Dunlap: Troy Polamalu Let His Actions Talk For Him
For the most part, stay away from making sports figures your role models.
Many will let you down.
For the most part, tell your kids to emulate someone else, tell them to hold in highest regard and attempt to mimic someone else in the community or, heck, someone right there under your own roof.
Except in this instance --- feel free to tell your kids to look up to and copycat Troy Polamalu.
He might be the finest role model this city's sports scene will ever know.
That's not hyperbole, overstatement or inflation. That's fact.
Here's the test: Go ahead and count back all the times you've heard anyone breathe a negative word about Polamalu, either in this town or another.
Go ahead and count all the times you've heard of a fan who crowed about a negative run-in with Polamalu.
Go ahead and think back about one, just one, misstep you can recall with Polamalu being involved.
You most likely can't.
Know why: They didn't happen.
What did happen was a brilliant 12-year career that came to a close late last week wherein Polamalu captivated us here in Pittsburgh just as much off the field with his charitable work as he did on the field with his violent acts.
Others can laud him for his Pro Bowl appearances, the times he was an All-Pro and how many tackles and interceptions he made. That's stuff we all see, stuff that's all quantifiable.
Instead, I wanted to use this space to relay something that Polamalu did that you can't put an adequate measure on. The recollection of the act happened Friday morning --- not long after the news broke he was retiring --- as I was co-hosting The Fan Morning Show at 93.7 The Fan.
The calls were rolling in, in a way predictable yet enlightening, with callers relaying their positive memories and overarching thoughts of Polamalu.
The callers spoke of his hair flowing as he returned a huge interception against the Ravens in the AFC title game.
Callers told of how he trucked Carson Palmer, how he shared a smile with them at St. Vincent or how he brought a beam to them when he would famously leap over the scrimmage line.
Then came something different.
It was a call from a man who identified himself as 'Terry in South Fayette' who immediately warned that he might become emotional.
I didn't know what we were in for.
He told the story of his nephew, who at 19 in 2005 was diagnosed with cancer. Through a connection, the family reached out and asked if the sick young man could meet a Steeler, any Steelers player.
Polamalu was the one who stood up, taking it upon himself to go to Children's Hospital and visit with the ill youngster who was fighting an incredibly uphill fight.
The young man died not long after Polamalu's visit.
To this day, however, the family holds close a photo of their departed family member, one in which he posed with Polamalu in his hospital room. In the photo, one can guess it was a moment in which Polamalu brought the young man --- even for just a sliver --- an escape from the trappings of that hospital room, an escape from the sadness, the pain and wretchedness of that horrid disease.
Certainly there are others who visit sick kids in hospitals or do other kind acts like the ones that have come to light involving Troy Polamalu in this town over the past 12 years.
Absolutely, there are others.
But the way in which Polamalu did such acts --- with so many coming to light only through word of mouth and not after he dispatched a camera crew --- is why he merits the deepest level of respect.
For Polamalu, his charitable work never was about showing people he was doing charitable work, but rather the act of doing the charitable work.
There are so many accounts in this town of times Polamalu visited people in hospitals, paid for tabs for others at restaurants and took a firm grasp on acts of kindness.
But he never bragged, boasted or felt the need to tell people about them.
He just did them.
Kind of like being a great football player.
Polamalu just did it. He didn't need to tell you about it. He just did it.
You want a role model? He's it.
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