Ben makes most of second chance
What a difference nine months makes.
Remember last March when Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was being investigated for allegedly sexually assaulting a college student in a Georgia bar.
Even after the district attorney handling the case declined to prosecute Roethlisberger, the outrage from Steelers Nation reached a fever pitch with many fans demanding that he be traded or released. He may have been free in the eyes of the law, but in the court of public opinion, he had been tried and convicted of being a drunken lout and a creep.
Many Steelers fans claimed that Roethlisberger wasn’t worthy of playing for the team, which they maintained was a rung above other NFL teams in the morality department. The Rooneys, who own the team, hadn’t tolerated such shenanigans in the past and certainly shouldn’t start now, they asserted.
Stories also abounded of Roethlisberger’s terrible behavior at various local bars and restaurants. He was called all sorts of names from being a bad tipper to being a cheapskate not wanting to pay cover charges at local nightclubs.
Callers to talk shows and letters to newspaper editors were full of talk that Roethlisberger’s actions had cost him the privilege of being a Steeler, and he should be jettisoned immediately.
According to the results of a poll on our own website, 477 respondents said he should never again play for the Steelers. That was only slightly lower than the 492 respondents who said the Steelers should keep him.
Well, luckily for Steelers fans, the Rooney family decided to give Roethlisberger a second chance, and he’ll lead the team today as it battles the New York Jets for the AFC championship. If the Steelers win, Roethlisberger will be seeking his third Super Bowl triumph, which would cement his status as one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history.
It’s all pretty heady stuff for a quarterback who came so close to ending his career in the Steel City last spring. But win or lose today, Roethlisberger has rekindled his love affair with Steelers Nation.
Consider the statistics, which showed him throwing 17 touchdowns and only five interceptions, or his play in the clutch, such as the 58-yard pass on third and 19 late in the fourth quarter against Baltimore last week, paving the way for another spine-tingling victory.
Then, there was also the toughness which Roethlisberger exhibited during the season, playing at various times with both a broken foot and a broken nose. Even his fiercest critics had to admire his tenacity in the face of such physical adversity.
But all that pales in comparison to the changes that Steelers fans have seen in how Roethlisberger now carries himself off the field. He’s been everything his most ardent fans could have hoped for and more.
He’s made amends to the media, which had accused him in years past of being rude and arrogant. This year, the Pittsburgh media honored him as the most cooperative player on the team by presenting him with an award named in honor of Steelers founder Art Rooney.
His teammates also commended him, saying he was more willing to be a leader of the team than in the past.
There were also reports that he was engaged to a young woman from the Pittsburgh area. Overall, he was seen as being gracious and polite, a far cry from his reported conduct in the past.
Suffice to say, there’s no one calling for him to be traded or released today, a stark contrast to what was happening last spring.
And while Roethlisberger and his supporters couldn’t be blamed for demanding apologies from the naysayers of last spring, a major part of the problem was the media’s handling of police reports concerning the events in that Georgia bar. While the media was right to publish the police reports, they should have made the public aware that they were just accusations and not proof that anything, especially a rape, happened that night.
The media should have reminded everyone that police reports are only the beginning, not the end of an investigation. But instead, they published them as gospel and, unfortunately, people believed them as such.
In the end, he wasn’t charged because there wasn’t enough evidence that a crime had been committed. Of course, that didn’t absolve Roethlisberger of being idiotic for celebrating his 28th birthday in a college bar. It was a serious lapse in judgement of the sort that we hope never happens again.
But it’s obvious that Roethlisberger has cleaned up his act, at least so far. We can only hope that he continues to act in a way that will make Steelers fans proud of him both on and off the field. If that happens, he certainly will go down as one of the greatest Steelers of all time, and more importantly, for making good on a second chance.
Mark O’Keefe is the executive editor for the Herald-Standard. He can be reached by phone at 724-439-7569, by e-mail at mo’keefe@heraldstandad.com or by regular mail at 8-18 Church St., Uniontown, Pa., 15401.