Doyel: Ex-Colts QB Andrew Luck keeps showing up, looking happy in retirement
He appears every now and then, looking happier than ever, reminding us of what we had here in Indianapolis from 2012-18 when he was quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. These sightings of Andrew Luck, unexpected and beautiful, like a blue jay in the backyard, are bittersweet because he looks so happy and we want him to be happy and we just wish he could’ve been happy here.
Not that Luck was unhappy his entire time with the Colts. You know I don’t mean that. Just at the end, the last few weeks, months, maybe even years, when his body was breaking down under the onslaught of opposing defenses. But you know all of that. No need to relive the past. Let’s do like Andrew is doing – he’ll always be Andrew to you and me – and take stock of where we are right now, and where he is.
Where is he? He’s living the dream, one that doesn’t jibe with what most of us, me included, would consider the dream. Most of us, me included, would’ve thought he was living the dream when he was with the Colts, the highest-paid player in NFL history in 2016, the superstar quarterback, the face of the franchise and an entire city.
But our dreams, like our smart cell phones, were never the same as Andrew’s.
Andrew Luck uses his moment to honor Title IX
This was Saturday at Stanford.
Luck was there for the same reason he was at Lucas Oil Stadium the night of Jan. 10, the CFP national title game: to be honored with the College Football Hall of Fame class of 2022.
Andrew being Andrew, he showed up that night in Indianapolis. He didn’t have to. Would you have been offended, had the Class of 2022 walked across the field without a certain quarterback from Stanford? All the history, the awkwardness, even the way he was booed off the field the last time he was there, the night of Aug. 24, 2019, when news broke of his retirement at age 29 during the preseason game that night … it was a lot. Some people would’ve skipped the appearance in January.
Not Andrew. He was there, wearing a blue blazer over his Stanford T-shirt and blue jeans. He had a mustache. He looked about 25 pounds lighter than his playing weight, when he was the prototypical NFL quarterback at 6-4, 240 pounds. He looked happy.
Earlier in the night, Colts receivers coach Reggie Wayne had posted on Twitter a photo of himself and Andrew in a hallway inside Lucas Oil Stadium, smiling enormously. That was his first trip back to Lucas Oil Stadium since 2019. You wonder if it’ll be his last. With Andrew, nothing would be a surprise. Not anymore.
Which brings us to Saturday at Stanford Stadium where Stanford was playing Southern California, and where Luck was being honored for his coming induction into the College Football HOF. ABC sideline reporter Holly Rowe found Luck on the sideline, and asked for an interview on camera. Andrew being Andrew, he said yes. But only if he could make one final comment, as Rowe indicated by saying, “I know you wanted to say one more thing about a special Hall of Fame class” and then yielding the microphone to Andrew.
He’s nodding and pursing his lips. He’s wearing a Stanford golf shirt and baseball cap. He has the neckbeard. Can’t you just see him?
“Yeah, no,” he said, and can’t you just hear him? “For me certainly (it's) the College Football Hall of Fame, but it’s the 50th anniversary of Title IX, (and) the Stanford Hall of Fame inducted 10 incredible women.
“It’s special to share this night with women, and it’s special…” – Andrew closes eyes and puts his hands to chest, as if he’s hugging someone – “and it’s especially topical because I have two girls now, and I want my girls to have all the opportunities in the world that little boys have as well.”
And then the interview was over. Andrew had said what he wanted to say. He’s always been like that, doing things his way, but doing it in a way nobody could possibly mind. Because he says such sweet things. He does such sweet things. He was ours, for a while. Did we realize how lucky we were?
Doyel:Colts QB Andrew Luck shocks world by retiring, and for his sake I hope he's right
Can't you just see Andrew Luck teaching third graders?
The things we know about Andrew Luck now, we know them by accident. He’s somewhere beyond private, but not quite reclusive. That word, reclusive, implies unhappiness. Nothing about Andrew seems unhappy now.
The Stanford football Twitter account posted a photo of Luck and his family Saturday night: Luck, his wife Nicole, and those two girls he mentioned earlier. The older girl looks about 2½, with a Stanford sweatshirt tied around her waist and pink noise-reducing headphones over her ears. Her younger sister is an infant, a few months old, asleep inside a baby carrier above Nicole’s sternum. Andrew looks blissful.
But he’s private. The only reason we know he’s at Stanford, right now, attending graduate school, is because Cardinal coach David Shaw mentioned it last month during an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show. Immediately, Shaw realized his mistake.
“Yeah,” he said, “I don’t know if I was supposed to publicize that.”
Shaw forged ahead. Too late now, you know?
“He and his wife Nicole are coming back out this way, and he’s just going to be around,” Shaw said. “He loves the Stanford environment, and he and his family are going to spend some time here, and we can’t wait to be around him.”
According to something called Stanford Profiles, a section of the main Stanford website accessible only by students, faculty and staff, Luck is getting his Master of Arts in Education. That news comes last month from the Stanford student newspaper. Doesn’t say what Luck plans to do with that Masters, but you can imagine. He started the Andrew Luck Book Club, remember? He spent so much time around Riley Hospital for Children, he became an ambassador for the place. He showed up at a park in Brownsburg in July, saw some kids playing football there, and joined them.
You can imagine Luck teaching English at Palo Alto High. You can imagine him teaching third grade at Brown Elementary in Brownsburg.
Meantime, you can hear him talking to ESPN’s Robert Griffin III before the CFP title game in January, when RGIII asked what Luck’s been doing these days, and Luck said: “Full-time daddy duty, and it’s been a complete joy.”
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.