Gronk Tells Fun Story Of Emptying His Bank Account For A Hot Tub In College

When people ask me about the Golden Age of the Internet, I like to think back to simpler times like 2007-2011 when athletes like Gronk were content machines and society just laughed. 

You’re damn right I miss those days, so it was nice to hear Gronk open up on his “Dudes on Dudes” podcast show with co-host Julian Edelman about his early college days in Arizona. 

It’s conversations like this that will make you feel nostalgia towards times before NIL when athletes were forced to use their own money if they wanted to buy a hot tub.  

“I had no money in college because my brother and I, we put all our money together that was left in our back account and we bought a hot tub the first three weeks we were at the University of Arizona,” Gronk remembered. 

“Literally, we drained our bank accounts. They were at $0. All I needed was $15 a week and I was satisfied. It got the job done.”

And what could you get in the mid-2000s with $15 a week?

“It got me a 30-pack and it got me lunch. That’s all I needed,” the future hall of famer added. 

Now, you might think that makes Gronk sound like a complete moron meathead football player. Never forget that this meathead was honored in high school as a scholar athlete who had a 3.75 GPA and scored a 1560 on the SAT. 

The guy was/is a genius. 

Rob famously wrote in his 2015 book, It’s Good To Be Gronk, that he never touched the $70 million he earned playing in the NFL. Instead, he lived off his endorsement deals. 

The Gronks understood that the hot tub would make for a legendary college experience — Rob was at Arizona from 2007-2009; he didn’t play in 2009 due to back surgery — and that was worth more than having a few bucks in their pockets and no hot tub. 

Stop and think back to your own college career. The hot tub would’ve been amazing, right? You’re damn right it would’ve been. 

It would’ve been more shocking if the Gronks didn’t spend all their money on a hot tub in college

In a 2014 profile on what it was like to raise five Gronk boys, Gordy Gronkowski, whose sperm produced these beasts, laid out what steps he and his then-wife, Diane, took to survive. 

The steps: 

• Build the family house with double-width hallways

• Extra-tall doors and huge rooms

• Each boy had a king-size bed

• One massive room held three king-size beds

• The boys slept wherever they crashed

• The backyard had a baseball field

• Tennis court

• Basketball court

• Pool

• Hot tub

• The basement had a massive gym loaded with weights, since Gordy ran a bunch of gyms

• Two full-size refrigerators and freezers

• Twenty gallons of milk per week

“It was a lot of work raising them,” Diane told the Tampa Bay Times. “But I wasn’t raising them in any specific way. They love sports. They all did hockey, football, basketball, baseball. They went snow skiing. They went waterskiing. They played tennis. They swam. They played golf. So pretty much whatever anybody wanted to do, it’s like, ‘Okay, we’ll go do it.'”

Conclusion: The hot tub made perfect sense.