One of our favorite Back Bay boys, Tom Brady, is on the sidelines with a torn ACL and MCL in his left knee.
While he reportedly is attending games and will likely undergo surgery next month, possibly at MGH, he faces six to nine months of recovery and rehabilitation. Otherwise, no one’s saying much on how he’s doing, so we called around town for ideas and what Brady will be doing to speed his recovery.
Michael Morris, a co-owner at Fitness Together on Newbury Street, also tore his ACL playing rugby. “It felt like I sprained my ankle, and at the same time, like someone stuck a knife in my knee and ran it down my entire leg,” he said.
Morris knows from experience how to bounce back from this kind of injury, and as Brady’s trainer, he would write a protocol for him once Brady had clearance from his doctor.
“Aside from obvious leg strengthening work, I would also improve the stability of his joint through a lot of balance work, combining balance and strength movements in one,” said Morris.
He’s included single-leg movements to improve the stability of Brady’s joint and redevelop neuromuscular efficiency to the muscles around the joint. “Whenever there is major trauma, you lose that neuromuscular efficiency to the joint,” said Morris.
That joint may need crutches to heal quickly. Over at Sullivan's Pharmacy in Roslindale, they can get some nice crutches that can fit a 6-foot-5 man like Brady.
“When I fit someone for crutches, especially someone that tall, I would make sure they stand up straight, and use whatever foot apparel they use,” said Sullivan’s Pharmacy owner Gregory Laham, who says crutch fittings are not as simple as it seems. “I’m 5 feet 5 inches,’ so I’d probably get a stepladder,” he joked.
He’d order crutch tops to minimize chafing and rubbing underneath Brady’s arms, and recommend an extra sleeve over the top. He could order Neoprene handgrips in Patriots’ red and blue, to avoid calluses or blisters. “Tips are vital,” said Laham. “Someone like him needs special-performance tips for better traction, and he’d need crutch shocks.”
Laham would also recommend crutch accessories, like bags that would hold water bottles and small books like playbooks. For snow and ice, he could get ice tips for added traction.
“Usually, that would be all, but if the customer is a man of means, I’d recommend telescoping crutches that fold up for easy travel.” These come in a Patriots-friendly silver color. Maybe Brady would like some reachers to pick up things out of reach, too. “If you fumbled anything, you could pick it up,” said Laham. “We have the tuck rule…”
For someone using crutches, that can do a number on the spine. Dr. Peter Hill, a chiropractor on Boylston Street, said once Brady gets his surgery and physical therapy, he could help in several areas.
“Sometimes, that kind of injury throws off your spine because it creates an imbalance,” said Dr. Hill. “If he uses a crutch, it may throw off his back, causing spinal subluxations. We adjust the spine to reduce the number of subluxations.”
Dr. Hill could also adjust Brady’s knees and would recommend water therapy and strengthening exercises. He’d also offer holistic healing, such as focusing on nutrition, emphasis on proper sleep, and maintaining a healthy mindset.
“He’ll be a little gun shy after this - it’s normal. But in order to be an athlete like Tom Brady, they have to have a nervous system and a mindset that is different than other persons. He may be able to bounce back more than others,” he said. Someone like Brady isn’t built like the average person – he just has great genes, said Dr. Hill. “I can play tennis as hard as I can and take lots of lessons, but I’ll never be John McEnroe. I’m not genetically wired like him.”
Still, Dr. Hill worried about Brady’s brain. “He may not jump into the pocket as fast as he used to. The brain gets an imprint and it does remember,” he said.
Dr. Hill would then recommend a sports psychologist.
Actually, Dr. Howard Katz, of New England Sports Psychiatry, is a rare sports psychiatrist, with years of experience not only watching the Pats, but also working with professional athletes who struggle with their injuries. He wouldn’t do any armchair quarterbacking on the actual state of Brady’s mind at the moment. However, he offered some theories on what someone of Brady’s caliber might be facing mentally.
“In a certain sense, he is at the top of his game … at the highest level of performance,” Katz said, pointing out that Brady is 31 years old, in a field that doesn’t see too many athletes in their 40s. “I don’t know how many years that can go on, nor does he. One hates to lose a year at any point in a professional athlete’s career.”
Will he lose his competitive edge as he sits on the sidelines? Probably not, said Dr. Katz. “The highest caliber athletes have reached that level particularly because they want to be in the center of things. In the most competitive moments, they’re saying, ‘I want the ball, I want the ball.’ Brady has to be that kind of guy, so it must be very hard for him to be on the sidelines.”
Professional athletes deal with injuries all the time, Katz said. “Injury is part of the game, maybe not this seriously, but professional quarterbacks have to be somewhat fearless. They have to have that built into ways to do their job, a long ago. I’m sure he has that well structured in his mind. It probably won’t change much when he gets back.”
As a trainer, Michael Morris sees athletes mentally nursing injuries all the time. “The first time you go to the cut, the first time you get hit, I wouldn’t be surprised if it pops into Brady’s brain, thinking about his injury,” said Morris.
Dr. Katz is confident that Brady is the kind of uberathlete who can rise above this sort of mental injury. “I think he’s going to come back very strong from this. He has to ... the qualities that make him an outstanding quarterback is his preparation, his level of understanding, his work ethic, a whole bunch of things that can’t be taken away from him,” he said.
Meanwhile, to athletes sidelined like Brady, Dr. Katz advises patience. “Pay attention to the broader range of things and people that are important to you, and maintain your involvement in the sport, whatever you can, given the limitations of injury. What Tom Brady does, day in and day out, is pay attention to a team’s defenses and pay attention to strategies. All of that is going to continue, I suspect, along with rehab.”
And shopping, too. We’re sure he won’t stop shopping. But at the end of a long day, he may have trouble fitting his Versace or Giorgio Armani slacks over his knee brace or sore leg. And when you’re injured, you want comfort. When he’s ready to wobble over to Niketown on Newbury Street, he can get some of the dry fit running pants that zip at the bottom. “It will allow Brady to slip them over his shoes, and he may have a mobile cast over his leg too,” said Ken Beardsley, store lead for Niketown. “He can use this casually and comfortably. It would be very lightweight and not inhibit his movement at all. Tom has a pretty good idea of what we offer, as does his girlfriend, Gisele.” Added Beardsley, “We wish him well and hope he recovers quickly and heals fast.”

Tom Brady converted his Beacon Street townhouse into four condos and sold three of them in a deal that essentially meant his own top two floors were free.
The quarterback is not only a whiz on the field, he’s a star on the real estate flip.
He bought his townhouse in Franklin from teammate Ty Law in 2000 for $265,000, moved to Quincy, and two years ago, he sold his Marina Bay condo for a $6 million Beacon Street building.
Brady also recently paid a reported $11 million for a Brentwood lot in a gated community near California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver. Other reports say Brady and his girlfriend, Gisele Bundchen, put their Manhattan apartments on the market. Brady's 74th floor Time Warner Center unit is listed at $19 million, up from the $14 million he paid in 2004.
For the Beacon Hill property, which comes with eight parking spaces and a doorman, Brady renovated the building, including installing his residence with soundproof glass. He hired Frank Nicholson, who also provided interior design for the Mandarin Oriental in Boston. Brady converted the townhouse into four condos, listed it with Tracy Campion, and sold the condos for a total of $7.95 million to Andronico Luksic, vice chairman of Banco de Chile.
Brady kept the top two floors, which sport a Charles River view. According to one real estate agent quoted in the Boston Globe, Brady broke even on the sale and got his condo for free.
Perhaps while he’s sidelined, he can freelance in real estate development.

The national economy may be spinning out of control, but the real estate marketplace in the Back Bay is steady, with a stream of interested buyers taking the plunge now that interest rates are reduced, said Ed Khoury, a Prudential Prime Properties broker located on Newbury Street.
Khoury didn’t mean to say that everything is perfect, because it isn’t, he admits.
“People at the higher end of the marketplace understand what’s going on. This means that high enders won’t attach foolish prices to the properties they wish to sell,” said Khoury.
He added that buyers also understand the marketplace and make their offers accordingly.
He said September had been a good month, with lots of traffic and potential buyers. Obviously, he said, the buyers will gradually disappear as autumn sets in.
“There’s tons of buyers out right now,” he said.
This time of year, local brokers say they all note an upswing of parents of children attending college in Boston, who are seeking smaller condominiums in Back Bay in the $250,000 range.
Parents financially able, knowing their children will be residing in Boston for four years, tend to purchase their children a studio, one- or two-bedroom condo, said Khoury.
“It makes great economic sense for parents to purchase their kids a place because paying for college rooms has gone so high,” he added.
Like most full-time brokers who have made Back Bay their lives, he knows the marketplace like the back of his hand.
“Everything, including pricing, is a function of where it is. The closer you are to the beginning of Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue, the greater the acquisition cost,” he said. And what does he consider to be Back Bay in strict demographic terms?
“St. Botolph to Beacon Street. From Kenmore Square down to the Public Garden,” said Khoury, who grew up in Back Bay.
“It is inarguably, the best neighborhood in Boston, with some of the finest real estate opportunities – and in the end, purchasers in the Back Bay over the years have never gone wrong,” he said. “By February, we’ll all be waiting for the spring marketplace.”

The Columbus Center project continues to stop and start and stop again. A September 25 meeting about Columbus Center with the Cortes Street neighborhood and the Mass. Turnpike has been postponed, due to a schedule conflict from the Turnpike’s executive director. A rescheduled meeting will be announced soon, a Turnpike spokesperson said.
In the meantime, a meeting last week with the Columbus Center Community Construction Committee had developers stating they are still looking to build the deck all at once.
“They would not be changing the project,” said Deputy Director for Community Planning Randi Lathrop. “They are particularly focusing on the platform.”
For 13 years, residents, city and state officials and developers have been working on the ambitious Columbus Center, which promises to link the South End and Back Bay by building over the turnpike and creating a hotel, residential, and retail complex. The project has received public subsidies totaling $116 million, but when the developers’ request for more money was rejected, the project stalled and developers requested an 18-month extension to find more financing. The deadline to approve that extension has passed.
According to the cost consultants investigating the financial viability of the project, they may have found a less expensive way to build the seven acres of tunnels below the skyscraper complex.
that was first proposed 13 years ago. Beal’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel Peter Spellios said the "deck" would be called a "platform" due to a different and cheaper engineering technology that can be used. Such changes to the project are the key to making the project affordable, said Spellios.
Before the end of the year, if approved, the project will resume construction, continue its temporary suspension, or be canceled, said McDermott. City officials confirmed that the project would not differ from plans made and approved in 2003.
However, all involved look anxiously to a viability report due November 15 from Related Properties of New York and the Beal Companies of Boston. They were hired by the project’s owners, MacFarlane Urban Realty Co. and WinnCompanies, to evaluate the center’s viability, said Bruce Beal Sr., of the Beal Companies. CalPERS (California Public Employees Retirement System) is the primary financial backer of the project.
"The current go-or-no-go analysis is the final round, and there will be no more chapters after that," said Pamela McDermott, a spokesperson for the developers.
The meeting was also attended by McDermott Ventures’ president and executive vice president, Mayor's Neighborhood Coordinator Tabitha Bennett, BRA Senior Planner Mary Knasas, John Herbert of the South End Ellis Neighborhood Association, John Shope of Bay Village Neighborhood Association, Lynn Andrews of Cortes Street residents, and Karen Lassiter and Joel Miller of Pope Condominium.
The BRA reports that the Columbus Center Committee is working with the developers to fix up the site in the meantime. “They are going to move equipment and trailers, see if parking can be restored, and clean up the site as much as it can,” said Lathrop. “Beal and Related will come back around November 15, and we’ll be meeting back with the construction committee.”
That’s another dubious deadline, said Columbus Center watchdog Ned Flaherty, of 75 Clarendon Street Condominium, who also attended last week’s meeting. He notes a long list of missed deadlines, including those set by the Turnpike Authority to approve the construction delay, a November 2007 deadline to have bank financing by January 15, then February 15. In April, the owners said they would regroup, talk to lenders, work with city and state officials, and come back with a new plan, according to one news story. But Columbus Center President Roger Cassin came back empty handed from a visit to his California financial backers.“We are spending $5 million a month on this,” Cassin told Banker & Tradesman. In May, the MTA set a June deadline to renegotiate, but the developers again missed that deadline, so the MTA extended that deadline to July. “The owners missed that deadline, too,” said Flaherty.
Flaherty said experts disagree on whether the project can be saved, citing a meeting held last week where air rights developer John Rosenthal reportedly told Boston Redevelopment Authority and turnpike officials that such a project is cost-prohibitive, and that he believes that most of Boston's 23 air rights properties will never get developed.
According to Flaherty, the MTA still needs to revise the project’s lease. “The developers defaulted on the 99-year lease signed in May 2006, when they failed to start construction on time and failed to obtain bank loans,” he said. “Under the original lease, the seven acres of tunnels were to have been completed in October 2008, but nothing was ever built. And the latest version of that lease allows the developers to postpone completion to 2025.”
He also noted a revised agreement is needed with CSX, the freight railroad that owns some of the rail lines that would run through tunnels underneath the project; and a new lease is needed for Manulife Insurance, which donated land and funding for Garcia Park, but meanwhile has rented the land to Columbus Center for temporary equipment and materials storage.