Michael Strahan

Michael Anthony Strahan (pronounced /ˈstreɪhæn/) (born November 21, 1971) is a former National Football League defensive end who played his entire career for the New York Giants; a career where he set the record for the most sacks in a single season and won a Super Bowl in his final year. He is currently a football analyst on Fox NFL Sunday, and also a host for Pros vs. Joes alongside fellow Fox football analyst Jay Glazer. He also starred in and produced the sitcom Brothers.

Early life

Strahan is 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m). He is the son of Gene and Louise Strahan; nephew of retired pro football player Arthur Strahan. He is the youngest of 6 children. Gene was a major in the U.S. Army, and at the age of 9, Strahan moved to an army base in Mannheim, Germany.^[1] Although Strahan did not begin to play high school football until his senior year in high school, he did play organized football while attending school in Mannheim, Germany, playing linebacker for the Mannheim Redskins in 1985.^[2] The summer before Strahan's senior year of high school, his father sent him to live with his uncle Art in Houston so he could attend Westbury High School. Strahan played one season of football, which was enough for him to get a scholarship offer from Texas Southern University. He then flew back for the spring term to Germany, where he graduated from Mannheim Christian Academy.

College career

Strahan followed in the footsteps of his uncle Art, who also had played defensive end at Texas Southern University. Strahan was so dominant he drew double teams, and TSU coaches dubbed the double teaming "Strahan rules."^[3] By his junior season, Strahan had begun to turn himself into an NFL prospect.^[4] As a senior at Texas Southern, Strahan was selected All-America first team by The Poor Man's Guide to the NFL Draft, The Sheridan Network and the Associated Press, when he recorded 62 tackles with a school-record 19 quarterback sacks and 32 tackles totaling 142 yards in losses. He was also selected Division I-AA Defensive Player of the Year by The Poor Man's Guide. In 1992 he was named 1st team All-Southwestern Athletic Conference and the SWAC's Player of the Year for the 2nd consecutive season. He was also named Black College Defensive Player of the Year. As a junior in 1991, Strahan led the SWAC with 14.5 quarterback sacks. His 41.5 career sacks is a Texas Southern record.^[5]

Awards and honors

• 2× First-team All-SWAC (1991–1992)
• 2× SWAC Defensive Player of the Year (1991–1992)
• First-team AP College-division All-American (1992)

^[5]

Professional career

Strahan was drafted in 1993 in which he would play 9 games due to injuries, keeping him from playing the playoff game that season. After few unremarkable seasons, Strahan would have a breakout year in 1997 in which he would record 14 sacks. For his efforts he was voted into his first Pro Bowl and was also named to the First Team All-Pro by the Associated Press.

Then in 1998, Strahan follows up his success with another double digit sacks season where he would rack up 15 sacks and was voted into his second Pro-Bowl and All-Pro team.

In the 2001 season, Strahan holds the NFL record for sacks in a single season with 22.5 since it was made into an official statistic in 1982 (breaking New York Jets' Mark Gastineau's total of 22).

In 2002, Michael Strahan and the Giants were negotiating a new contract. Strahan turned down a $17 million offer. Strahan's teammate Tiki Barber criticized Strahan as being "greedy."

Few defensive ends in the NFL were more dominant than Strahan from 1997 to 2005. He was named the 2001 NFL Defensive Player of the Year and was a two-time NFC Defensive Player of the Year (in 2001 and 2003). Throughout the greater part of the 2004 season, Strahan was injured with a torn pectoral muscle, which limited him to only 4 sacks. He rebounded in 2005, returning to the Pro Bowl, with his protégé, Osi Umenyiora as the two combined for 26 sacks while anchoring the Giants' defense.

It looked as though Strahan would retire after the 2006 season when he did not report to Giants training camp and missed the entire preseason, but the 14-year veteran opted to return for one final year. When he recorded a sack in the 2006 season, he and his teammates pretended to take a basketball jumpshot while yelling "Ballin'!" (from the Jim Jones rap video "We Fly High"). This team celebration was short-lived however, as officials then threatened to penalize the team 15 yards for an unsportsmanlike celebration should they continue as a group.

On October 23, 2006, with a sack of Drew Bledsoe in a Monday night game against the Dallas Cowboys, Strahan tied Lawrence Taylor for the Giants franchise record for most career sacks with 132½. It was the last sack Strahan would get that season, as two weeks later he suffered a Lisfranc fracture against the Houston Texans and would miss the remainder of the season and the playoffs.

His 15th and final season proved to be the Giants' best season since 1990. On September 30, 2007, he sacked Donovan McNabb from the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday Night Football, increasing his career total to 133.5, setting a new franchise record. This total does not include 9½ sacks accrued by Taylor in his rookie season of 1981, the year before sacks became an official NFL statistic. On Sunday February 3, 2008, at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Strahan had 2 tackles and 1 sack in Super Bowl XLII, in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in NFL history. Bolstered by a strong defense and unrelenting pass rush, the Giants went on to win the game 17-14, over the then-undefeated 18-0 New England Patriots, giving Strahan his first Super Bowl win as an NFL starter. His saying was "Stomp you out!"

On June 9, 2008, Michael retired from the NFL. He told Jay Glazer of Foxsports.com "It's time, I'm done."^[6] Strahan will become eligible for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame starting in 2013.

Strahan retired with 141.5 career sacks, 794 career tackles, 4 career interceptions, 21 forced fumbles and 2 career touchdowns in 200 games over a 15 year career (through 2007 season). He was also named to the Pro Bowl roster seven times.

Record-breaking sack

With Strahan coming free, Favre slid down and Strahan fell on top of Favre for an easy sack. After the play, during the ensuing celebration, many of the Giants' defensive players patted Favre on the helmet. At least one observer accused Favre of deliberately falling to ensure that Strahan would get the record.^[7] However, Packers right tackle Mark Tauscher claimed it was just a bad play and "we wanted to avoid that sack."^[8] Mike Freeman, New York Times columnist wrote: “Yes, Mr. Favre, Strahan deserves the record, but please, handing it to him the way you did, as if you were throwing change into a Salvation Army bucket, is the kind of mistake Favre may never live down.”^[9]

In the media

• An April Fools' Day prank (2006) produced an on-screen brawl with Tom Arnold during an episode of The Best Damn Sports Show Period, in which Strahan allowed Arnold to get the better of him. The two also worked together as judges for the December 7, 2004 contest "America's Craziest Sports Fan" sponsored by MSN.com.
• During the first half of the 2006 NFL season, Strahan appeared in Pizza Hut commercials alongside other notable NFL icons.
• Strahan appeared in a long-running commercial for Right Guard antiperspirant in a comedy role where his foul odor made fans pass out.
• Strahan also appeared in a Snickers commercial. In this commercial, a Dallas Cowboys fan says to Strahan, "Big ole Michael Strahan, you ain't nothin', how 'bout them Cowboys!" A voice-over responds, "Forgetting you're in New York: another unfortunate side-effect of hunger," while Strahan charges toward the rival fan. (An alternate version of this commercial substitutes "impaired judgment" for "forgetting you're in New York".)
• Strahan has appeared in a series of TV commercials for Sports Authority.
• Strahan was the host of the home improvement program Backyard Stadiums on DIY Network, where he and a team of contractors and gardeners lay out sports courses and goals in backyards.^[10]
• On October 8, 2007, Strahan was a special guest during the opening segment of CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer and promoted his new book "Inside the Helmet: Life as a Sunday Afternoon Warrior".
• Strahan was featured on the cover of the final video game of the NFL Blitz series.
• Strahan made a guest appearance on the second season of the NBC primetime show Chuck.
• On June 24, 2008, it was announced that Strahan would be joining the Fox NFL Sunday pregame show, alongside Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Jimmy Johnson.^[11]
• In September 2008, Strahan starred in VIP Like Me, a web series for Snickers.^[12]
• In March 2009, Strahan reportedly used a Lightning GPS Tracker^[13] to keep an eye on his long time girlfriend without her knowledge. Originally covered by the New York Post,^[14] this story was later picked up by various news channels.
• On April 27, 2009, Strahan appeared on Fox News Channel's Hannity to promote Monster.com and the NFL's Director of Fandamonium program.
• Strahan co-stars in the 2009 television sitcom Brothers for Fox.
• Strahan stars in award winning^[15] commercial series for Vaseline Men^[16]
• Strahan along side New York Giants DE Justin Tuck also appears in Subway's 5 Dollar Foot Long commercials.^[17]
• Strahan appeared as a commentator in the April 2010 miniseries America: The Story of Us.
• Strahan does commercials for Dr Pepper. Where he delivers a pizza to Donovan McNabb's house then proceeds to tackle him over a coffee table, after which Donovan's maid serves him a Dr Pepper. The conclusion is a parody of Dr Pepper's "trust me, I'm a doctor" slogan, as Strahan says "trust me, I've sent people to the doctor."
• Strahan did a commercial for CA technologies for their new product Total Defense r12.^[18]
• On October 1, 2010, Strahan co-hosted the top-rated morning program Live with Regis and Kelly alongside Kelly Ripa in Regis' absence.
• In the behind-the-scenes video of NFL Rush Zone: Guardians of the Core, Strahan appears as the last football star in the video, stating that Ish will save us all.

Personal life

Strahan resides in Montclair, New Jersey.^[19]

Through 1996 he was married to Wanda Hutchins in Germany.^[20] They have a daughter Tanita (1992) and son Michael Jr (1995); Michael Jr. shares his father's infamous diastema smile. Michael Sr. moved them to the US and purchased a $163,000 house for them in the same Houston neighborhood as his parents; he pays $2,500 monthly in child support.^[21]

In 1999 he married Jean Muggli of North Dakota. Stories conflict as to whether they met at a 1996 book signing^[22] or at a Manhattan, New York spa.^[23] They have twin daughters Sophia and Isabella (born October 2004). They divorced acrimoniously in 2006. Jean Muggli made an accusation of Strahan videotaping her sister beating Jean, and repeatedly cheating.^[24] In January 2007 Judge James B Cooney awarded Muggli $15 million in a divorce settlement^[25] in addition to $18,000 monthly child support.^[26] Muggli claimed and testified that their (at the time 20 months old) daughters did “like to be accessorized",^[27] and that “Isabella doesn't like to leave the house without a purse” as the justification for her $22,500 photoshoots, $27,000 clothing bills, and $1,700 in sign language classes. (Neither daughter is hearing impaired.)^[28] With this being more than half of his $22 million assets, Strahan appealed. In March 2007 divorce judge Cooney ordered the mansion to be auctioned and the sales money split evenly between Jean;^[29] the house is valued at $3.6 million.^[30]

After his divorce in 2007, Strahan dated model Nicole Mitchell, who was previously married to comedian Eddie Murphy. Strahan's tumultuous relationship with Nicole has been highlighted by the media due to reports of Nicole's alleged infidelity. Her alleged affair with A&R executive Demetrius Spencer was brought to media attention when Strahan allegedly implanted a covert GPS tracking device in her car. Strahan had previously used covert GPS tracking methods to expose his cheating ex wife Jean's infidelity in 2007. Exposed by the New York Post,^[31] GPS experts at Lightning GPS ^[32] confirm that the GPS Tracker used gives the administrator the ability to remotely lock, unlock, start, and turn off a car, putting Strahan in complete control of Nicole Murphy's whereabouts, deemed by the New York Post^[31] as Strahan's "Lock of Love." Strahan denies the allegation, and he and Murphy were engaged on May 22, 2009.^[33]

In June 2011, Strahan filmed a commercial supporting legalizing same-sex marriage in New York.^[34][35]

Philanthropy

In 2002 he had a multimillion dollar restoration and renovation ^[36] of Georgian Heights, a home built in 1906 at 99 Lloyd Ave, a red brick house with a carriage house and greenhouse that he bought in 2000 for $1.3million.^[37] Before moving in he allowed the Junior League Of Montclair Newark to use his house a model home for its Montclair Junior League show house charity fundraiser.^[38] From May 28–31 the League decorated the mansion, had a 'bare bones' party and a black-tie affair; they also held $25 tours ^[39] to fund Junior League programs called Children At Risk and HomeCorp.^[40] Children At Risk aids children and families ^[38] and HomeCorp is a housing agency that helps low income people achieve home ownership.

"Basically, we're redoing our house to let strangers walk through it for a month," Strahan said. "It's a month-long fundraiser. They'll come in and decorate, paint the walls. They'll hang the curtains, bring in furniture, light fixtures. None of it will be ours. When they're done, if we want something, we get it at cost."

In February 2008, Strahan and Giants teammate Justin Tuck teamed up with Nike to design their own exclusive pair of sneakers for ID studio in New York City. All proceeds of the sneakers were donated to Nike’s Let Me Play global campaign.^[41]

Following the 2007 arrest of Michael Vick on dogfighting charges, Strahan appeared in a televised public service announcement for PETA.^[42]

References

External links

• Michael Strahan on Twitter
• New York Giants bio
• Official Website