The following is an excerpt from The Wolverine's annual football preview magazine, which can be ordered by clicking here.

He’s arguably the greatest quarterback ever to pull on a helmet. He’s inarguably the most decorated.

Tom Brady owns more Super Bowl championship rings than he can wear on one hand. He’s three plays away from sporting three more.

He holds NFL records for combined regular season and playoff passing yards (81,693) and touchdowns (590), regular-season wins by a starting quarterback (207), division titles (16), playoff wins (30), playoff touchdown passes (73), playoff passing yards (11,179), Super Bowl passing yards (2,838) and Super Bowl TD tosses (18).

He’s married to a supermodel, lives a dream life and easily garners the most prominent spot on any Mt. Rushmore the NFL might construct.

Yet he’s still in early to practice. He still works feverishly, maniacally, laboring like a rookie trying to hang onto any job at all in The League. He’s in the pocket, surveying the field like an assassin ready for another takedown, but also looking over his shoulder, making certain nobody catches up.

The loyalty within Brady remains fierce. When he returned to Michigan for a football game against Colorado in 2016, he spent the most time with two people — his old equipment manager and the former dishwasher at a favored pizza hangout.

Tom Brady is as big as it gets in professional football, as big as it will likely ever get. Yet the forces driving him to the game’s apex, and relationships he still cherishes, remain rooted in Ann Arbor.

Brady never had it easy here — not once. Not as a freshman, trying to decide whether to stay or go home to California. Not as a fifth-year senior, getting pulled off the field for portions of games to make way for a golden-boy underclassman.

He hasn’t made it easy on opponents ever since.

Brady’s professional career has played out in storybook fashion. Those who don’t know the prologue, though, cannot fully appreciate the tale.

Here it is — the agony, the occasional ecstasy and the angst of the Michigan years, propelling Brady to football’s iron throne via his own iron will.

Brady’s coiffure weaved through varying looks like Barry Sanders through would-be tacklers over the years. The locks hung freely when he first arrived, allowing some to kid the San Mateo, Calif., transplant about an easy-reach stereotype.

“You mean long-haired, surfboard, California-kid Tommy?” former Michigan All-American and Brady contemporary Jon Jansen said, with a laugh.

The funny thing is, insisted Jay Flannelly, the afore-mentioned dishwasher, Brady didn’t fit the stereotype. There was this one time, though …

“I may joke about the beach boy, California dummy,” Flannelly said, laughing. “I never thought he was like that, though. But he was one time, because he came to school and forgot to bring a winter coat.

“Guys were in the locker room and talking about it, and Big Jonny heard it. Five minutes later, Jonny came out and gave him a Michigan winter coat.”

Jonny, of course, is Jon Falk, Michigan’s iconic equipment man since Bo Schembechler’s early days at Michigan. Falk became the confidant of many players down through the years, including Brady. Their relationship formed early on, with a coat and some kind words, far from home.

“He was a quiet guy, as most freshmen are,” Falk recalled. “As time went on and he started to play more and develop more, that changed.”

It might have changed in another venue, Flannelly pointed out. Flannelly, aka “The Beav,” worked then at Mr. Spots, a player-favored eatery just up State Street from Schembechler Hall. He introduced Brady to savory chicken wings there and assisted in various capacities at Schembechler through most of the 1990s.

The Andover, Mass., native is friends with and a high school teammate of former Wolverine Joe Marinaro, co-captain of the team in 1995.

Flannelly credits Marinaro with helping preserve the legend before it even began to form.

“Tom was a really young kid, low-key,” Flannelly said. “But he was always asking a lot of really good questions, because he didn’t play a lot of football. He was a baseball guy, mostly.”

He was also homesick. That’s hardly a revelation for most first-year players, especially ones that travel across the country to land in an unfamiliar spot.

But it’s always a consideration — and Brady wasn’t alone in those conflicted feelings.

“Aaron Shea, Tai Streets and Tom Brady were all homesick and getting ready to leave,” Flannelly explained. “Joe used to go up to the dorm and talk them down, have them stay. If he didn’t go, he’d call me and ask me to go up there.

“According to one of the three guys, if it wasn’t for Joe, Tom Brady, Aaron Shea and Tai Streets would have left. Two Chicago guys and a California guy.”

All three navigated past those initial rough waters in 1995, aided by a team captain. Many more difficult surges loomed ahead for Brady, given the competition all around him.

This was an exclusive excerpt from The Wolverine’s football preview magazine. The annual issue features 176 pages jam packed with information, predictions, in-depth analysis and insights that will get every Michigan football fan ready for the season. Order now by clicking here or calling 1-800-421-7751.

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