On a chilly morning in December 1993, Terry Bradshaw was sleeping soundly in his hotel bed when he was awakened by the sound of the phone next to him.
It was Greg Gumbel, Bradshaw’s coworker on “NFL Today.” The time in New York was 4:30, and Bradshaw figured the messenger was delivering grim information.
“Did you hear the news?” Gumbel asked. “We lost football.”
Bradshaw was surprised. Since his often-turbulent Hall of Fame career with the Pittsburgh Steelers ended a decade earlier, he’d gotten very good at avoiding things in his life that weren’t fun, and worrying about the business side of his second career was hardly what he considered to be a good time.