Free Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity by Drew Brees

Louvre. I was waiting for the right time. Finally I said, “Hey, babe, reach into my coat pocket and grab the map. Let’s figure out where we’re going tomorrow.”
    She reached in and suddenly pulled her hand back out as if she’d found something crawling in there. “The map’s not in there,” she said.
    “Are you sure? Check one more time.” I knew full well the ring box was waiting for her in that pocket. Again she insisted the map was not in that pocket and began to check the other pockets in my coat.
    “Check that pocket again, sweetie.”
    “It’s not there.” She shoved the coat my way for me to find the map.
    “Baby, just pull out what’s in there.”
    She was kind of flustered at that point, but she reached in and pulled out the box. While she was concentrating on that, I slipped onto one knee next to her. I took out the ring and put it on her finger, proposing in my best Texas French. She was wiping away the tears. I was crying too. It was a good thing I’d practiced so much—somehow the words came out perfectly.
    What we didn’t know at the time was that a couple from Canada was sitting behind us to our right. Brittany and I were so oblivious, we had no idea there was a single other person in the restaurant. The husband saw me go down on my knee, and he must have been a Boy Scout—always prepared—because he pulled out his camera and took a picture.
    Six months later I got the picture in the mail. There would be many more good snapshots to come.

Coming Back Stronger
    A New Coach, a New Season
    When I got back from the trip, I was introduced to our new coach, Marty Schottenheimer. I loved the guy from the start. I’d still run through a wall for him. But when I started out, I was a young quarterback who needed to learn, grow, mature, and develop. He was a hard-nosed football coach who knew only one way. He helped toughen me up mentally and emotionally. He talked about the great quarterbacks he had coached in the past—guys like Bernie Kosar, Joe Montana, and Rich Gannon. I just hoped he would be talking about me like that someday.
    Marty was passionate about coaching. He always wore his emotions on his sleeve. If he was talking about somebody he cared about, he’d get choked up. He’d cry at half the team meetings too—that was just his personality. And if you were sitting in the front row, your chances of catching some of his saliva on your forehead from the speech he was giving were pretty good. Behind that passion was always a very articulate and specific message. Marty was a great communicator and motivator, and he had an old-school mentality of taking pride in being tough. That was one of the things we loved about him. “We’re gonna pound the ball! We’re gonna play great defense! And we’re gonna hit ’em in the mouth.” That was saying it nicely.
    At training camp in the summer of 2002, Marty introduced a new set of coaches: Cam Cameron, Brian Schottenheimer, and Pete Carmichael. Marty sized up the quarterback situation and said, “Competition’s open, Drew and Doug. And whoever wins this job will have earned it—I can promise you that.”
    Doug and I battled it out that preseason. Doug was a fierce competitor, and his desire to keep the job made me better. Competition seems to bring out the best in everyone. By the time regular season began, I was named starting quarterback. To be perfectly honest, I think it was dead even between me and Doug. But the fact was, he was forty years old and I was twenty-three. Marty seemed to like the upside of the young buck, although he could certainly appreciate the fight the old dog still had in him. I started every game that year.
    Then came a pivotal moment in a matchup against Buffalo, the fourteenth game of the season. We had gotten off to a blistering start that year, winning six of our first seven games, but now we were stalled. After a tough few weeks, we had an 8–5 record and still had a good shot at making the playoffs. We were