Andrew Luck was one of the NFL's marquee quarterbacks of the 21st century.
But Luck also experienced a number of injuries that kept him off the field for long stretches
of time, leading to his shocking retirement in 2019 at the age of 29.
Here's a look at the untold truth of Andrew Luck.
Heading into the 2012 NFL Draft, the Indianapolis Colts held the #1 draft pick thanks to the
dismal losing season known among fans as "The Suck for Luck."
It was a stroke of good fortune for the team, which needed to replace the legendary Peyton
Manning, who had moved to the Denver Broncos after an injury-plagued year.
After being drafted, Luck said of the circumstances,
"You don't really replace a guy like that.
You just try to do the best you can.
Obviously, he was my hero growing up."
Being the face of the Indianapolis Colts wasn't the only thing they had in common, though.
Not only were both of their fathers also NFL quarterbacks, but Archie Manning and Oliver
Luck actually played together on the Houston Oilers for two seasons.
What are the odds?
It's become almost a running joke that college football players aren't the best students,
often picking majors they can blow off so they can focus on athletics.
Not Luck, though.
The valedictorian of his high school, Luck chose to major in architecture, and after
briefly considering leaving college to go pro early after his redshirt sophomore season,
Luck graduated with his degree in 2012 and turned pro after his redshirt Junior season
in 2011.
He's also notorious for his love of reading.
The Wall Street Journal even published an article about Luck's love of books, calling
him the "NFL's unofficial librarian."
How serious is he about reading?
In 2015, Men in Blazers hosts Roger Bennett and Michael Davies jokingly suggested he start
some kind of book club.
"Oprah's book club is over, the Andrew Luck Book Club is just beginning!"
"The Andrew Luck Book Club is a giant idea!
That's a giant idea!"
Luck took the suggestion seriously, though, and created The Andrew Luck Book Club, which
aims "to build a team of readers of all levels" through bimonthly reading recommendations
and hosting group discussions.
"I chose Merlin, the lost years, by T.A.
Barron!"
Luck has a well-earned reputation as a humble, nice, and friendly guy, both off and on the
field.
How nice a guy is he?
He actually was in the habit of regularly complimenting opposing players after they
have demolished him with a hit.
"Nice hit, big man!"
"Hey, nice hit, buddy."
"Ooh, nice hit, man!"
It was a style that seriously confused many players.
Linebacker Ryan Kerrigan told The Washington Post,
"In all the years I've played football I have never heard anything like it.
As he was getting up, he was like, 'Man, who was that?
Was that you, Kerrigan?
Good hit, man.'"
Mere weeks after the Indianapolis Colts selected Andrew Luck with the #1 pick in the 2012 NFL
Draft, the team signed the player to a four-year deal worth $22.1 million, and later signed
an extension worth a total of $140 million.
At the time, it made him the highest paid player in the NFL.
So what did he want to do with all that money?
Jewelry, a new car?
Nope.
According to Kevni Clark of the Ringer, Luck just wanted a new robot friend to play with.
Clark tweeted,
"I talked to Andrew Luck a little before he got his big extension and I asked him what
he was gonna buy and he struggled to think of anything then said a robot ping-pong machine."
It's a bit ironic because in other areas, Luck doesn't really seem to embrace technology.
In 2013, Luck's backup Matt Hasselbeck tweeted out photos of Luck's phone: A heavily used,
thoroughly scratched, AT&T branded Samsung flip phone, like he was an extra in The Departed.
Three years later, Luck confirmed that he was still carrying that technological relic.
He told USA Today,
"The phone is still around.
I like it.
It's a comfort thing."
The 2013 Parks and Recreation episode "Two Parties" concerns the pre-wedding bachelor
and bachelorette parties for the engaged Ben Wyatt and Leslie Knope.
Ben's friends go all out and the crew ends up at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, tossing
the ball around with Luck himself.
Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur tweeted about the episode in 2019 and said
it was awesome.
"We were told we had maybe an hour with the players.
Then Andrew Luck showed up, and he was an absolute delight.
Warm, funny, generous.
He threw TD passes to anyone who wanted one, just to make us happy."
For his part, Luck said he agreed to shoot the episode because,
"My younger siblings think it's cool.
I gotta look cool to them somehow."
Andrew Luck has only ever been publicly romantically linked with one person: Nicole Pechanec.
The couple, who tied the knot in March 2019, met at Stanford.
And like Luck, Pechanec comes from an athletic background: her mother was a gymnast, and
Pechanec captain the Stanford gymnastics team to fourth place finishes at the nationals
in both 2010 and 2012.
Plus, she's more than a match for her bookish husband's mental strength: she interned with
NASA and earned an MBA.
On August 24, 2019, Andrew Luck's Indianapolis Colts lost to the Chicago Bears in an NFL
preseason game.
The quarterback, sidelined with an ankle injury, didn't play that night, but he certainly grabbed
all the headlines, when, after the game, the 29-year-old held a press conference to announce
his retirement from football.
The reason for what Luck called "the hardest decision" of his life?
His string of injuries sucked out a lot of the joy of football for him.
"For the last four years or so, I've been in this cycle of injury, pain, rehab, injury,
pain, rehab, and it's been unceasing, unrelenting, both in-season and offseason, and I felt stuck
in it.
The only way I see out is to no longer play football."
"I've been stuck in this process and I haven't been able to live the life I wanna live, it's
taken the joy out of this game.”
Indeed, Luck's career was beset by devastating injuries that benched him for half of the
2015 season, left him playing "in pain" in 2016, and then sidelined him entirely in 2017.
We'll miss you, Andrew!
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