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Friday, May 07, 2010

The stand-up guys

With all of the scrutiny surrounding the Steelers this offseason for the off-field exploits of a few members of the team, the unfortunate thing is that the other 50-plus players are also being drug through the mud.

With that in mind, here are just a few – remember, this is just a few – of the great guys in what is actually a very good locker room:

Troy Polamalu: It should surprise nobody that Polamalu is a gentleman off the field. Polamalu is somebody you'd want to sit down and have dinner with and talk about anything but football. Troy and his wife, Theodora, are very involved with The Pittsburgh Foundation.

James Farrior: He sometimes jokingly plays bad-guy with the media, but Potsy is always available win or lose. The other players look up to him and he's always thoughtful with his answers. Has his own charity, the James Farrior Foundation, which is involved in a number of fundraisers.

Max Starks: Always available in good times and bad - actually most of the offensive linemen are - Starks has probably had a little more adversity than some of the other guys on the front line. But he's never run from it. Big charity, a fund to promote childhood literacy and education at The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Ryan Clark: Obviously, helping those who deal with the sickle cell trait is near and dear to Clark's heart. He's active in charity work with that. He's also a standup guy.

Chris Hoke: Calls everybody 'bro' and never has a bad word to say about anything or anyone. His pre-practice dance routine is legendary among his teammates.

Brett Keisel: Everybody loves Keisel and the guy whose locker is right beside Keisel, our next nice guy. . .

Heath Miller: It's weird that Miller's roommate at training camp and on the road has always been Roethlisberger. You'd be hard-pressed to find two guys with two more different personalities.

Charlie Batch/Byron Leftwich: I'm putting these two guys together because the reality is that they're practically the same guy when it comes to handling off-field stuff. Both very professional and well-liked by their teammates. A couple of class acts.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kind of surprised not to see Aaron Smith's name.

Eric T said...

Thanks Dale.

Dale Lolley said...

Aaron's kind of a given. I wanted to put a wide variety of guys out there. As I said, it's a very good locker room overall and I could literally list 45 guys.

Anonymous said...

I so needed this post...thank you.

Anonymous said...

Don't try to defend them. The Steelers are thugs. We all know it.

Unknown said...

heath and ben have been known to hang out together off the field. cabela's will close the doors for them and some other steelers to shop in peace. my sister was a waitress at applebee's near cabela's and ben was rude to her as well.

Patrick said...

what about the guy who turned out to be a pimp in NV? was he a nice guy

I'm joking

Mizou said...

Dale- what of the stories of Farrior and his good friend Larry Foote shunning Lawrence Timmons when he was a rookie, forcing Tomlin to point him towards Harrison for guidance and help? To me, that sounds far from something a "good guy" would do. While he might talk to the media and do charity work, so did Big Ben.

My point is that how a person treats his teammates, especially those who are behind him on the depth chart, is equally important as how he treats media, or his off the field antics. I'd be hard pressed to call Farrior a better guy than Harrison after hearing those reports. Harrison might have a temper and might have made a mistake, but he didn't show up to work everyday and ignore a young man asking for help and guidance.

JW said...

Thanks Dale. Though this may seem like a topic no newsroom would think matters (i.e., snooze-fest), true Steeler fans really appreciate it.

Don said...

I had heard that about Farrior/Timmons too. What's the deal with that? Did Farrior not like Timmons personally, or did he just feel threatened by Timmons and didn't want to help him in case he stole his job?

Anonymous said...
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Dale Lolley said...

I've never seen nor heard anything about Timmons being shunned by Foote and Farrior. In fact, they put Timmons' locker next to Farrior's at their practice facility so that he could learn from Farrior. He's also credited those two for helping him.
That said, Timmons is a very quiet kid and may not have always known how to approach two outspoken guys like Foote and Farrior.

Harrison, by the way, is a big softie. Any time there's a baby or little one near the practice field, he's right there playing with the kid. Much of his personna is an act. He's actually not a bad guy.

Anonymous said...

Hey Dale. Don't remove my Batch comment. If you are going to post what SI says about Ben why can't I mention the Batch accusations?

Patrick said...

you should tell James Harrison he's a big softie.

Anonymous said...

Yeah James was just acting when he broke a door down and slapped the mother of his child too.


Spare me.

Tim said...

i think i remember timmons saying some nice things about foote on his own website when foote left to go to detroit.

noel said...

It's nice to hear some positive things about our team. The Steelers have always valued character players and it shows despite all of Ben's issues. And he has shown character on the field at least.

Anonymous said...

I love this post Dale. You picked some great guys. I agree with poster who said Aaron Smith needed added, but also understand you said this was just a few, but there were many others. I knew Keisel would make the list. He is admirable on and off field.

Dale Lolley said...

There are a lot of guys on this team who do a lot of charity work that isn't generally known about.
They don't make a big deal of it. But they all have causes that are near and dear to them that they champion on their own time.

Don said...

Dale, you said you could list 45 good guys. So who are the 8 bad guys?