There was the time Steve McNair underwent surgery to repair a broken chest bone. Doctors inserted wire to help the bone heal and sent him off to recover.


Under no circumstances was McNair to play football. But then Neil O’Donnell got hurt, and McNair did what he always did. He answered the bell for his teammates and his franchise and his coaches and the people who cared about the Tennessee Titans.

Later, the Pittsburgh Steelers would tell of hitting McNair and hearing him wheeze through the wire, hearing him groan and then watching him get up and run another play. McNair was in unimaginable pain that afternoon, yet he wouldn’t come out of the game.

He led the Titans to a victory, and that was around the time he had talked to Jeff Fisher about quitting football because he was tired of being booed, tired of being the guy who was never quite good enough.

He got huge cheers the following week after fans learned what he had endured to beat the Steelers, and that was pretty much the end of people’s questioning Steve McNair about anything.

He’s gone now, at 36, via a tabloid death. He died of multiple gunshot wounds along with a woman not his wife.

He’s a reminder to us all that we put the wrong people on pedestals, that running fast and jumping high defines one only narrowly.