I love sports. Hockey and football (American-style) first and foremost, but I root for my Rays as well. I'll even dig a soccer game or two (FC Barca in particular). I grew up in the Tampa Bay area, so my first allegiance is to any team from my hometown and long did I suffer through awful football, hockey and baseball seasons before seeing each of my three teams rise through the ranks to claim championships of some sort in each of their respective sports. The Super Bowl and Stanley Cup victories of the Buccaneers and Lightning respectively were two of my favorite moments in life, while watching the Rays clinch the American League pennant over the Boston Red Sox was particularly gratifying in as much as it denied the Red Sox (also known as the Diet Yankees) a spot in the World Series that they would eventually lose to the Phillies.
Since my family is from Pittsburgh, I have the added bonus of being able to root for the Penguins and Steelers should my hometown heroes get bounced from post-season competition early. This has more often than not served me well; the Pens and Steelers have both won championships while my Bolts and Bucs have largely floundered over the past few seasons. And so it was this year that the Steelers made yet another Super Bowl and I was yet again cheering for them. Almost all of them, anyway.
If you follow the NFL, you are probably familiar with the case of Ben Roethlisberger. A few years back, he was accused by a young woman in Lake Tahoe of sexual assault. Take this as an indictment of my character if you like, but my initial thought was that the girl was probably looking to extort some cash out of the guy. Roethlisberger had never to my knowledge been accused of anything like this before, he is famous, he is rich and accusations such as these do from time to time get hurled at rich, famous people in an effort by the accuser to get rich him- or herself. Since he was my favorite quarterback playing for my second-favorite team and had no history of sexual assault allegations, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Then came the allegations of the woman in Georgia. Things looked rather similar in this case: young woman, famous quarterback, accusations of rape. This time, though, the quarterback's accuser filed a criminal complaint. The details of the incident in Georgia that came out over the following weeks painted a quite damning portrait of my favorite quarterback. And while district attorney Fred Bright found he could not "prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt", he made it abundantly clear that if he had just a bit more physical evidence and the victim in this case was more ardent in pressing forward, "Big Ben" would have at least been in criminal court to answer these charges.
The second allegation against Roethlisberger makes the incident in Tahoe sound less like naked opportunism and more like modus operandi and as the old saying goes, "Where there's smoke, there's fire". Maybe he really did nothing to either of those women but I somehow doubt it. The stories are too similar and taken with an incident of stupidity on a motorcycle that nearly cost him his life, it begins to look an awful lot like "Big Ben" has a bad habit of making stupid choices off the football field. Choices that come from a sense of entitlement that is all too often bred into the minds of star athletes who have been led to believe that the world truly is their oyster, who rarely hear the word "no" and who react very badly when the do hear it.
Roethlisberger disappointed me and thousands of other Steelers fans, many of whom openly called for him to be traded away from a proud, working-class NFL franchise in a proud, working-class city. I was one of those who hoped the Steelers would have nothing to do with him. Sadly, the Steelers, like any other NFL franchise, felt the exigent concern was winning football games and to that end they retained him. So, I gritted my teeth from afar and cheered on my second-favorite team despite what their starting quarterback had been (at least) accused of. And when the Super Bowl arrived, I cheered on the men in black and gold once again. Almost of them, anyway.
Deep in my heart, as I stayed up watching the game until 4:00am Central European Time, I hoped the Steelers would win their seventh Vince Lombardi trophy in spite of a lackluster performance by number 7. I was hoping "Big Ben" would have a bad game but that the squad from the confluence of the three rivers would pull it out with a strong running attack and a defensive touchdown (or two). I got half my wish; Roethlisberger finished the game with two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown, and a sub-par quarterback rating of 77.4, but the Steelers couldn't pull the game out. And, with a tinge of sadness, a little part of me smiled.
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