Former NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw has spoken out about growing up with undiagnosed ADHD that caused him a lot of problems within his family. The conversation came as Bradshaw was promoting his upcoming memoir and reflected on the experiences that shaped him.

On Wednesday’s episode of “No Time But Now” with William Shatner and Melanie Shatner Gretsch, Bradshaw talked about the hardest part of revisiting childhood.

“You love your family, and it’s almost like you’re supposed to love your family no matter what. And then you realize that there were people in your family that really, really were not nice to you and rough on you, and you didn’t understand it,” Bradshaw said on the podcast.

“I recall one of the problems I had with my mom was that I wasn’t a good student because I couldn’t stay focused. Yeah, and you read it over, oh, did I just read this? I was always being punished for not doing well,” the four-time Super Bowl champ added.

His comments put his struggles in school into a much larger story. Bradshaw has spoken about being a poor student for years, but his understanding of why came much later. In a 2021 interview with Parade, he recalled that he could not stay focused in school and said he was tested for ADHD later in life. That diagnosis gave him an explanation for behavior that had once been treated simply as a failure to pay attention or try hard enough.

Bradshaw grew up in Louisiana before moving to Iowa, finding an outlet in things that could hold his attention naturally. Fishing was one of them. Football became another, eventually turning the kid who struggled with school into the first overall pick in the 1970 NFL Draft.

He led the Pittsburgh Steelers to four Super Bowl championships during the 1970s before reinventing himself as one of the most recognizable NFL broadcasters on television, a second act that has now stretched on for decades since he retired from playing.

Despite those early struggles, Bradshaw built a Hall of Fame NFL career. He spent 14 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers, completing 2,025 passes for 27,989 yards and 212 touchdowns while leading the team to four Super Bowl titles. He was also named Super Bowl MVP twice and won the 1978 NFL MVP award before retiring in 1983.

The conversation comes as Bradshaw gets ready to tell his story in Looking for Terry, his first memoir in more than two decades. Set for release on October 13 through Harper Select, the 272-page book looks back at some of the most difficult and defining parts of his life, including his struggles with depression, his experience with cancer, and the role his faith has played along the way.

Bradshaw has also opened up recently about his health history on the same podcast, revealing he privately battled both bladder cancer and Merkel cell skin cancer before going public with the diagnoses nearly a year later on “Fox NFL Sunday.” His wife, Tammy Bradshaw, a former radiation therapist for ten years, reportedly understood the seriousness of his diagnosis better than most, even as Bradshaw pushed to keep it private at the time to avoid public pity.

Bradshaw is also planning a series of appearances tied to the memoir’s release, including a moderated conversation and audience Q&A at The Vogel at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, New Jersey, on October 14. Announcing the project earlier this year, Bradshaw wrote on Instagram that the memoir represents the story he’s been living his entire life, finally put down on paper for fans.

Taken together, his comments on the podcast add a new layer to that story, revealing a side of Bradshaw’s childhood that even longtime fans of his football career and broadcasting persona likely never knew.