Finally, Some Actual Steelers News, and It’s Breaking My Heart…

I was browsing a list of available Steelers-related articles a few days ago, and they looked something like this:

1. (Insert position) (Insert draft prospect name) Might Be a Fit for the Steelers!!!!
2. (Insert pundit name) Final (or Semi-Final, or Penultimate) Steelers Pre-Combine Mock Draft!!!!
3. (Insert former Steelers player name) “Not a Lock” for First-Round Hall of Fame Ballot, According to (Insert Pundit Name)!!!
4. (Insert name of player no one has ever heard of) signs future/reserve contract with the Steelers.
5. (Insert name of player everyone has heard of) a good fit for Steelers in free agency!!!! [Forget about the fact that said player is almost certainly too expensive for the Steelers]
6. Steelers (insert number of millions of dollars) under salary cap!!!
7. Steelers (insert number of millions of dollars) over salary cap!!!
8. Kevin Colbert says Team Looking to Upgrade at Player Hydration Acquisition Sub-Manager [that would be the guy who actually hauls the Gatorade into the facility, or insert name of other low-level support staff]!!!

Okay, so I made that last one up. But you see the problem. There is basically nothing of substance to talk about, except for the very unexciting No. 4.

Until yesterday afternoon. The Steelers issued a statement announcing Heath Miller’s retirement. And all of a sudden I realize I would have been okay to not have any real news for a while.

Part of me is thrilled for Heath that he went out his way, when he wanted, hopefully before any hope of leading a relatively normal life is gone. I hope all players are feeling increasingly comfortable with doing this. (Which means, of course, that they leave before their team and/or their fans are ready to see them go.)

Part of me is one of those fans who wasn’t ready to let him go. He was a favorite of mine, just for the dreamy blue eyes, long before I had any idea what a good player he was, or what a kind and caring human being.

And part of me is bracing for the various comments that “he was washed up anyhow, better to save the cap space.” Football may be a business for the league and the owners, but it always grieves me to see people treated as expendable.

But before I pen a quick tribute, here is the official statement he gave to the team to release:

Today, I informed the Steelers of my plans to retire. I realize how extremely fortunate and grateful I am to have spent my entire career as a Pittsburgh Steeler. I would like to thank the Rooney Family, Kevin Colbert, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlin, James Daniel and the rest of the Steelers organization for giving me the opportunity to live out my childhood dream. I will always cherish and value the special bonds that I formed with my teammates. It was truly an honor for me to take the field with them. I am also appreciative of my entire family and all of the coaches who helped me along the way. Additionally, I want to thank Steelers Nation, the best fans in the NFL!

Lastly, I owe the biggest thank you to my wife, Katie, and our four children for their unwavering support.

Not too surprisingly, Miller is going out the way he lived during his entire career—with class.

Heath has long been a favorite of mine. I started to take a bit closer interest in him when I went to a team event in December of 2011 at the Steelers Southside facility. We ate lunch in the team cafeteria, and as we shuffled through the line one of the women near me asked one of the men serving the food who was the nicest guy on the team. He didn’t hesitate for even one moment before saying “Heath Miller.” I’m guessing those workers are pretty anonymous to a lot of the players, but obviously not to Miller.

We were given a tour of the locker room, and I jotted down some of the things that struck me at various lockers—Dennis Dixon’s locker bristling with shoes, or David Johnson’s stock of arginine and other powdered supplements, sufficient to set up his own shop. In Heath’s locker, I found—mail. One of those white Postal Service plastic crates, full to the brim, and more stuff in the mailroom.

I didn’t have the chutzpah (or presence of mind) to go through it, and indeed the contents might have been disappointing. “To Our Neighbor at Locker” from Comcast, or travel brochures, that sort of thing. But as I’ve read and written more about Heath through the years, I feel quite convinced that he maintains a voluminous correspondence with sick children and so on.

Which may be romanticizing on my part. But I know he has been involved with the outreaches at Children’s Hospital, and more to the point, he seems to have his priorities in order. Back in 2009 he was interviewed by CBN, and there was an interesting exchange in it, noting his reaction to being on a Super Bowl-winning team in his rookie year:

As a kid you dream of playing in the NFL, win the Super Bowl, and, first year, I did that. You realize this isn’t all there is to life—there’s got to be more to life than the game of football or winning the Super Bowl.

And while Heath clearly devoted himself to being the best football player he could be—and that was awfully good—he never lost touch with reality. In my article “Humility and How I Got It: Brown, Bryant, and the Evolution of “Humble” I suggested that Miller might be a suitable role model for some of the younger players. I quoted a few bits from Jim Wexell (of scout.com), who had written a piece in 2012 after Miller was injured and out for the rest of the season titled “Heath Miller & The Art of Humble Maintenance.”