Good Article on Steve McNair
Thursday, July 9, 2009
By Wright Thompson of ESPN.com.
Outside Mississippi, Steve McNair was a famous NFL quarterback, one known for his toughness. Back home, people remember him as a happening. For four years in the early 1990s, a fever took hold of the state. Everyone woke up Sunday morning and gawked at the stats before church. Many got into their cars and went south to see for themselves. Later, people would wear those journeys as a talisman, a sign of their true Mississippi-ness: I went to see Steve McNair.
The lack of television coverage made the myth seem elusive, somehow more gothic. Sports Illustrated came, put old Steve from Mount Olive on the cover. A myth sprung up, about a country-strong kid who picked beans before sunrise and enjoyed great fame with humility, a narrative befitting someone so far off the beaten path. Paul Bunyan with a gray Toyota Celica for an ox. He didn't seem like a real person, which I guess is what we wanted.
The governor wrote a letter to Heisman voters. The past governor went to see for himself. Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward came. Spike Lee came. Writer Willie Morris drove down and decided to skip the rest of his beloved Ole Miss games. He'd follow McNair, and he'd bring friends. Even George Plimpton came. Thousands of Mississippians, white and black, made the drive out Highway 552, out past East Jesus, as a friend puts it. They were there for the entire ride, right to the end, when Steve "Air II" McNair broke the NCAA record for career total yards. They released purple and gold balloons into the sky that afternoon, and the world stopped for a moment, though it would soon start to spin again, faster than anyone ever could have imagined. Steve handed the game ball to his mama. In the stands, Willie Morris cheered alongside his friends, novelist Larry Wells and his wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, niece of William Faulkner. Labels: steve mcnair mississippi wright thompson
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