Growing Up Gronk: A Familys Story of Raising Champions
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Although he was upset to not work with Rob during his senior year, Bill Gorman, an assistant basketball coach at Williamsville North, remained in close contact even after Rob went to Pennsylvania.
“From a football standpoint, it was good that he went to Woodland Hills. He wasn’t the focal point of the offense there. He had to learn how to block. At North, he didn’t. Every play, they sent him out wide and expected him to catch a pass in front of four kids.”
At Woodland Hills, Rob’s receiving numbers dropped, but he still garnered national attention. At season’s end, he was named a SuperPrep All-American, PrepStar All-American, Associated Press Class 4A all-state, in addition to several regional awards from Pittsburgh-area newspapers.
In retrospect, Rob believes that transferring schools helped accelerate his development.
“If I had stayed at Williamsville North, I would have been used in a different role,” he said. “I only had eight catches my whole year in Pittsburgh, where I probably would have had fifty or sixty in New York. But moving definitely helped me become a better blocker and a more complete player. I blocked on just about every play, and that helped going into my freshman year at college.”
Thanks to his high profile, Rob was recruited far and wide, from virtually every big-name school. But he chose the University of Arizona early on. He had visited the school a few years earlier with Chris and their father when Chris was being recruited there. Arizona kept after Rob once Chris landed at Maryland.
“They were the first school to offer anything to me, and I already saw the campus and loved it there,” Rob said. “The weather, the schooling, the coaching staff. I saw an opportunity for me to play right away. Those four things got me excited. I knew deep down that was the place to be.”
Rob was the only brother who did not spend a year as a redshirt. He took the field immediately, playing as a true freshman. He credits the year spent in Pittsburgh with advancing his development.
“I consider my senior year of high school like my freshman year, because when I got to college I wasn’t homesick or anything,” he noted. “I was ready to go. I knew what to expect going into a new program.”
“In the middle of Rob’s freshman year, Gordy and I went to Arizona for a visit,” Gorman recalled. “I was talking to some of the assistant coaches when Gordy was wandering around. The coaches told me they knew Robbie was going to be special from the very first practice.”
The story relayed to Gorman was that a star senior linebacker, later drafted into the NFL in the first round, had the reputation as a big man on campus. At the first team workout, the quarterback tossed the ball to Rob on a seven-yard out pattern, and this linebacker came across the field with fire in his eyes, leveling Rob. He then stood over him.
“Welcome to the real world, high school All-American,” the senior taunted. “That doesn’t mean shit here.”
Rob got up, undaunted. A few plays later, he caught the same pass and dashed up the field. The same linebacker was running toward him. Players are coached to step out of bounds to avoid unnecessary contact. Instead, Rob cut toward him, lowered his shoulder, and blasted the defender, running him over. He then shed another linebacker’s block. It took a third player to finally trip him up.
“The whole offense was going crazy,” Gorman recounted. “Robbie stood up, went over to the linebacker lying on the ground, and dropped the ball onto his chest. Nobody ever challenged Rob like that again.”
At college, Rob continued to grow as a player. In 2007, he recorded twenty-eight catches for 525 yards with six touchdowns. He led the team in yards-per-reception average, at 18.8. The awards rolled in: The Sporting News Freshman All-American, Rivals.com Freshman All-American, The Sporting News freshman Pac-10, and All-Pac-10 honorable mention.
Despite missing the first three games of his sophomore campaign, Rob recorded forty-seven catches for 672 yards and ten touchdowns. Twice he was named the John Mackey Tight End of the Week, an award given nationally. After setting school records for a tight end in single-game, single-season, and career receptions, yards, and touchdowns, Rob was named an Associated Press third-team All-American and All-Pac-10 first-team tight end.
Everything was going right. It didn’t take a crystal ball to project that Rob was likely to shine in the NFL. With two years of college eligibility, already he was being projected as a first-round draft pick.
During the off-season after his sophomore year, however, Rob injured his back, underwent surgery, and sat out an entire season.
“You have so much more respect for the game once you miss a whole season,” he reflected. “You sit on the couch because that’s basically all you can do, and you see your teammates out there, your brother. It’s no fun watching them play. You want to be out there.”
He ruminated about surgery, finally deciding that was the best way to proceed. During an extensive rehabilitation program, Rob worked to regain his old form. By strengthening his back and core, he helped minimize setbacks and flare-ups. Once healthy, he faced a major decision: should he return to play college football at Arizona or make the leap to the NFL, where his brother Dan was playing, and Chris, set to graduate, had a shot at making a team too?
“It was definitely a tough decision,” he said. “But it was always a dream to play in the NFL. That was my goal ever since I knew I had a chance. I wanted to get there as soon as possible. Dan was already in the NFL, and Chris was going that year, so I thought we could help each other out. All three of us could be in the league at once, and you don’t know how long that could last.”
Rob considered the options and discussed the implications with his family. He considered all angles before deciding to turn pro.
“I loved the school,” Rob confessed. “I wanted to come back and give Arizona another year because of everything they did for me. But sometimes you’ve got to do what’s best for you. I wanted to get on the highest stage and go against the best competitors to bring out the best in me.”
Yet there was a lingering obstacle: Rob was not fully healed in time to participate in the NFL combine, held for several days at the end of February into early March. Without an opportunity to work out before pro scouts, his draft status would remain uncertain. But he found a way around that: once Rob recovered, he hosted an exclusive pro day at Arizona. Scouts were invited to see him work out individually, joined by his brother Chris. A former college quarterback who lived in Tucson showed up to throw passes to the brothers.
“When we went out there, it was just me and Rob and another kid,” Chris recalled of the private tryout. The quarterback had played collegiately in Hawaii, graduating the year before. The brothers had never met him.
“It worked out real well even though we never had a chance to practice together before that day,” Chris said. “Usually it’s harder on the quarterback to throw to guys he’s not familiar with, but he was pretty good. His passes were right on.”
On a sunny spring day, some twenty-five scouts gathered at Arizona Stadium. Rob was the draw, but thanks to his family connections, Chris was in the spotlight as well.
“It was very cool,” Chris said. “We walked onto the field without shirts, just to show off. We killed it that day. We caught every pass and ran so hard we were about to throw up. We really got after it. Rob had on blocking pads and I ran at him at full speed, then we switched. I was trying to drill him as hard as I could. I was so into it that my hand slipped a couple times, and I popped myself in the face. By the time it ended, my face was scratched from swatting the pads. It was like a badge of honor.”
Any concerns about Rob’s recovery had been answered. Now it was simply a question of anticipating the 2010 draft. The two highest-ranked tight ends were Rob and Jermaine Gresham.
“The draft was going to be about those two,” Gordy said. “At least one was going to go in the first round, and we hoped both. We figured that the Cincinnati Bengals were taking a tight end with the twenty-first pick, but we didn’t know which. Gresham had played at Ok
lahoma, so we thought Cincy would take him because some of the coaches there were from Oklahoma.”
Once that happened, the Gronkowskis reasoned that Rob would be the next tight end off the board. Baltimore, drafting twenty-fifth, had expressed interest in adding a tight end. But the Ravens traded their pick to Denver, who quickly selected quarterback Tim Tebow.
“When the trade happened, we looked at the rest of the picks,” Gordy said. “We thought maybe Kansas City would take him—or the Bills. But neither happened. When it came into the second round, New England knew that Baltimore was going to take Rob, so the Patriots traded up to get him ahead of the Ravens.”
Rob was drafted in the second round, forty-second overall. He recalled the various emotions that came with waiting to be selected.
“Emotions were flying high,” he said. “You want to get drafted in the first round. That was my goal, but it didn’t work out that way. Looking back, I kind of had a feeling I wasn’t going to go in the first round.”
His limited college experience put him at a disadvantage. Rob played as a freshman and sophomore—although he missed three games that season—then sat out his entire junior year at Arizona. He had only appeared in twenty college games, compared to seniors who had logged forty-eight over a four-year span.
“Plus I was young,” he added. “I didn’t participate in my combine at all. I only did one little pro day. That’s all the scouts had to base me on. I wanted to go in the first round, but it would have been a long shot.”
Any disappointment of dropping into the second round evaporated quickly. The Patriots had piled up Super Bowl rings in the previous decade. With Rob on their roster, why couldn’t they add to the collection?
“Once I was drafted, it was a great emotional feeling,” Rob said. “Everything else disappeared. I was still chosen pretty high, and I came into a great situation. You couldn’t ask for anything more. New England had a great quarterback and head coach. Thinking about it now, if you get drafted into the right situation, it doesn’t matter whether you drop down in the draft. The ranking doesn’t mean anything. It’s what you do from there on out.”
For a twenty-one-year-old rookie, entering training camp in Foxborough might have been intimidating. In one corner of the locker room was superstar quarterback Tom Brady. Nearby was receiver Randy Moss. Head coach Bill Belichick, patrolling the halls with a perpetual scowl, was widely considered a football mastermind. Yet Rob was undaunted by the talent surrounding him. He just wanted to play.
“One thing about Rob: he’s never been enamored of superstars,” Gorman said.
Rob was determined to make an impact. He immediately won the admiration of Patriots’ fans in a preseason game against St. Louis. Catching a pass at the five-yard line, he was corralled around the ankles by a defender. But he did not go down. Maintaining balance, he drove his massive legs toward the goal line and plunged forward. Referees initially called him down at the one-yard line, but a coach’s challenge reversed the call to a touchdown.
The play lasted mere seconds, but it provided a snapshot of Rob’s determination. Afterward, radio announcers declared, “We need to start calling him Gronk.”
Video of the play is on YouTube, titled “The Moment When Rob Gronkowski Became Gronk.”
He continued to impress in preseason, scoring four touchdowns. In his first regular-season game against Cincinnati, he snagged a one-yard pass from Brady in the fourth quarter. In week ten, he caught three touchdowns against Pittsburgh, the youngest rookie in NFL history to achieve that. During a December game against the Bills in his hometown of Buffalo, he caught two more, then finished the year with one more touchdown the following week. For the regular season, he accumulated ten.
He was the first rookie tight end since the NFL–AFL merger in 1970 to score ten touchdowns. Rob did not miss a game or practice all season, starting eleven of the sixteen games. On the year, he caught forty-two passes for 546 yards.
By all accounts, it was a successful start to his NFL career. What would year two bring?
Rob, focused for game day in the NFL.
Patriots fans show their appreciation for Gronk.
11
Rob Explodes
“Being in the media is pretty crazy. I’m just being myself. I’ve been the same guy for the last ten years, but suddenly whatever I do is in the media.”
—ROB GRONKOWSKI
IT WAS AUGUST 2011, a few weeks before the NFL season’s kickoff. Sitting behind his desk at G&G Fitness, Gordy Gronkowski leaned back, locking hands behind his thick neck. His son Rob was coming off a rookie season in which he posted impressive numbers and improved with each game. By year’s end, he had caught ten touchdowns and become an offensive force.
“Robbie is going to catch fifteen TDs this year,” Gordy predicted.
Such boldness was difficult to take seriously. This was a proud father, after all, boasting about his son. The touchdown record for tight ends was thirteen, set by Antonio Gates in 2004, then equaled by Vernon Davis in 2009. True, the New England Patriots was an upper-echelon team with a great quarterback, but could a second-year player—still more about promise than performance—really challenge those statistics?
Turns out Gordy underestimated his boy’s output. Rob caught seventeen touchdown passes, rushed for another, and added three more in the playoffs.
A few weeks after the Super Bowl, when reminded of the healthy skepticism surrounding that summer prediction, Gordy didn’t miss a beat.
“Why does everybody doubt me?” he said with a grin.
“Entering 2011, I felt I had a good rookie season the year before,” Rob reflected. “I really appreciated the support of my teammates and coaches. The rookie year is so hard, learning the playbook and system. Your mind is hectic at all times. Going into the second year, I was more settled. I knew the playbook, knew what was expected of me, how everything is run. I was way more comfortable. Obviously, I wanted to progress from the first year and help the team more.”
Mission accomplished. The 2011 season will be remembered as the year Rob exploded in the NFL. His performance on the field was matched only by the attention—sometimes controversial—that he drew off it.
During interviews, Rob pauses after hearing a question, then answers quickly, speaking in fast chunks. Despite his intelligence, answers sometimes settle into clichés.
“I just want to keep grinding and work hard.”
Or, “I’ll do whatever it takes to help the team.”
Part of this is the burden of a high-profile athlete. Rob is accustomed to being asked questions, more often than many of his teammates. ESPN, the Boston Globe, and Sports Illustrated are always hunting for a quote. Everyone wants a piece of his time. Strangers who recognize him approach and ask for money. A letter from a high school sophomore in Boston includes a cell number, asking Rob to please phone the kid’s girlfriend and wish her a happy birthday because it would make her day.
“We’ve talked about how he needs to be careful,” said former coach Bill Gorman. “I tell him, the only people you owe anything to are your mother and father. That’s it.”
Who wouldn’t be wary of it all? Rob cares less for words and more about on-field performance. Why, he wonders, can’t that be a primary means of communication?
“Being in the media is pretty crazy,” Rob reflected. “I’m just being myself. I’ve been the same guy for the last ten years, but suddenly whatever I do is in the media. It’s weird, because I’ve kind of had to change my lifestyle. I’ve got to watch what I say and do, because little things can get out and blow up and become national news. I have to be careful where I am and what I say. At first it’s hard, but I’ve seen what’s going on and tried to adjust to it.”
Through it all, Rob maintains the hint of a grin, a perpetual smile. Life is fun and, despite the attention, he wants to enjoy it.
“There is a time to be serious and a time to not be serious, and you have to know when that is,” Rob reflected. “When it’s
practice time and lifting time, you’re grinding, going full speed, working hard. You can goof around when you’re playing with your buddies. But come game time, it’s all business. I’m serious and ready to go.”
Some of his longtime friends have witnessed Rob’s commitment firsthand over the years.
“In high school and college, he took the off-the-field requirements way more seriously than everyone else,” said Charlie Teal, the high school classmate of Rob’s who also attended the University of Arizona. “In the summer, Rob got up early to swim, worked out real quick, then took a nap, and worked out with all of us later that day.”
“He’s worked extremely hard to get where he is,” added John Ticco, another high school friend. “Not a lot of people understand that. I’ve heard people say, ‘If I was six six and two sixty-five, I could be in the NFL too.’ They don’t understand Rob’s discipline. He knows when to be serious. There are guys that are bigger than him, but their minds aren’t right for it and they flame out.”
In 2011, Rob had the best statistical year of any tight end in NFL history. His ninety catches were second to Jimmy Graham’s ninety-nine, but Rob led tight ends with 1,327 yards and eighteen touchdowns. Twenty-two of his receptions went more than twenty yards, and sixty-nine of them were for first downs. He had zero fumbles.
In only his second year, Rob evolved into a complete player. He could block, run, and catch with acumen. Having a quarterback with pinpoint accuracy made him even more valuable. But the level of success surprised Rob himself.
“I felt I could improve on my rookie year and have a solid second season,” he said six weeks after the Super Bowl. “But I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything like that. It took off to another level. I had catches every game and scored a few touchdowns. The reason was because everyone was working together. Having a great support cast around me was one of the keys.”