Michael Strahan has an enormous personality and a great media and athletic career. The Houston native was a very talented NFL player. He won the Super Bowl, established a defensive end season record for sacks, and played for the New York Giants for the entirety of his 15-year playing career.
Strahan won over fans and teammates on and off the field, which made it simple for him to segue into a career as a media personality after leaving the NFL in 2007. He began creating sitcoms and serving as a guest host on other shows in addition to his role as an analyst on Fox NFL Sunday. Do you still watch Brothers and Pros vs. Joes? Michael Strahan was visible on the screen, yes. He also started his own clothing line, which has been successful thanks to his likeable demeanour.
Michael Strahan most recently shared the hosting duties of Live with Kelly and Michael alongside Kelly Ripa. Though all good things must come to an end, the two made a terrific TV couple.
By this point, everyone has heard about Michael’s notorious exit from the show and his switch to presenting Good Morning America, which resulted in a flurry of conflict with his former co-host. Nevertheless, despite everything, Michael has remained true to himself and demonstrated why he is so loved by his supporters. Here are 20 facts about Michael Strahan that you probably didn’t know.
1. Michael Strahan enjoys arranging dates for his buddies. He actually introduced professional hockey players Jarret Stoll and Erin Andrews, and the two dated for a considerable amount of time. Jason Sehorn, a former colleague of Strahan’s with the New York Giants, was matched with Angie Harmon, an actress.
The consequence of this particular matchmaking effort was the marriage of Jason and Angie. On Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, the former NFL quarterback famously asked his now-divorced wife to marry him by hiding backstage and doing it in front of a live audience. Jason and Angie have been together for more than ten years and had three daughters after being married in 2001. Even if they are no longer together, Michael still receives praise for bringing people together – he is only the matchmaker, not the peacekeeper!
2. He is the youngest of six children, and his family is athletic. Michael’s father Gene used to box, while his mother Louise coached basketball.
Due to his father’s military job, Strahan relocated to Mannheim, West Germany when he was nine years old from Houston, Texas, where he was born. Before his father opted to move him to live in Texas with his uncle, Michael attended Mannheim American High School and excelled in athletics while living in Germany. It shouldn’t be surprising that uncle Art played professional football in the past.
Michael attended Westbury High School for his senior year after returning to Texas. Just one season was enough to get Texas Southern University’s attention, and they gave him an athletic scholarship. Strahan accumulated a tonne of stats and accolades during his time playing college football, and the New York Giants selected him in the second round of the 1993 NFL Draft.
3. His hands were badly damaged from playing professional football. Michael Strahan’s fingers are twisted and bent, but he wasn’t born that way. Anyone who is able to get a close-up look at them will be able to tell. According to Michael, his fingers were physically bent out of shape from the continual stress and pressure of grasping people as a defensive end.
Strahan chose to brazen it out and continue playing after suffering a finger injury on a play, using only a small amount of tape to keep things together. You can see how Michael could have injured his hands while playing if you watch a video from his time in the NFL.
He was a true sacking legend and a monster on the field. Even though repeatedly stealing back guys to get to quarterbacks clearly took a toll, Michael still has some remarkable career stats to show for it.
4. Michael Strahan is an outgoing person who has attempted many things, but he will never bungee jump. People frequently experience fear before performing a bungee jump. After all, the more realistic way to describe it is to fling yourself from a very high altitude, and many individuals simply aren’t willing to face that plunge. The intriguing thing about Strahan’s aversion to bungee jumping is that as a young boy, he dreamed of being an astronaut. His passion and career objective of travelling to the stars and exploring space is one that he will not be able to realise.
It’s a good thing he decided to play in the NFL rather than join NASA, though. You probably won’t like hurtling through space on lightning-fast rocket thousands of kilometres from Earth if you can’t handle bungee jumping.
5. Michael has an obsession with socks and shoes. When he co-hosts a talk show or makes a red carpet appearance, he always wears a sharp outfit. For JC Penney, Strahan even designed a collection of men’s clothes that captures his refined taste. But he favours brightly coloured sneakers and shoes when he isn’t acting for the cameras.
His favourite brand is Asics, which boasts a sizable selection of athletic shoes in hues ranging from neon blue to brilliant yellow, making them ideal for anyone who enjoys donning eye-catching footwear.
Michael Strahan has an interesting habit that he picked up while playing for the New York Giants, aside from his affinity for certain kinds of shoes: he talks to his socks. Yes, in that he addresses them directly. On the one hand, it’s kind of understandable because socks are unable to assess you and won’t respond.
However, it’s the sort of amusing, oddball behaviour that one would anticipate Strahan to exhibit. There is no information on whether Michael ever expects his socks to talk back, though they undoubtedly pay close attention to whatever he says.
6. Michael is very similar to the rest of us in that he is obsessive over his phone. There is no shame in Michael’s habit because there are far worse things one can get into. So many of us are guilty of being fixated on our technology, whether it be a tablet, smartphone, or anything else.
Not only does Michael require constant access to his phone, but he also has a Candy Crush addiction. Michael Strahan pairing candies in the hopes of finding Color Bombs is entertaining, for some reason.
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7. His father is the source of his work ethic. Gene Strahan, the father of Michael Strahan, had a lengthy military career that moved his family all around the world but also taught his kids how to persist and work hard.
When not if, his father used to say, according to Strahan. It’s a potent adage that Michael has carried with him ever since, and it now serves as his own guiding principle. Strahan has steadfastly listened to his father’s counsel, as evidenced by his successful television and football careers.
8. Michael enjoys driving vintage cars. His favourite model? The DB5 Aston Martin. This specific vehicle is a stunning display that Aston Martin originally offered in 1963. The DB5 appeared in Goldfinger a year later, and as a result, it became the most well-known and recognisable Bond vehicle throughout the course of the film series.
Does Strahan personally own a DB5? Not likely, but it’s not because he can’t afford it either. This specific vehicle is quite uncommon. But if Michael ever manages to locate one for sale, he’d definitely buy it right away.
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9. Michael Strahan has an obsession with drinks. According to rumours, Michael enjoys a special beverage before each of the shows he hosts. Before speaking to the audience on Live with Kelly and Michael, he would sip on a Starbucks Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher. Michael prepares a cup of coffee with Splenda and half-and-half before entering the Good Morning America set.
Although Strahan has been a longtime co-host of Fox NFL Sunday, he adds some diversity here. Instead of consistently drinking the same beverage before the NFL show, he simply consumes whatever Jimmy Johnson, his co-host, is currently sipping.
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10. Of all of his jobs, Michael enjoys being a parent to his three girls and one son the most. Strahan has had two marriages, both of which resulted in the birth of two children. Wanda, his first wife, and he were wed till 1996. They had a son named Michael Jr. who is 21 years old and a daughter named Tanita who is now 24. Strahan wed his second wife Jean, a North Dakotan he had met while visiting a spa in Manhattan, in 1999.
Isabella and Sophia, twin twins born to Michael and Jean in 2004, are now 12 years old. Michael has always been highly committed and active in the lives of all of his children, even though this second marriage ended in a contentious divorce in 2006.