The 'Live With Kelly and Michael' co-host says he learns something new every day.
These days, 6-foot-5-inch, 240-pound Michael Strahan scares few people, and he likes it that way.
"They go, ‘Oh, he's such a big, jolly fellow,'" says the co-host of ABC's syndicated morning talk show Live With Kelly and Michael. "They don't understand that I used to take people's heads off for a living."
My father lived with me and my family during the last two years of his life while he sank ever deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. His behavior was frequently bizarre. He might emerge from his bedroom with three of my son’s baseball caps piled on top of his head but wearing no pants. When trying to participate in a conversation, he might blurt out passionate pronouncements that made no sense at all. “Ya see, the individualism is something that’s not already formed,” he would bellow. “You gotta...
For 15 seasons, Strahan, 43, played defensive end for the New York Giants, and he terrified quarterbacks. He still holds the NFL record for most sacks in a single season. But the Michael Strahan that sportswriter Jay Glazer described as nastier and tougher than everybody else on the field? His new fans don't know that guy.
"I like that they have no idea what I used to do," says Strahan, who lives in New York City. "I think it's really cool that I've been able to make the transition to where people say, ‘He used to play football?'"
After retiring in 2008, he joined the Emmy Award-winning Fox NFL Sunday team. His celebrity and obvious ease in front of the camera got him his first guest-host spot on Live in 2010. Strahan settled in for good on Sept. 4, 2012. A year and a half later, he also joined Good Morning America as a part-time host.
Was this all part of his master plan for success? Hardly.
"TV is just like football for me, in that I kind of got into it blindly," says Strahan, who was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in August 2014. "Back when I started playing football, I was just happy to have a job so that I didn't have to move back home."
Giant Success
As a high school senior in Houston, Strahan had little experience with football. What he had was the faith in himself that he'd gotten from his father, Gene Strahan, an officer in the U.S. Army. As for a plan, Strahan's was simply to live up to his father's expectations.
"As a football player, I was driven by failure," he says. "I wasn't driven to be successful, per se. Failure meant disappointing my parents, not giving my best, having them look at an effort that they knew was not my best."
source : Michael Strahan Tackles Life After the NFL
