steve-mcnair

En route to my first cookout today, I was asleep in the passenger seat when Juan called. “They just found Steve McNair dead in downtown.” This was approximately twenty minutes after the news broke. Immediately after, I’ve received numerous emails & calls about his death & the circumstances. Honestly, the word I keep using to describe me reaction to it is “salty.”

When the Titans came to Nashville & with their subsequent success, Steve McNair gave the city an alternate face to display. It was a face different from the usual Country music icons that everyone not from here knew the city and that was a blessing. It was, of course, a Black face so that made it even sweeter. Regardless of color, the majority of middle Tennessee embraced him. Stuck with him, even during the Titans struggles & his D.U.I. arrest.

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And everybody rooted for him, even when he was traded to archival the Ravens. The level of respect for the man was that heavy. Sports are indeed a business, but McNair entrenched himself into the community while he was here, remained involved after he left, then came back once he retired.

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– From what I’ve garnered, the most accurate story available @ the moment is that he was having an affair, tried to break it off & the lady wasn’t having it. She shot him, then killed herself. All of which I got early by making calls & then found confirmed by the local paper, The Tennessean.

– I wasn’t by the TV when reports started hitting the air. But I have to say I’m kind of disappointed with long-time local sports anchor Hope Hines. As you can see above, he lightly pushed McNair under the bus by drawing comparisons to Pac-Man Jones & alluding to the fact that athletes are sometimes involved with “unsavory” characters.

Speaking from my own experiences, many of those early members of the Titans…they may have been “dogs,” but none really ran in the seedier circles of the streets. This was still @ a time when athletes didn’t want to be rappers or thugs. They were comfortable simply being athletes. Not too flashy or flamboyant, they went out of their way to be “normal” in a town where they stuck out like sore thumbs without even trying. When you’re the only show in town, that happens.

Hines is and has always been fairly unbiased in his coverage of sports, but grasping @ straws with no basis or background for it…despicable. I made one call & found out the story that The Tennessean later confirmed. Are my sources more refined than an esteemed local sports anchor? I doubt it, but even I knew immediately that A.) nobody in gets killed on Second Ave. in Nashville, as it’s heavily patrolled (and no clubs were open in the middle of the day when the news broke lol) and B.) nobody in Nashville was gunning for Steve, because that would be sacrilegious in this town.

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– To anyone who follows football, the common word used to describe McNair was “warrior.” The games where he played hurt, going weeks limited or no practice due to his back yet still taking the field & shots from opponents. As a leader, putting the team on his back to grind out a fourth quarter victory. All of the things that change players from simple positions & names to heroes & legends.

Former Titans defensive coordinator Greg Williams probably has the most telling stories about McNair that I’ve read thus far. Retelling a story from early in McNair’s career, as the team was preparing to hand the team over to the young quarterback.

“We turned the reins over to Steve in that last game, we let him start that last game. It was fourth and two and a half yards just across midfield early in the fourth quarter of that ballgame. And I’m on defense coaching the defense and I go over there and it’s a timeout and I’m leaning over the shoulder of Jeff Fisher listening to what play we’re going to run, so I know [if] we have a chance. And Steve starts arguing about running a quarterback sneak. They have Tony Siragusa and Sam Adams, these great big fat… guys and we know they’re going to put about 1,000 pounds… right over Steve to make sure he can’t sneak. And Steve is adamant. It is fourth and two and half, there’s no way we should run a quarterback sneak. Jeff looks at me and I look at Jeff and I look at Steve and I say, ‘Go with what he wants to do over what we want to do.’

“And he says, ‘Go with it.’ And there’s no way we should get a first down. And Steve McNair plows his way for three and a half yards and he comes up from under the pile and he had about a 12-inch section of sod that he had dug in with his helmet when he finally went down that was hanging from his helmet. And I looked at Jeff and I said, ‘We got us a quarterback.’ I remember that play. I still get goose bumps when I think of that play.”

A majority of Nashville never stopped believing in Steve. No matter the back story that may emerge here, a majority of the community will still keep believing in & praising number 9 who brought us pride on many a Sunday morning.