SUPER BOWL:IF SANTONIO Holmes was looking for redemption, he could scarcely have chosen a better moment to find it. During the week building up to Super Bowl XLIII, the Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver caused a stir by revealing he had dealt drugs as a teenager.
On Sunday he did the same by catching the winning touchdown in the Steelers’ 27-23 defeat of the Arizona Cardinals. “I dared the team. I came up and told (quarterback) Ben (Roethlisberger) that I want to be the guy,” said Holmes, recalling a final drive on which he caught four passes for 73 yards.
“I told him: ‘Just give me the ball, give me the chance to make plays and I will do it for you’.”
Only two-and-a-half minutes remained when the Steelers offence took the field for the first time after falling behind 23-20, but Holmes snagged a six-yard pass from Roethlisberger in the corner of the endzone with 35 seconds to play. That was his ninth reception of the game, enough to win the Steelers a record-breaking sixth Super Bowl, but also to ensure Holmes was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
“All my friends, family have been texting me throughout the whole post-season saying that I was going to be the Super Bowl MVP if we make it there,” said Holmes, but there had been a time when that accolade seemed inconceivable. Speaking candidly to the Miami Herald last week, Holmes revealed he had sold drugs as a teenager to get money to buy shoes and clothes while growing up in a poor community in Florida.
“I’m on the biggest stage, everybody’s going to be watching,” said Holmes, who spoke out in the hope that he might be able to convince others not to go down the same route. “Everyone wants to know what I had to overcome to get here. I’m pretty sure some kids can get a feel for changing their lives and not doing those type of things, and can get an opportunity to get out of the ghetto, the hood, to be successful.”
Holmes gave up dealing after about a year, choosing instead to focus his energies on American football and giving himself the best opportunity to go to university, but it was not the last time drugs threatened to derail his career. Last November he was forced to miss a game against the New York Giants after being arrested when police found a number of cigars containing marijuana in his car.
The receiver has never failed a drugs test, and was not driving the car at the time, but inevitably the charges caused his reputation to suffer. Some people chose not to stick by him at that moment and he was keen on Sunday to pay tribute to those who did.
“I’d like to thank the Lord for helping me overcome all the things I overcame, the coaches for sticking with me, this organisation for being behind me and believing in me and my quarterback for giving me this opportunity to make plays for him all season,” said Holmes. “They kept believing in me. The plays weren’t there all game for us, but we made the ones that really counted.”
Holmes was not the only Steelers player to exorcise a few demons in Tampa. Roethlisberger came into this game knowing that in his previous Super Bowl appearance he had put in one of the worst performances of his life. Pittsburgh still won, defeating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL, but the quarterback had said his memory of that game was tarnished by his miserable showing.
“I felt a lot better this time,” said Roethlisberger, who completed 21 of 30 passes for 256 yards with one interception and scored a touchdown. “I didn’t have the jitters. I didn’t feel nervous, but when the planes flew overhead (during the pre-game show), that’s when I was the most nervous. I’m just excited for everybody that we got this win.”
Roethlisberger joins Tom Brady of the New England Patriots as the second quarterback in NFL history to have won two Super Bowls by the age of 26.
Much was made before the game of the battle between Pittsburgh’s top-ranked defence and Arizona’s explosive offence, but in the end Roethlisberger and the Steelers’ offence conjured up the game’s decisive moment.
“I’m so proud of this group of guys,” said Roethlisberger. “We hung through some tough times, some adversity. They talk a lot about the problems with this offence, and I’m so proud of the way we responded. I hope we silenced some critics.”
Guardian Service
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