Sports figures often are seen as role models — good or bad.
In less than 48 hours, two former teammates showed both aspects. Not with what they did on the field, but with how they left it.
Ben Roethlisberger’s tenure calling the plays and throwing the ball for the Pittsburgh Steelers has definitely had its highs and lows.
He helmed the team to playoff after playoff, showing up in the postseason 11 of his 18 years in the NFL. A 12th postseason is still a (slim) possibility. He took the Steelers to the Super Bowl three times, and they brought back the Lombardi Trophy twice.
But he also spent his time as a bad boy — from his 2006 offseason motorcycle crash while driving without a valid state license to his well-known reputation for partying earlier in his career to the sexual assault allegations that will always be an asterisk attached to his name, even if they didn’t result in charges.
In recent years, however, Roethlisberger became more family man than party boy and grew into his elder-statesman position on the team, especially when forced to sit out with injuries.
He spent his entire professional career in Pittsburgh, and although it seems everyone, including Big Ben, knows that ended Monday night as he tearfully closed it out with a beatdown of the Cleveland Browns, he can’t quite bring himself to say the words.
Antonio Brown, however, can’t get enough of dramatic exits.
Brown spent nine years catching Roethlisberger’s long bombs. He has a lot in common with his former quarterback — namely a lot of talent and a reputation for some bad behavior. But where Roethlisberger seems to have tried to distance himself from that reputation, Brown has embraced his.
Their differences are best summed up in their last goodbyes. Unlike the emotional Roethlisberger, Brown was nearly manic as he stripped off his shirt and pads and walked away from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — his third team since leaving the Steelers — in spectacularly unapologetic fashion during their game against the New York Jets in New Jersey.
When thinking about sports role models, people probably don’t think about the departures that much. They should.
We don’t all get the chance to win a championship or go to the playoffs. Precious few get to show how to behave after signing a multimillion-dollar contract.
But almost everyone will have to bid adieu to a job or co-workers, whether quitting or retiring or being fired or, if you are an elected official, being voted out.
You can go out as the kind of person who people will recall for the good moments, someone who leaves with grace. Or you can walk out in a way that leaves people shrugging and shaking their heads, completely unsurprised by one more bad example.
— The Tribune-Review (TNS)
