"Tedy Bruschi arrived in Foxboro at a time when the Patriots were in the early stages of moving beyond their novelty phase.

They were led by a high-profile coach, but they were still a championship-starved, low-watt team playing its home games in a no-frills stadium. Nobody used the words "dynasty" when talking about the Patriots in those days, and editors from glossy business magazines were not dialing up Robert Kraft to tell him he was the owner of The Best-Run Team in Professional Sports.

And so when Tedy Bruschi stood there at the podium late yesterday morning and announced he is retiring after 13 seasons with the Patriots, it probably would have been fitting for him to take us on a trip to the bad, old days, back to when the toilets leaked and the preseason prognosticators laughed.

Isn't that what old folks are supposed to do when they retire? They tell us about how, in those days, they walked through five miles of snow to get to school, clutching a roasted potato in each hand to ward off the elements. They talk about sleeper cars and soup lines, about rent parties and fuzzy, black-and-white television. Stuff like that.

Only Tedy Bruschi would have none of it.

"My initial thought on this franchise, to tell you the truth, was that I was grateful to have an opportunity," he said, recalling the summer of 1996, when he arrived at Bill Parcells' training camp after being selected in the third round of the NFL draft out of Arizona. "I didn't care what the stadium looked like. I didn't care what the field was. I didn't care if there were silver bleachers.

"This was football," he said. "I didn't need Patriot Place back then. All I needed was a field. That's all I needed. It's funny. My development as a player has coincided with the development of this organization, and how it's grown with the new stadium and winning Super Bowls - tearing down stadiums, building another one, winning more (championships). And with that, my ability of playing also progressed up that way. The growth of this organization . . . I correlate it with the growth I had as a player. It makes me feel that much more connected to the logo on the side of the helmet.""