Tom Brady has a headstart over Peyton and Eli Manning as uncle and mentor to a superstar college athlete.
As the football world waits for former top recruit Arch Manning to become the starting quarterback at Texas, the final leg of Maya Brady’s record-setting softball career at UCLA was on center stage Saturday in the Women’s College World Series.
While Maya, who turned 23 on Saturday, has her mother Maureen’s own good athletic genes to thank, her seven-time Super Bowl-winning uncle also plays a role in her success.
Maya considers Tom — her mother’s younger brother — to be a “father figure,” she told ESPN.
Maureen reportedly raised her two daughters as a single mom.
“I have an amazing relationship with my uncle,” Maya said. “And I think it takes that pressure off because I know at the end of the day, if I don’t meet the standards of what people think I should do, he doesn’t care.
“To me, that’s all that matters.”
Maya is a three-time All-American and two-time Pac-12 Player of the Year who is hitting .436 with 17 home runs, upping her career total to 71.
She has name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with American Eagle, Champion, Dove and several other companies, according to the report.
“It’s an honor to carry on the legacy of the Brady name,” Maya said. “My family is just everything to me.”
Maureen pitched Fresno State into two Women’s College World Series from 1992-95 — long before the Brady surname was sports royalty.
Tom retired from the NFL after the 2022 season and has three children of his own — two sons and a daughter — between exes Bridget Moynahan and Gisele Bündchen.
But he is a proud uncle who often boasts about Maya’s success on the diamond, posting on Instagram after one of her two-homer games that it “runs in the family.”
“Sports is just a huge part of our family and we’re all very competitive,” Maya said. “It gives us so much joy. Off the field we’re all very nice, sweet people. Once we get on the field, it feeds that other side of us that is super competitive.”
Another one of Tom’s nieces, Maureen’s younger daughter Hannah, is committed to Michigan to play volleyball.
She will carry the Brady name around her uncle’s old campus.
