After fifteen seasons of terrorizing quarterbacks Michael Strahan decided to give it all up. He’s going out as one of the best defensive ends to ever play the game.

I had trouble trying to come up with something that was so electric in the beginning to actually write to do Michael Strahan justice. I couldn’t find anything but his stats, but I suppose great players let their play do the talking.

Not Mike. He let his game do the talking and then in the press room, he let you hear about how he beat you too. During the game he liked to tell opposing line men (especially Jon Runyan) that they were beat.

Let’s just say that he let every facet of his game do the talking. Most football players aren’t charistmatic in front of a microphone. They panic, stare down, or they bare down upon you with their huge features and talk down to you as if you did something wrong to ask a simple question like “what happened out there.”

With Mike Strahan, it was different. He was one of those select few that could retort with just as much wit and savvy as the reporters could write. The quicker you could say something, he was already thinking up a response.

His answers also projected an air of honesty. Everything he said you had to believe because you could feel that it was coming from his heart. Nothing was manufactured to make you believe something different. Michael Strahan could sit in a room with 100 people and by the end of the night, there would be a crowd of 99 around him.

I guess I liked him because, past all the honesty, he was as upfront as they came, blunt to reporters that begged their sports stars to be forthcoming with their responses. He sometimes gave reporters more than just quotes, he gave them quotes of the year, things that made it easier for a sports reporter to navigate their way through a story and many times he pissed off enough writers because he was unhappy with an unfavorable review.

He was like that. A guy who lived and died on emotion. But the truth was always there in him and you could sense that there were no shades of gray, just black and white.

Sure he gets pissed when you try to suggest that his record breaking sack on Brett Favre should have an asterisk placed next to it because it came on such a shady play.

Sure he gets pissed at Giant loyalists who claim that had LT’s rookie stats counted (sacks weren’t an official stat until LT’s second year) he would be the Giants record holder and not him.

But despite all that, he played through pain and bad teams. Last year I couldn’t help but have one prevailing thought. He deserved this. He and Amani Toomer deserved the chance to win a Super Bowl because they were Giants through and through. Examples of what hard work can accomplish when talent and preparation meet head on.

When he walked into the huddle for the first time in Giants camp last year and it became obvious that he did it just to miss Tom Coughlin’s notoriously rough mini camp, he wasn’t cast off as a prima donna or a recluse, a superstar looking for a super pay day, no he was given the “C” on his jersey to signify the team’s utmost respect for him.

That was your first sign that this Giants team was different. Unified they stood to welcome back their emotional leader, even though he did a selfish thing and tell the media, the press, and everyone else who thought that this would tear the team apart (especially with the firestorm of Tiki Barber’s comments) that they were together in this.

The other moment I knew that this was going to end well, was during the Super Bowl. After Tom Brady had pulled a Tom Brady and drove his team down the field for a lead taking touchdown, there he was, riling up the offensive line before the kick off. There he was yelling at his troops “17-14.” Telling them what the score could be if they just believed in what they could do.

History was written that night when the Giants won and defeated the previously undefeated Patriots. It was a life altering moment for me because I was never this passionately involved in a team that actually won a championship before. I finally understood the importance of an emotional leader who could inspire. A guy who could get up and make a Knute Rockne speech and get his players to pull a victory out of the grasp of defeat.

I saw the Giants make history and beat all the odds. Yes, I saw Michael Strahan believe in a team that everyone figured would not complete the comeback.

Strahan believed. That’s what champions are made of.

No, that’s what the Hall of Fame is made of. Thank you Mike!