Tiki Barber: A regular guy who just happens to be an ex-NFL superstar
Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 4:30 PM by Jaclyn Levin
(From Alicia Ybarbo, TODAY Producer)
Tomorrow is a big day for all of us here at TODAY. It is Tiki Barber's first day. I had the pleasure of producing his first feature with us (which you’ll see Tuesday) and over the coming days, weeks and months, I know the viewers are going to just love him as they get to know him.
Like the pages of a long novel, Tiki and I (pictured left) go back a long way. I’ve had the pleasure of being friends with Tiki since 1998. Tiki was fairly new to the Big Apple, playing in just his second season for the New York Giants when we first met. He had just married his college sweetheart, Ginny. My husband, Mark Zimmerman, who works for the NFL, asked Tiki and his brother, Ronde, to write a weekly column for NFL.com.
As the '98 season went on, Tiki and Mark developed a good friendship and soon enough Ginny and I joined them for dinners out in New York, concerts in Central Park and various other social activities. Over the past eight years we've celebrated many life events together: weddings, birthdays, holidays, babies, and most recently Tiki's retirement from the NFL.
Allow me to give you a little behind the scenes information on Tiki. Back when we met, Tiki 
Barber was just another man living in Manhattan. He had not yet reached the status where his first name alone is all you need to identify him. It was before people would stop "Number 21" on the street or in a restaurant to ask for an autograph. While his recognizability and fame has skyrocketed over the years, nothing else about him has changed from the first day I met him. He's charming, funny and a great family man. He takes his sons to classes, museums and hockey games. During Giants games, he used to blow a kiss to his wife, Ginny, in the stands every time he scored a touchdown, just to let her know how much he loves her. Despite living in New York City, he still probably prefers to spend time at home rather than going out, not to say he doesn’t enjoy a night out on the town, too. He's very protective of people around him and one of his most endearing qualities is that he considers his close friends part of his family. He always has a book, newspaper or magazine in hand, is a major historian and gets a kick out of guessing who gets written up in Page Six's "Just Asking". And, in case you're looking for something a little more incriminating: He loves to quote movies like "Half Baked" and "Napoleon Dynamite," plays easy listening music while driving (although his driving rivals Mario Andretti), and loves an afternoon nap more than anything. He also came very close to having to be rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard off the shore of North Carolina last summer because he and his buddy Chris were kayaking too far out into the ocean.
On Tuesday you're going to see Tiki's first TODAY business spot, which is a profile piece on management guru Marcus Buckingham, but this isn't the first time that Tiki and I have worked together on a segment. Seven years ago, I produced one of Tiki's first-ever, television spots. Back in February of 2000 I was a producer on "Later Today". I had booked a dentist to chat about dental hygiene and how to properly brush your teeth. As a surprise to the audience, I had Tiki walk on the set to brush his teeth, LIVE, for three minutes (which by the way, is the proper amount of time you're supposed to brush your teeth). Who wouldn't want to see Tiki Barber brush those pearly whites? It was quite a fun little segment. I'm sure it was this segment that launched Tiki into superstardom, right? (A girl can dream, can't she?)
So tomorrow, when you watch Tiki on TODAY, think of him as a regular guy... with a mega-watt smile (and not as a superstar former NFL player), because, from day one, that's the only way that I've ever known him.
