Strahan nearly strayed from history

BY BARBARA BARKER | barbara.barker@newsday.com

February 6, 2008

He could have missed all this.

He could have missed being honored in a way that only the greatest of our heroes -- astronauts and war veterans and icons like Nelson Mandela -- are honored in New York City. If things had gone the way Michael Strahan briefly thought he wanted them to go last summer, he would have never joined their ranks.

He would have been watching yesterday's ticker-tape parade from his living room in Southern California.

Instead, a season that started with a training camp holdout ended with Strahan pulling pieces of shredded phone books and computer paper from his hair. It ended with him riding on a float with quarterback Eli Manning and waving the Lombardi Trophy at hundreds of thousands of Giants fans who lined the parade route in lower Manhattan. It ended with him shaking hands with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sitting on a stage in front of City Hall next to Whoopi Goldberg and leading a red-and-blue sea of fans in a ceremonial stomping of the New England Patriots.

"I waited 15 years," Strahan told the crowd, "and I never thought that this would happen. And when it did, I never thought it would be of this magnitude."

No one ever does. Talk to Derek Jeter. Or any Ranger who won the Stanley Cup in 1994. Or anyone from the 1986 Mets. They all list the ride through the Canyon of Heroes as one of the greatest experiences of their lives.

The question now is whether it was great enough to bring Strahan back for another season. During his speech -- a speech given on Super Tuesday in front of City Hall -- fans began chanting, "One more year. One more year." While this is something incumbents in this country haven't heard often lately, it didn't do much to sway Strahan, who responded with a coy, "We'll see."

There certainly is an argument that this would be the best time for Strahan to call it quits.

A broadcast career looms brightly in his future, and one can't think of a moment where he would be more marketable than now, a great player coming off the greatest of seasons. Athletes love to talk about leaving the game while they're on top. But there are few John Elways and Jerome Bettises out there, few individuals who reach the pinnacle of their careers - feel the exhilaration of winning it all - and then don't want to feel it one more time.

Even Michael Jordan couldn't walk away from the game on top. And that's because as much as athletes fear becoming the creaky, wrinkly veteran who just doesn't know when to quit, there's even a scarier figure out there. There's Tiki Barker. The one who quits too early, who is sitting in some quiet studio somewhere when he could be riding through the Canyon of Heroes.

No one knows how seriously Strahan considered retirement during his holdout, though he insists that he was close to walking away. And with the way the Giants finished up last year, it's conceivable that he just didn't want to put his body through it all one more time to be knocked out in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

What everyone who watched the Giants' 17-14 upset of the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII does know is that Strahan can still play the game. At age 36, Strahan helped spearhead a vicious pass rush that put constant pressure on Tom Brady, sacking him five times.

Near the end of his speech at City Hall, Strahan told fans about the Giants' pregame ritual, a "stomp you out" cheer.

"We stomped the New England Patriots out!" Strahan screamed in an almost preacher-like cadence. And then he jumped into the air -- jumped higher than the seated Mayor Bloomberg -- and landed with a thundering stomp.

He'll be back.