Big Ben and Jacko: Some Fools Never Learn

Late Friday afternoon, I went to B.M. Wexford's co-office to ask a favor. Being a fellow native Pittsburgher and Steeler fanatic (redundant?), he swiveled his computer screen and flashed me the latest TMZ report on Ben Roethlisberger's latest legal woes. As you probably know by now, Big Ben is the subject of a criminal investigation over whether or not he "sexually assaulted or sexually manipulated" a 20-year-old college student in Milledgeville, GA, last Thursday night.

Like many of you, I'm sure, I was shocked and not shocked at the same time. A bunch of us stood around talking about it, contemplating Roethlisberger's guilt. Then, a book I'd recently read at work, Ian Halperin's Unmasked. kept popping into my head.

Unmasked is a morbidly fascinating, unauthorized biography of Michael Jackson's last two decades on this Earth. I don't know how much of this book is true, but, if Unmasked is even half true, MJ lived one of the most tragic lives a celebrity could have ever lived.

As you'd expect, most of the book focused on Jackson's child molestation allegations. Halperin began the book project, convinced MJ was a pedophile, and claimed he was determined to prove it in this book. The problem was he couldn't prove it; he couldn't really find any convincing evidence; and ended the book pretty convinced the Jackson, indeed, was not a pedophile.

Now, I've been a Jackson hater for most of my life, but I've always been skeptical about MJ the Child Molester. I mean, all those kids over at Neverland, all those sleepovers, yet all they could find were two allegations out of thousands upon thousands of families. And those two accusations came from families that were incredibly shady.

But Michael's guilt or innocence don't really matter all that much. He's dead, after all. We'll never really know. And our feelings about Jackson's guilt will probably mirror our feelings about what we felt about what Jackson had become these last 25 years. The other reason it doesn't matter is that, like it or not, the word "pedophile" will always be attached to Michael Jackson's name. After all, the man had been accused twice of the same crime and, as the Governator said when he had to deal with sexual harassment allegations, "where there's smoke there's fire." No matter what you think of Jackson, you will always be wondering about those allegations, defending those allegations, or dismissing them as pure bullshit. However, they will always be connected to your memories of Michael Jackson.

The same thing is about to happen to Ben Roethlisberger. Yeah, his first accuser, Andrea McNulty, brought a very strange civil suit against Big Ben last year. She never went to the police nor the hospital; she waited a year to file a civil instead of a criminal case; and she was asking for only $100,000 from a multimillionaire who supposedly raped her. It was all very bizarre and left us with a lot of room to doubt the woman's claims.

But this one, while also a bit strange, is harder to ignore. He's seen all over town with this 20-year-old college student. She goes immediately to the police and the hospital. There are tons of witnesses seeing them together. And this is the second time Roethlisberger has been accused in less than a year. What did Schwartzenegger say again? Oh yeah, right. "Where there's smoke there's fire."

Presuming, for the moment, that Roethlisberger's innocent, I have the same question I had when reading about Jackson: What the hell were you thinking?

For Jackson, after getting gamed by Jordan Chandler's parents (the father having committed suicide last fall) back in '94, his name being dragged through the mud, and his insurance company having paid millions to have it all go away, you would've thought that Jackson would never have had another kid at Neverland ever again. Or, if he did, he'd do it around tons of eyewitnesses, parents in every nook and cranny, and, as soon as the street lights came on, he'd grab a megaphone, and scream, "All right, everybody! Get the fuck out! Don't let the door hit ya where the Lord split ya!"

No more private meetings, no more watching movies together, and never, ever, ever would he have another sleepover.

You would think that Jackson would've realized that he was a target, and, while it would've been a victory for cynicism, he would've severely changed his behavior. So, he'd never have to relive that nightmare.

You'd think the same would apply to Roethlisberger. If he is, indeed, of either or both charges, you've got to wonder what the hell he was doing at that club. What was he doing, at 28, hanging out with that 20-year-old woman? Has the tragedy of Steve McNair taught him nothing? Doesn't Big Ben realize that he'd be a target. After all, everybody would be thinking, "Where there's smoke there's fire."

You'd think that, before Ben even thought about kissing a woman, he'd have his private investigators provide him with family genealogies, high school and/or college transcripts, character witnesses' testimony, and blood work-ups. You'd think that, with civil charges hanging over his head, he'd either be spending the off-season in a monastery or simply not even coming anywhere close to any woman he hasn't known for at least the last decade. In other words, he--and Michael--should've remained utterly and completely above all suspicion.

Now, for Jackson, his Peter Pan fixation is a bit more understandable. He never really did have much of a childhood. What he did have was filled with fame and terrifying abuse. People have done nothing but want, want, want from the man since he was pre-pubescent. Folks have lived off of him since the same time. There were few people he knew who did not try to exploit him. And there were even fewer around who didn't screw him over at some point and betray his trust.

He must not have been able to trust even the most innocent human interaction. Children, while not totally without guile, are so innocent that you can often see their guile a mile away. Children were probably the only people Michael Jackson could ever trust in his world. So, in a way, even if Jackson were not a pedophile, you can understand why he just couldn't keep the kiddies out of his life.

But what about Ben? What was his excuse? Yeah, yeah. Guys think with their dicks. But we also think with our wallets. We also think with our lungs, which generally don't like being exposed to stale prison air. We also can think with our rectums, many of which don't want to be exposed to prison love.

In some ways, it's easier to understand if Roethlisberger is actually guilty of one or both of the supposed incidents. It makes more sense that he's an uncontrollable sexual predator who needs to have his ass thrown in jail. After all, why else would a man who's facing a civil charge for sexual assault turn around and sexually assault yet another woman in a public bathroom? It's utterly psychotic.

Or, if innocent, completely moronic. Roethlisberger should've realized he has a big target on his chest. He should've been nowhere near those women. So, if he's not guilty of sexual assault and/or sexual manipulation (could someone please explain that one to me?), he is most definitely guilty of some incredibly poor judgment. That, too, is believable. He does have a history of such reckless behavior. But with whatever happened in Milledgeville, I'm starting to wonder what else "Big Ben" has a history of. 'Cause we all know what word will now forever be attached to the name "Ben Roethlisberger."

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Time to Hang 'Em Up, Ben

Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's career ended on June 12, 2006. That was the day "the youngest quarterback to lead a team to the Super Bowl championship," full of youth, hubris, and foolishness five months after said Super Bowl championship rode his motorcycle, helmet-less, into an oncoming vehicle, busting up his knee, breaking his jaw and nose and, way too apparently (even soon after the accident), busting up his noggin pretty good.

I know it sounds pretty ridiculous to say that a quarterback who has thrown for over 13,000 yards, 86 touchdowns, and 60 interceptions and has led his team to yet another Super Bowl victory since that incident ended his career three and a half years ago. And yet ...

No, wait. Strike that. What was really ridiculous was the day that really ended Roethlisberger's career: August 11, 2006. That was the day that Steeler head coach, Bill Cowher, knowing full well that Big Ben had suffered a serious head injury, declared Roethlisberger would start the first pre-season game: "He will play for a short period of time, and I will leave it at that. Everyone else will play a series or two."

Ben promptly sprained a thumb ligament on his throwing hand in that game. So, he had the busted-up knee, jaw, and nose, the messed-up thumb, and, oh yeah! the concussion!

He was still scheduled to start the 2006-07 season opener until he was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. He actually missed the season opener (Charlie Batch started in his place) but was back for the second game--just two weeks after doctors cut into his stomach. He was 17 of 32 passing for 141 yards while throwing two interceptions and was sacked twice--a story we rarely heard his first two seasons before his accident but one we've heard damned near every game since the accident.

So, if you're still keeping count, before Ben even started that season he had the busted-up knee, jaw, nose, and thumb; the abdominal surgery (which I've heard takes something like six months to recover from); and, oh yeah! the motherfucking concussion!!!

For us fans it was a frustrating experience, as the Steelers stumbled onto an 8-8 record and completely missed the playoffs. The "experts" and pundits blamed lack of intensity on Pittsburgh's lackluster performance. Personally, I blamed that motorcycle accident and, most importantly, Bill Cowher.

Without getting too much into it, I've seen a bit of what a serious head injury can do to a person. How it can diminish them. Turn a very intelligent person into someone who can barely retain the strains of a conversation--let alone a job. How a usually mild-mannered person can turn into a tempest of emotion with violent, depressive mood swings.

I also talked to my mother-in-law, who's a doctor in nursing, about the Roethlisberger accident. She'd told me that someone with that serious of a head injury would not be allowed to be very active for an entire year after the incident--let alone play football!!!--because having a concussion makes one more susceptible to getting more concussions. Head injuries generally take a year to heal, and it is really hard to detect the extent of damage the brain has received until months after the incident.

In other words, there was absolutely no way that Big Ben should've been playing that season. No medical professional (outside of the sports industry) would've allowed him to jog on a treadmill (to say nothing of playing football) for months after his head went through that windshield. It was simply too dangerous for him to be on the field. They were risking further damage to the man's brain and, for all they knew, his life.

And the infuriating thing is, they had to have known. Yet, they kept Ben out there.

On October 26, in a game against the Atlanta Falcons, Roethlisberger was carted off the field with yet another concussion. The Steelers were 2-4 after that game. And yet, the next week, with two concussions in four months, he played against the Oakland Raiders.

He played one of the worst games of his life against one of the worst teams in the league--fumbling the ball once and throwing four interceptions. Something was obviously wrong. And, though I was well aware of the supermachismo that rules football, I was still furious. Roethlisberger shouldn't have been out there, and, if I knew it and my mother-in-law knew it, then Bill Cowher had to know it, too. After that Oakland loss, the Steelers were 2-5--their season effectively over. There was absolutely no reason to have Ben continue the season.

But his determination to start Ben seemed personal. There were times in Cowher's reign when things seemed to get personal with him. Like his benching Kordell Stewart just three games after he led the Steelers to the AFC Championship game--though the two losses were to the far superior New England Patriots (Super Bowl champs) and the Oakland Raiders. Then the millions the Steelers were paying to have a healthy Duce Staley sit on the sidelines.

It seemed like he was punishing Roethlisberger for being stupid enough to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. He probably didn't want the boy to ride a motorcycle period, and he was going to show Roethlisberger the error of his ways. It didn't matter what happened to the Steelers' season--which was ruined by this decision. Nor did it matter how dinged up the boy got--he ... would ... learn.

But I think what we're all learning is that Cowher's decision has probably prematurely ended Roethlisberger's career. 'Cause one of the many things that last Thursday's game against Cleveland showed me is that, once again, something ain't right with Big Ben. After coming back way too soon from yet another concussion, he just didn't look himself or particularly aware of what was going on around him as he was sacked eight times against one of the worst defenses in the league.

I know that the NFL is now playing lip service to taking concussions seriously. If that were really true, I don't know how they let Roethlisberger play another down after his latest concussion suffered during the Kansas City game. As I've stated, having one concussion makes you more susceptible to receiving others. Since Ben's accident three and a half years ago, he's had four head concussions and one spinal cord concussion (whatever that is).

Now that the league has been forced to acknowledge that these head injuries can lead to a shortened life of depression, suicide, and tragically violent outbursts, it's time that they acknowledge that four concussions is simply too much for one person to suffer, to acknowledge that they have more than likely caused irreparable damage, and that it is football that caused it.

Personally, I wish Bill Cowher would get on the air and explain why he did it. Why, on August 11, 2006, he decided that a seriously injured Ben Roethlisberger was going to be his starting quarterback. Was it machismo, some form of punishment, actual ignorance, or was it the short-term costs of having your million-dollar starting QB out a season that drove his decision to shorten Ben Roethlisberger's career and possibly his life?

Because the former is most definitely shortened. The League may not be as serious as they're acting right now. However, folks are becoming more and more aware of the damage that concussions do. And we can be fairly certain that Big Ben, "one of the toughest quarterbacks in the league," will continue to suffer them. And there will come a point--probably not next season but probably the season after that--when he'll have suffered so many concussions that there will be a public outcry (though, apparently Hines Ward will be calling him a "pussy") for him to hang up the cleats.

I hate to say it--because I love the way the man plays and I love the way he keeps winning Super Bowls for us--but I think that time is now. He is not only one blow to the head away from ending his career--but possibly, just possibly, one away from ever possibly having a normal life again.

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Say It Ain't So, Ben

Well, it looks like Big Ben is being accused of pulling a Kobe, in sexually assaulting a hotel employee. According to reports, back in July of last year, Roethlisberger asked the woman to come to his room to fix his TV and later sexually assaulted her. There was no criminal complaint nor investigation. This is a civil lawsuit. I will definitely be withholding judgment (too many women who've accused celebrities in the past have been crucified by jackholes like yours truly), but, as Mrs. Unknown wrote to me, "Shouldn't it be a rule in the players employee handbook not to have sex with hotel employees?"
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Help Us, Ben Roethlisberger. You're Our Only Hope

Forget the polls, the pundits, and their spin. If you really want to know who will win tomorrow's presidential election, just watch tonight's Redskins-Steelers game. Apparently, since 1937, when the Redskins win the game before the election, the party that holds the White House keeps the White House. When the 'Skins lose, the party in power loses. 2004 was the lone exception--even Joe Gibbs's incompetence could help Kerry win.

So, Obama voters, if only for tonight, you must root for the Black 'n' Gold! The fate of the entire free world depends on their victory. And now, you, too, will have to suffer the agony of watching the crappiest line in NFL history protecting a faltering economy, our nuclear arsenal, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Take some of that hope that Obama's been instilling in you these past two years and direct it to Chris K, Justin Hartwig, Max Starks, Trai Essex (to believe you went to Northwestern--oh wait, you suck--I believe it), or whatever 300-pound pansy they put in pads tonight, pray that they can hold a block long enough for Big Ben to actually complete a pass for once, prostrate yourself before the ghost of Art Rooney, I don't know, sacrifice your first-born. Do what you have to do to ensure a Steeler victory tonight, and let's take back this fucking country!!!

Go Hines Ward!!!



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