**Spoiler alert! If you would prefer to be surprised by the plot of Tommy and Me, we recommend saving this note to read after your performance.**
Tommy and Me is the unlikely story of a 10-year-old boy and his football hero, and how the simple act of asking for an autograph grows into a 40-year friendship and their shared journey to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
It began in 1957 when my father and mother, both huge football fans, took me to the Eagles training camp in Hershey, Pa. We stayed for two weeks watching the Eagles practice twice a day in the searing July heat.
My favorite player was Tommy McDonald, a 5-9, 170-pound receiver fresh out of college, the smallest player in the league which made him relatable for a 10-year-old kid. I waited outside the locker room to get his autograph. When he emerged and I approached him, he didn’t just sign my book and walk away. He handed me his helmet and said, “Here, you want to walk with me?”
So I carried his helmet for the three block walk to the practice field. During the walk, I told him he was my favorite player, I rattled off a bunch of his college statistics and he thought it was hilarious. The next day I met him again, he handed me his helmet and we took our walk. And the next day and the next day, every day for two weeks. Finally he said, “You’re like my little brother.”
From then on that’s what he called me, “Little Brother.”
It became a ritual, every summer for the seven years he played for the Eagles, I went to Hershey with my parents and reunited with Tommy. During the season, I watched from the stands at Franklin Field as Tommy became an All-Pro player, a star performer for the 1960 Eagles team that won the NFL championship.
In 1964, he was traded to Dallas and we lost touch. He retired in 1969, the same year I became a sports writer with the Philadelphia Bulletin. Over the years, we met a few times at various functions — I was covering the Eagles for the Bulletin — but I never brought up our summers together in Hershey. I didn’t think he’d remember.
In 1985, I interviewed him for a piece about the 25 year anniversary of the ‘60 title team. Again, I didn’t mention “Little Brother.” In the interview, Tommy said he had one disappointment and it was not being voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
As it turned out, I had just been named to the Hall’s Board of Selectors so I was in a position to plead his case to the other selectors. It took 12 years of campaigning but finally in 1998 Tommy was voted into the Hall. He called it the highlight of his life.
Tommy shocked me by asking me to be his presenter at the Hall of Fame induction. There I was, riding in an open convertible through the streets of Canton with my boyhood hero, talk about a dream come true. Before we went on stage, I finally told him that we met years earlier in Hershey. His jaw dropped. He said, “You’re Little Brother.” Wow, he remembered. It was quite a moment.
That’s the story. I don’t know of another story quite like it. I always wanted to tell it but how? A newspaper article? A book? Nothing seemed quite right. Then I got the idea to write a play. It took about a year and I brought it to Joe Canuso, the artistic director at Theatre Exile. We did a reading in 2015 which Tommy attended with his family and people loved it. We debuted it the following year and it has been running ever since.
