Steve McNair - A Love Story

  Posted 7/9 by Colin Dowling, Exclusive for Footballguys.com

My Footballguys colleague Matt Waldman recently wrote a fantastic piece about Steve McNair the player. Rather then rehash what he wrote or what you've seen anywhere else, I want to offer a different perspective not only on Steve McNair but also on sports, football, and fandom. This is in part me remembering some wonderful things and it's in part my personal "therapy" for the events of Saturday, July 4th, 2009. Maybe you'll be entertained but more then that I hope that you'll find some commonality in your own story as a sports fan.

Prologue

I grew up in north Houston, Texas. My family's roots were in Tennessee. I was born a passionate fan of the Tennessee Volunteers and a marginal fan of the Houston Oilers. Being a fan of those two teams could not have been in more stark contrast: on Saturdays I expected my favorite team to win. On Sundays, I expected my favorite team to fall apart at the most inopportune moment. I loved college football. I tolerated the NFL, mostly because watching my favorite team's coaches beat each other up on the sidelines or seeing the team blow record leads in the playoffs was more sadism then enjoyment.

Love At First Site

Fall, 1994. Washington, DC.

I was a high-school senior visiting a school in D.C. and staying with my Uncle. Miami had just been upset by Washington. Nebraska was on the prime time game. And a quarterback from a little school in Mississippi was the lead story on Sportscenter. Could Steve McNair of Alcorn State win the Heisman? Moreso, could his skills translate to the NFL?

Spring, 1995 Houston, TX

I was at a high-school debate conference in Houston while the NFL draft was going on. My friend John and I were running back to our hotel room between debate sessions to spy on the NFL draft. Ki-Jana Carter to the Bengals as expected...Tony Boselli to Jacksonville...we held our breath...the Oilers were on the clock...we needed a quarterback...would it be Kerry Collins? "With the third pick of the NFL draft, the Houston Oilers select Steve McNair, quarterback, Alcorn State."

They took the chance. Third overall for a player no one was sure could compete at the highest level. Perhaps you don't remember this, perhaps it never left the Houston newspapers, but the pick of McNair had more discussion locally then the "Reggie Bush or Vince Young" debate a few years ago. My friend and I didn't care - this was to be our quarterback and he would have our full-throated support. He would be our Randall Cunningham, our Steve Young, our John Elway. At the age of 17 you can easily convince yourself to believe such things. And since the internet and fantasy football had not yet made everything about the NFL a well-studied science, the choice of Steve McNair was our own little wrinkle. We were elated. Could he play at this level? Could he possibly scramble and throw against NFL defenses? Maybe, maybe not. But we Houston Oiler fans would be the beneficiaries if he did in fact turn in to something great.

Breaking Up

The Oilers moved from Houston a few years later. McNair never really had a chance to shine in Texas. Many fans cut loose of the team as soon as they left town. The only thing that kept me hanging around was the fact that I had an attachment to the state of Tennessee. But I wasn't willing to forgive the move immediately. I was more in a "wait and see" mode. Besides, the NFL was my second favorite brand of football. So the Oilers and I took some time off. We needed a break. We decided to see other people but leave our options open for the future. I was single again, and that was okay by me.

Let's Get Back Together

In the Spring of 1999, my close friend Jimmy took a job with the Tennessee Titans. He kept me well informed about all the cool things that took place around an NFL team, but I didn't care. The Vols had won the first BCS National Title earlier that year so my football needs were being well satisfied by the college game. I graduated from college and began waiting tables instead of getting a "real job." But by fall, the joy of refilling sodas and serving fried shrimp had long vanished. My girlfriend and I had split. My band had broken up. Somehow this came up one day on the phone with Jimmy. "We have an extra room here at the apartment...come on up. Plus I have two Titans tickets every week and since I don't know anyone, you're welcome to use them as long as you are here," he said.

Why not, I figured? I needed a change. My bags were packed in a day. I put in for a transfer from the restaurant I worked at to the one closest to Nashville. I sold one of my guitars to pay for gas. I had a duffel bag and my golf clubs and I was on my way. I bought an air-up mattress at Wal Mart as soon as I got to Nashville. I'd been in town for two hours before the Saints and Titans were to kickoff a Friday night preseason game. I met my cousin at the stadium and stood around drinking beer instead of watching what was happening on the field. Jimmy and I drove to Knoxville the next day to watch the Vols pound on Wyoming. Life was good.

When the regular season started, I went to the Browns game and the Bengals game. I went to the Gators/Vols game as well and spent a week ticked off that Jabar Gaffney had caught a touchdown at the last possible second to beat Tennessee. We watched a lot of football and drank a lot of beer. I served fried catfish and dated George Strait's personal assistant. I had the time of my young life. But by Halloween I had run out of money and my rent was due in Austin. I begrudgingly drove home to Texas but before I left, I stepped in to a sports store on 2nd Avenue and bought a navy blue number nine jersey. Across the back was the name, "McNair." My time in Nashville with the team, the city, the people, had let me forgive the past. Me and the Houston Oilers - err, Tennessee Titans - were ready to give things another chance. I even flew back up to watch the Titans plaster the Jaguars a couple days after Christmas.

The Game

A phone call around 3:00 PM, Sunday January 20th, 2000

"How are we looking?"

"Good. Eddie's got his headphones on and he's singing. Steve's playing cards with some of the guys. Team's looking loose. I think we've got it."

I had called Jimmy in the locker room a couple hours before the player introductions of Super Bowl XXXIV. The Titans had the league's best defense and a good-enough offense. The Rams had come from being abysmal the year before on the arm of Kurt Warner, but surely defense would carry the day. Wouldn't it?

The Titans couldn't get anything going offensively, but the Rams could only kick field goals in the first half despite a 294-89 advantage in total yards. The Rams scored in the third quarter to go ahead 16-0. The Titans stormed back to tie the game with just over two minutes to go. On the next drive, Kurt Warner completed a 73 yard touchdown to Isaac Bruce on a freak play where Jevon Kearse hit Warner in the arm causing the ball to come out like a duck, followed by Bruce adjusting his route while defensive back Anthony Dorsett continued sprinting down the field. 23-16.

The Moment

When did it happen for you? Was it going to games with your dad? Or maybe watching games with friends? Was it when Elway finally won the Super Bowl or when Clark made "the catch?" Was it the culmination of a lot of games and plays or was it one, specific moment? For younger readers "the moment" is maybe connected to a great fantasy football victory. For me, it was later in the evening of January 20, 2000. The Titans received the kickoff with less then two minutes to go, down seven points. I had spent all the tip-money I had on a beer keg and seafood and invited all of my friends over. When the Titans took that final kickoff, everyone at my Super Bowl party was feeling pessimistic. "Don't worry, we have McNair," I told them. Right then, there was no one else I wanted to have the ball, no one else I trusted to do something miraculous and carry the day. Without knowing it, I was "in." When the drive came up a yard short, I sat on the couch and cried for an hour. My party guests filtered out as the keg went dry and I sat in complete silence.

The Relationship Unfolds

For the next few years I would live and die on Sundays with the Tennessee Titans. I nearly puked when Al Del Greco and Eddie George gave away a playoff game to the hated Baltimore Ravens the next season. I was furious when the Raiders cheated in the AFC Title game by taping Titans practices from a building across the highway. When the local AFC stations started picking up Houston Texans games, I would find bars or friends with League Pass to watch the Titans. And all along, Steve McNair was under center.

The Moral to the Story

While I will always love the Titans, the central figure in me being drawn to the NFL was Steve McNair. From the time he was in college to the time he was drafted to the time he led us to within a yard of overtime in the Super Bowl to the time he won the MVP to the time he was forced to wear Ravens' colors, Steve McNair has been the constant figure in my love affair with professional football. Without Steve McNair, I wouldn't have ever cared much about the NFL. Because of Steve McNair, the game has become an obsession of mine that drives my wife to the brink of insanity every fall.

The Epilogue

I'm jealous of Steelers fans, Cowboys fans, Patriots fans, fans of other NFL teams. You have Super Bowl wins and Hall of Fame players. You have Terry Bradshaw on TV Sunday mornings and John Elway car dealerships all over town. You have Brady and Manning and Favre. You have Sapp and Deion and Parcells and Holmgren. You have Monk and Franco and Largent.

I have Steve McNair. At least I did until Saturday morning when Jimmy sent me a text around noon reading, "McNair dead in Nashville." Your all-time favorite player is probably getting ready for training camp or has a Hall of Fame jacket in his closet. My all-time favorite player just got shot four times by a woman he shouldn't have been with.

I don't care that Steve McNair's personal life was less then ideal. I don't care that as time goes by more details are likely to come out that show he wasn't nearly as great a person off the field as he was on it. The Titans will probably retire his number, but he isn't going to make the Hall of Fame. And next season will take place as will the next and the next and years from now, Steve McNair's story will probably become shorter and shorter on the page until he's just a part of the Archives page in the Titans media guide.

But his jersey will always hang in my closet and my kids will know that he will always be my favorite player. Not because he was a "warrior" or because he played with a broken sternum or because he won an MVP award or because he led the Titans within one yard of a Super Bowl win in the greatest Super Bowl ever. But because my journey back to a relationship with professional football mirrored Steve McNair's career in every way. Because my fondest memories of professional football prominently feature Number Nine doing something heroic and amazing and unsung all at once. Because my journey to love football in a way that never goes away was caused because the Houston Oilers drafted a kid from Alcorn State third overall and over the next 13 years, he didn't disappoint.

Roll Credits

Every story deserves a great ending. But I can't think of one. I don't have anything poignant or witty or even clichéd to put at the end of the page. Perhaps that's the saddest thing of all to me about Steve McNair and what he meant to fans like me - there is no tidy ending, no final scene. It's just over. And some of us are still sitting in the theater trying to make sense of what just happened.