Super Bowl Champ Osi Umenyiora on Michael Strahan’s Huge Impact on His Career

Ask Osi Umenyiora for his favorite Michael Strahan story and you get a warning first: the good ones usually come at Strahan's expense. Then you get two of them, and a genuine thank-you underneath.

The first one is from 2007, the Super Bowl year. Umenyiora was walking out to practice alongside Justin Tuck, with Strahan a step ahead of them. Out of nowhere, Tuck turned and said, "Osi, I can't wait to kick this guy out the league." When Strahan turned around, Tuck doubled down to his face. "Yeah, you. I can't wait to kick you out of the league."

Umenyiora still cannot believe it. Tuck was maybe in his second year, and he had the nerve to say that to Michael Strahan. The two of them fell out laughing. Strahan, to his credit, just laughed too. He retired that season, and not long after, the commercials started.

The second story belongs to Strahan and Bob Whitfield, and it involves a sandwich. Rookies had to bring sandwiches in for the veterans, and Strahan tended to roll in a little later than everyone else. One day Tuck set Strahan's sandwich on his desk. Whitfield walked in, took it, went to the kitchen, and built a replacement: two pieces of bread with a frozen ham in the middle. Then he left it sitting there.

Strahan arrived, saw it, and was irate. "Who took my sandwich?" he demanded. Whitfield came out and owned it immediately. "I took your sandwich, Stray. What do you want to do? You want to thump?" Strahan's answer was a quick, wise "No." Umenyiora called it self-preservation, and he was still laughing about it.

Then the tone shifted, because the real story is not the pranks. Strahan, Umenyiora said flatly, is the reason he became a good football player.

When Umenyiora got to the Giants, he could not understand why the other defensive linemen were not shadowing Strahan to learn exactly what he was doing. So he went straight to the source. "Stray, teach me. Show me how you became this good," he asked. Strahan said yes.

From there, Strahan taught him how to watch film, how to take care of his body, all the habits that built the player Umenyiora turned into. He credits Strahan tremendously for it.

Umenyiora closed on a point that goes beyond one mentor. Players can turn out good or bad depending on the team they land on, and he is not sure he fully appreciated how simple that truth can be. He went to a place where Strahan already was, and that, he believes, is what made him.