with frustration, wondering how things might have aligned differently if Gordie had rested more.
“Gordie had a knucklehead strength coach at Jacksonville,” Gordy said. “Once you have back surgery, you have to lay off. You need to stay still for six weeks. You can walk, but never bend. You can’t turn. You get out of bed a certain way. Gordie did all that, but this idiot put him on weights right away. You don’t strengthen a disk. It’s not a muscle. You got to let the damn thing heal totally and then work on core strength. Stretch the hamstrings. This guy had him doing stupid things that didn’t help. When he played, it flared up, because at first base you’re always bending.”
“
I wasn’t one hundred percent ready,” Gordie admitted. “Mentally, I wanted to play, but physically, it just wasn’t there. My plan that summer was to come back to Buffalo to rehab and get my back right. I had no plans for summer ball unless I got a call from Cape Cod.”
Like many young baseball players, Gordie considered the Cape Cod Baseball League his best opportunity to spend a summer. Pitchers hurled balls at speeds approaching one hundred miles per hour. Scouts attended nearly every game. The collegiate league’s atmosphere was exciting. There was no box office or ticket window. Fans simply laid a towel on a hillside surrounding the field to claim their spot, and a bucket was passed asking for loyalty contributions, suggested at three dollars per person. People sometimes jockeyed for a choice swatch of lawn the day before a heated contest.
“I got a voicemail from a coach who asked if I would play first base,” Gordie said. “Coming off surgery, I hadn’t finished my sophomore season too strong, so I did not expect that call. But when it came, I knew right away that I had to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Although Gordie was released from the league after three weeks, he speaks fondly of the experience. It was his first time living with a host family. He admired many of the guys alongside whom he played. And always, along the way, he kept learning his sport. There were different situations, different signs for stealing bases, techniques to hitting the ball and getting a jump on a base run. Gordie tried to take a little piece from each experience and adapt it to his game.
“It was cool to see how that league worked. I was let go because I was struggling, but just to say I was part of it was an accomplishment. It left me knowing what I needed to do to get better.”
During the summer of 2004, Gordie wasn’t idle long. Another call came requesting his services—this one from the Torrington Twisters of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.
“There were really good players there, too,” Gordie said. “Our shortstop, Eli Iorg, was drafted in the first round. I had a good year there, batting over three hundred. That got my confidence back up. I went into my junior year of college thinking I had a shot at getting drafted.”
Growing Up Gronk: A Familys Story of Raising Champions Page 5