Last modified: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:14 AM EDT During the 5th Annual Golf Tournament and fund-raiser hosted by Tedy Bruschi and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital at the TPC-Boston in Norton, Bruschi lines up his putt, which he would make to give him par on the hole. (Staff photo by Drew Pillsbury) Bruschi tees it up for Spaulding Hospital BY MARK FARINELLA SUN CHRONICLE STAFF NORTON - Tedy Bruschi's relationship with the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital was in place long before he needed its services. But after the Patriots' veteran linebacker suffered a life-threatening stroke in February 2005, the role that Spaulding played in getting his life back together - including, but not exclusively about his return to the football field - ensured that the bond would never be broken. "Spaulding Rehab is a special place for me," Bruschi said Monday, just before teeing off at the fifth annual golf tournament to raise funds for the hospital to continue its work in multi-level rehabilitative care. "It's the place that helped me and rehabilitated me to play football again, and it's an organization that I'm proud to be a part of." Bruschi was joined by Patriots' backup quarterback Matt Cassel, former Patriots Andre Tippett and Steve Nelson and several foursomes for a day of golf at the Tournament Players Club-Boston that was expected to raise $385,000 for the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Network's Annual Fund. The hospital has long been one of the Patriots' "official" sponsor-partners, but Bruschi turned to it for the rehabilitation that followed his stroke only a few weeks after the Patriots defeated Philadelphia in Super Bowl XXXIX. "First I just wanted to rehabilitate myself so I could be a good father again, a good family man," Bruschi said. "And then all of a sudden, it's whether I'm making the right decision to play football again, to put on a helmet, to put something over my head where I've suffered an injury to the brain. "Sometimes it's more mental and emotional than physical," he continued. "I started to recover physically quickly, but still I wasn't ready. That's what my rehabilitation therapist, Anne McCarthy Jacobson, helped me do. Those are the type of people that are at Spaulding. They're not only specialists in rehabilitation, they're also counselors and they help you get back to feeling regular again, mentally and emotionally." Bruschi, of course, went on to play the last nine regular-season games of the 2005 season and one of the Patriots' two playoff games that year, then all but one game of the last two seasons. He told the story of his recovery and Spaulding's role in it in his recent book, "Never Give Up: My Stroke, My Recovery and My Return to the NFL." Bruschi said Monday that it's been less of a surprise for him to have played for two full seasons following the stroke than it was for him to play within the first eight months after it. "My first year back, those eight to 10 games that I played after I started the year on PUP (physically-unable-to-perform list), that was a big decision for me after the Denver game, if I wanted to continue this and if I wanted to keep on playing," he said of the last week in October 2005 that he spent on the reserve list. "My wife and I huddled about it and talked about whether I wanted to continue or not ... but I actually felt better at the end of the year than I did after that Buffalo game when I came back, and I continued to get better even after that season, so the decision was easy. "Just having my body respond for me that first season was huge for me, to know I could still play football," he said. "And then the seasons I've had, still helping the team win championships around here, is something I'm proud of." Bruschi now needs only periodic checkups in relation to his stroke, a year apart, after having been closely monitored and tested every two weeks earlier in his recovery. "I was in a data-free zone," he said. "They couldn't give me an example of someone who had done this before." "To see Tedy run out on that field ... I was there when he came back," said Cassel, who was a rookie during Bruschi's "comeback" season. "To know that (Spaulding) had a helping hand in that, it means a lot to come out here and support what they've been able to do for people, and obviously for Tedy, who is a lot closer to us." With the preseason conditioning program winding down and about a month's worth of time off ahead before the start of training camp, Bruschi has had the chance to relax a little, play some golf and happily follow the ascent of the Boston Celtics - the team he embraced as a fan during his boyhood in San Francisco - to their 17th NBA championship. "When you grow up with an older brother and you sort of have that rivalry going, my brother grew up being a Sixers' fan," he said. "I started getting into basketball, finding out who his team was and what their biggest rival was, and so I picked that team." As an iconic figure with one of the three Boston-based teams to have won recent championships, Bruschi enjoys the occasions when each of the teams have reached out to the others to help celebrate their success. That leads to more interaction between the players and their coaches, and Bruschi enjoys a special relationship with Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who has also had to deal with health-related issues under the microscope of fame. "We've helped each other get through things in terms of support and e-mails," Bruschi said. "He was supportive during my times, and I wore his jersey out to take that first pitch. But as for the players, there's a mutual respect that has to be there because we all realize what we're trying to do ... and there are guys who've been in those organizations forever, like Wake (Tim Wakefield) with the Red Sox or (Paul) Pierce with the Celtics, or myself here. All you want to do is try to bring this region some joy in the form of a championship, and when each of us do that, it's very satisfying." Bruschi's ongoing support for Spaulding Hospital is a way for him to help bring another kind of joy and hope to others who are facing the toughest challenges of their lives, he said. "There was a recent stroke survivor who told me that 'my wife and I have used your book as a manual,'" he said. "This a partnership I'll have for a long time, with Spaulding, because of the commitment they gave me ... they were there for me, and I needed them." MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com