Growing up in Cincinnati, I’ve seen a lot of Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis over the years. Every season, twice a season, “The Bus” ran all over the Bengals, almost always in a winning effort. And when the Bengals finally made the playoffs this year for the first time since 1990, the Steelers were waiting. Bettis was waiting. He rushed for 52 yards and a touchdown on just 10 carries, converting several third-and-short situations .
So, when the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks meet at Ford Field in Detroit for the Super Bowl this Sunday, you would think I’d be rooting against the team that has owned my Bengals for years and that knocked them out of the playoffs last month. But I won’t be. Maybe I shouldn’t want the Steelers to win, but the truth is, I do.
And it’s all because of Bettis. Bettis is selfless and humble; in the world of professional sports, that alone makes him a dying breed. The sure-fire Hall-of-Famer has rushed for 13,662 yards and 91 touchdowns in his illustrious 13-year career. Only four players in the history of the game-Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders and Curtis Martin-have rushed for more yards than “The Bus.” Yet rather than insist he be his team’s feature back-A-like most running backs with his accomplishments would-Bettis has graciously accepted his role as a back-up to Willie Parker. Bettis appeared in 12
games in 2005, rushing 110 times for only 368 yards and nine touchdowns in 2005. He averaged just nine carries and 30 yards per game.
Bettis has not only been embraced this unfamiliar role but also taken a paycut for the chance to play for a winner and get the championship that has eluded him all his life. Bettis, a Detroit native, won neither a state title at Mackenzie High nor a national championship at Notre Dame, where he left as an All-American running back and got his nickname from his habit of running over defenders. Bettis, who is listed as 5’11” and 255 pounds (he’s more like 5’10” and 270), has to be considered one of the best short-yardage backs of all time. And now in his thirteenth-and likely final-NFL season Bettis has yet to even make it to the Super Bowl.
“I came back this season for an opportunity to win a championship, and for that to happen is amazing,” Bettis said. “But the icing on the cake is that it’s at home in Detroit, where I started my career, where I could possibly end my career.”
Halfway through the season, however, the playoffs seemed like a stretch for the Steelers. At 7-5, Pittsburgh had to win their last four games just to make it to the post-season. And once they got there, they-unimaginably-won three games on the road against the top three teams in the AFC (the Cincinnati Bengals, Indianapolis Colts and Denver
Broncos).
Make no mistake: Bettis might not be filling up the stat sheet with carries and yards (he’s averaged just 14 carries and 46 yards in the playoffs), but he has scored a touchdown in each playoff game and found the end zone nine times in his last seven games, all Pittsburgh wins.
More important, he has been the emotional and inspirational leader for the Steelers and has helped rediscover the toughness for which their franchise is renowned. The Steelers have already made history by becoming the first six-seed to make it to the Super Bowl; now all they have to do is make more history by winning it.
Win or lose, Bettis will likely play the final game of his career on Sunday, and he’ll have a chance to do something that most players only dream of: walk away from the game as a winner. After all he has been through, in a career that went from South Bend to St. Louis to Pittsburgh, he’ll have a chance to accomplish his ultimate goal less than eight miles away from his childhood home where it all began.
Such storylines are commonplace in cinema, but maybe this Hollywood ending for Jerome Bettis and the Steelers is too good to be true. Then again, maybe it isn’t.
