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Back in 1994, Alcorn State traveled to Youngstown, Ohio to play Jim Tressel’s Youngstown State Penguins. It wasn’t Alcorn’s day as they were thrashed 63-20, and it was that kind of success that allowed Tressel to make the leap to Ohio State.
Steve McNair was on that overmatched Alcorn St. team and I remember being armed with a marker and an issue of Sports Illustrated, hoping McNair would sign it at the hotel he was staying at.
The team stayed at a local hotel which was only five to ten minutes from where I grew up, near Youngstown. I remember seeing him and thinking this guy is going to be a high draft pick and future NFL guy. He just wasn’t something you saw everyday, especially around Niles, Ohio. Little did I realize just how great a player he was as he walked past me and got on the team bus heading to Stambaugh Stadium.
That next spring McNair was drafted by the Houston Oilers with the third overall pick, but not before being criticized by the NFL scouting brass over the lack of competition in the Southwestern Athletic Conference and how it would show when McNair played in the NFL. McNair wasn’t tossed into the fire like some rookies; he sat behind Chris Chandler before taking over in 1997. The rest is history.
In an age where the quarterback is so protected and babied, it took a guy like Steve McNair to once again show us that football is a game of toughness and that toughness can be shown from under center. Game after game and season after season injuries tried to take number nine off the field but that rarely happened.
Hearing former teammates like Eddie George and Derrick Mason reflect on Steve McNair, it’s easy to understand why number nine was their leader. This warrior was heading to battle with his club on Sunday’s regardless of the pain he was in and how it might affect his play.
I’ll be remembering Steve McNair for the last-second pass to Kevin Dyson in Super Bowl XXXIV that ended up inches shy of victory. I’ll remember Steve McNair for the warrior mentality he showed at a position not known for it. I’ll remember him as former MVP Steve McNair.
It’ll be a long time before we see another quarterback play the way McNair did. Sadly, it sometimes takes an occasion like this to go back in your mind and relive the terrific plays that made a guy like Steve McNair the gutsy competitor he was.
Perhaps you know the story from the New Testament, the one where Jesus was asked what to do about an adulterous woman. The punishment at the time was death by stoning, but Jesus said, "If anyone of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw the first stone at her." Everyone there had sinned, so no one threw a stone. Let us hope people are wise enough to heed those words before they drag McNair’s name through the mud.
Looking back, I’ll remember the young kid getting on the bus back in 1994 in Liberty, Ohio. He was just finishing his last collegiate game before heading to the NFL and becoming one of the toughest players ever to wear an NFL uniform. It seems like such a long time ago.
My thoughts and prayers go out to McNair’s wife and four boys who mourn the loss of a husband and father.
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