Tough Enough
Rob Gronkowski is in pain. The four-time Super Bowl champ, a bruising tight end who once mowed down opponents with ease and charmed fans with his enthusiasm and energy, is not feeling well on this chilly evening in Los Angeles. The agony has nothing to do with football. It’s his ears: One of his eardrums is severely inflamed, the other has actually ruptured, victims of abrupt pressure changes on a recent flight. He’s been hurting for hours but there’s work to be done. Tomorrow morning he’ll be on the air, talking football for Fox. Right now he’s sitting with a smile on his face, patiently sharing stories about his life.
Gronk is a man who knows how to endure discomfort. “It’s nothing new. I was playing with ruptured lungs and a ruptured back,” the 35-year-old says with a chuckle. He’s tall, the tallest guy in most rooms, with a muscular build that’s leaner than it was during his playing days. “I’m like ah, I gotta do it again. I don’t want to do it again, but I know how to do it. I just tell myself life will be even better once the pain goes away.”
Smiling through such pain is alien to most people, but it’s just part of Gronkowski’s DNA. He played 11 years in the NFL (nine with the New England Patriots, two with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and he endured more than his share of painful hits. “Earl Thomas hit me and he punctured my lung and knocked the disc out in my back,” he says, rather nonchalantly, between bites of roasted branzino. “I was bleeding out of my mouth, actually finished the game. That one hurt.”
Usually, Gronkowski was the one administering the pain. When he moved down the field, six-foot-six and an eerily athletic 265 pounds, people who got in his way often ended up on the turf. “Like a runaway truck,” the play-by-play announcer Al Michaels once said of Gronk’s moves during a game. The analyst and former NFL receiver Cris Collinsworth called him one of the top tight ends in the game. “He can block and he can make some brilliant catches . . . they cannot match up with Rob Gronkowski.”
To read this story in its entirety, see the Jan./Feb. Cigar Aficionado magazine, on newsstands everywhere starting January 21.
