polamalubeast
09-08-2015, 11:54 AM
THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS' PRACTICE had just ended on a temperate August evening, and children were everywhere. It was Family Day for the team, when the wives and kids of players and coaches visit training camp, play a little catch on the expansive green grass and stay for a barbecue. As thousands of fans headed down the hills of the Saint Vincent College campus in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, to the parking lots, one of their heroes sat in a far end zone, his two toddlers bouncing around him.
That bucolic scene didn't always have Ben Roethlisberger, his son and little girl at its center. And he wasn't always everyone's hero, either, even in Steelers-obsessed Pittsburgh. But five years after reaching a personal and professional nadir, when Big Ben -- the myth and the man -- was brought low by troubling sexual-assault allegations, Roethlisberger has crafted a successful and peaceful renaissance, formalized in a massive new contract agreed to this March. As he prepares this season to lead the best offense he's ever had, maybe the best offense in the NFL, Roethlisberger has also become something more: an unintended and reluctant example of a fruitful second chance, perhaps providing a roadmap even as the NFL and its fans grapple with how many more players deserve one.
"I feel like I let down my family, my teammates, my coaches, the Rooneys, the whole family," Roethlisberger said one day, a few hours before another training-camp practice. "You feel disappointed, almost ashamed at times. Now that they have rewarded me with the [new contract], I want to reward them by winning football games. I want them to say, 'There is our guy.' I want to make them proud."
read more
http://www.nfl.com/behindthecurtain
That bucolic scene didn't always have Ben Roethlisberger, his son and little girl at its center. And he wasn't always everyone's hero, either, even in Steelers-obsessed Pittsburgh. But five years after reaching a personal and professional nadir, when Big Ben -- the myth and the man -- was brought low by troubling sexual-assault allegations, Roethlisberger has crafted a successful and peaceful renaissance, formalized in a massive new contract agreed to this March. As he prepares this season to lead the best offense he's ever had, maybe the best offense in the NFL, Roethlisberger has also become something more: an unintended and reluctant example of a fruitful second chance, perhaps providing a roadmap even as the NFL and its fans grapple with how many more players deserve one.
"I feel like I let down my family, my teammates, my coaches, the Rooneys, the whole family," Roethlisberger said one day, a few hours before another training-camp practice. "You feel disappointed, almost ashamed at times. Now that they have rewarded me with the [new contract], I want to reward them by winning football games. I want them to say, 'There is our guy.' I want to make them proud."
read more
http://www.nfl.com/behindthecurtain