By Tom Spousta, USA TODAY
12 January 2005
PITTSBURGH — Most nights Ben Roethlisberger can be found at home cooking pasta or ordering takeout. Tuesdays, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback heads to Best Buy and stocks up on DVDs, adding to a collection numbering in the hundreds. He'd rather be a homebody than hit the clubs.
Dinner, SportsCenter and a movie.
It can be lonely at the top.
(Related item: Few rookie QBs start in playoffs)
Last week he decided to mark time in a typical bachelor way. He got a 3-month-old Rottweiler bred in Germany. He's determined to train Zeus with the same focus that helped him become the first quarterback to be named AP offensive rookie of the year since the award's inception in 1957.
"I wanted to get a dog my rookie year so he's as old as I am in the league," Roethlisberger says with a grin. "Hopefully we'll be ending our careers about the same time. Fifteen years would be pretty good. That would be a nice life for me and the dog."
Not bad for a cameo he figured would last two snaps when he trotted onto the field and replaced injured Tommy Maddox on Sept. 19.
A cameo that has turned into a starring role in which Roethlisberger seems comfortable. Roethlisberger, who lost his mother in a car wreck at 8, is donating his $18,000 game check from the AFC semifinal to a tsunami relief fund. And he recently thanked his linemen for their efforts by buying them tailored suits. His storybook career also includes being romantically linked with a top LPGA golfer.
With an NFL rookie record 13 consecutive wins behind him, Roethlisberger, 22, enters another zone Saturday. He'll be the eighth rookie quarterback to start a playoff game since the merger with the AFL in 1970.
No rookie quarterback has started a Super Bowl, but first the 15-1 Steelers must get past the New York Jets (11-6), who Roethlisberger struggled against in his worst performance of the season.
"To me there are no rookies anymore. My gosh, we have played almost two college seasons already," Steelers coach Bill Cowher says. "This is our football team, and this is how we got here. We have an identity right now. We have players who have roles on this team, and we need everybody to play up to the level that they have been to put us in this position. No one excluded."
If Cowher has any qualms about how Roethlisberger will perform under playoff pressure and intensity, he's not showing it.
The coach has kept his rookie sensation on a leash of sorts, making sure Roethlisberger is put in positions to succeed rather than fail.
"The regular season felt like a rookie season, but yet the farther we got going, the less I felt like a rookie," he says. "People kept saying, 'Oh, he's just a rookie, he's going to screw up.' "
Roethlisberger pauses to add emphasis to his next thought. "That was good for me. I love it when people put such high expectations on you.
"Now we're in the playoffs. No matter what, whether I'm a rookie or not, I can't afford to feel like a rookie because this team can't afford to have me feel like that or play like that."
GETTING ANOTHER CHANCE
Saturday's game will be a rematch of Dec. 12 when the Steelers won 17-6 at Heinz Field, but the Jets rendered Roethlisberger ineffective in the categories he deems most significant: turnovers and completion percentage.
Roethlisberger was 9-for-19 and was intercepted twice en route to a 33.6 quarterback rating, his lowest. His 47.4 completion percentage was his second worst.
ROETHLISBERGER WANTS A LEGACY
Four Lombardi trophies are encased in glass on one side of a hallway.
Five portraits of the Steelers' Super Bowl teams hang on the opposite wall.
Bradshaw.Harris.Stallworth. Swann.The Steel Curtain.
Ben Roethlisberger still feels a sense of awe every time he walks into the team offices. He believes the new Steelers should embrace the past.
"That's a prize to shoot for," Roethlisberger says. "I see those trophies, and I think, 'I want one of those.' It's more motivation, fuel for the fire to see that, rather than a pressure thing."
Roethlisberger grew up in Findlay, Ohio, as a San Francisco 49ers fan.
"Whenever you think of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, you think of peanut butter and jelly," he says. "They just always go together. I would love for it to be like that with me and Hines (Ward), or me and Plax (Plaxico Burress), or maybe all three of us and Antwaan (Randle El). I would love to have a legacy put in place with a receiver for my whole career."
He has thrown two interceptions on two other occasions, against the New York Giants and Baltimore Ravens.
Running back Jerome Bettis threw a touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter to break a 3-3 tie and scored on a 12-yard run to rescue the Steelers. The Jets are a reminder to Roethlisberger not to get too far ahead of himself.
"They kind of got us out of our game plan a little bit," Roethlisberger says. "They had us doing some things we weren't thinking about doing. That's a credit to them. But like we've done all year, we'll make adjustments. We'll probably have to do that again during the game."
After the Dec. 12 game, Jets defensive end Shaun Ellis told reporters he wanted a second chance at the Steelers: "If we come back here, we'll beat them. I honestly believe that with my heart."
He told the Associated Press on Tuesday he stands by his statement. However, he doesn't believe it's because of Roethlisberger's inexperience.
"He's won what (13) straight? He's no rookie anymore," Ellis says.
Roethlisberger's knack for clutch plays quickly won over his teammates. He appears best while playing against the odds on third down (quarterback rating: 101) and fourth down (107).
"It's been great to watch him grow from a rookie into ... well, he's still a rookie," wide receiver Hines Ward says with a laugh. "He's really helped us get to 15-1. It's been a pleasure to watch how he's handled everything."
Roethlisberger recalls the moment when Maddox suffered a torn tendon in his right elbow against the Ravens in the Steelers' second game. Two plays, Roethlisberger thought, and he'd be back carrying a clipboard. "When they told me he was going for X-rays, he's done, it was like, 'Wow, guess I'm out here for the rest of the game.' "
DEVELOPING TRUST
Now Maddox is the person Roethlisberger wants to talk to after an offensive series. "He'll meet me halfway out on the field to answer a question for me," he says. "I owe so much of my success to his help."
Trust evolved more slowly with receivers Ward, Plaxico Burress and Antwaan Randle El.
Roethlisberger quickly was intercepted after replacing Maddox against the Ravens and tossed another one in his first start against the Miami Dolphins.
"I really didn't know what was going to happen," Burress says. "We didn't know if we were headed downhill or what, but then he just took off from that point and we haven't been the same football team since."
Says Ward: "Coming in and having three established wide receivers, he was trying to put the perfect ball on us every time. So we tried to show him he didn't need to always do that, that we could go out there and make plays and take the pressure off of him."
BIG MAN AWAY FROM GAME
Off the field, Roethlisberger's popularity has reached folk hero status.
• In November, he appeared on Late Show with David Letterman.
• Last week, Big Ben's Beef Jerky — original and teriyaki flavors — hit grocery store shelves with Roethlisberger on the front of the package. Early this season, "The Roethlisburger," a sub sandwich with sausage, chopped meat, eggs, cheese and fried onions, was introduced to the Steel City's cuisine (the $7 cost matched his jersey number).
• Last month, an appearance at a suburban Monroeville car dealership turned into a traffic jam as Roethlisberger signed more than 800 autographs while police turned away about 500 vehicles.
• "Ben at Work" bumper stickers, a knockoff of a construction road sign, are hot items.
• If kids didn't receive a No. 7 Steelers jersey for Christmas, their parents might be die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fans.
A sign of true celebrity: His rumored romance with LPGA player and calendar girl Natalie Gulbis has hit the gossip mill. Roethlisberger simply smiles and says he and Gulbis, 22, are friends. "I don't discuss my personal life," he politely adds.
But Roethlisberger speaks glowingly of his relationship with his father, Ken, and stepmother, Brenda. Ben was 8 when his mother, Ida Roethlisberger, died in an automobile accident.
"There's a lot of memories. All kinds of things help me. My mom being with my dad. ... You keep a lot of things in the mind that really help fuel the fire," he says.
"You go through a lot of things, especially at that young of age. That's why I think my dad and I are so close. It was always him and I. That's the thing I was truly blessed with, to have someone like my dad there for me and with me through it all. The support that he's given me in sports, in school, in life in general, I can't say enough about what it means to me."
Ken and Brenda attend all Steelers games and help their son keep his fame in perspective.
"A lot of people look up to us (NFL players) on Sundays, and that's great," Roethlisberger says.
"We have no problem with that because that's part of our job. Outside of football, we're pretty human people, pretty normal guys. You have to have that alone time to keep your sanity. It never stops. I don't know how you can survive or live."
Or raise a puppy.
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