With the Super Bowl a week away, these are taxing times for Cliff Hite. He is the high school football coach who moved Ben Roethlisberger to wide receiver so his own son could play quarterback.
An uncommon athlete from a small town in northwest Ohio, Ben Roethlisberger is in his second year of professional football. Next Sunday he will step before a world-wide audience 130 million people to play in Super Bowl XL. Big Ben's career as a pass catcher lasted one mediocre season. Returned to quarterback as a senior in 1999, after Mr. Hite's son graduated, he threw for 54 touchdown passes and 4,100 yards in 12 games. Findlay High School rarely ran the ball or punted it during that high-flying, heart-pumping season.
"Ben absolutely put on a show," Mr. Hite said one night last week. "If you watched it on film, you'd say he made plays like he does for the Steelers now."
Why then, was young Mr. Roethlisberger converted to a receiver in the first place?
"Hindsight's perfect," Mr. Hite said. "People say I'm the goober who played his own kid, but there was no controversy about it at the time. For Ben, it was all about basketball back then. He was never even going to play college football."
Findlay Mayor Tony Iriti was an assistant football coach when Mr. Roethlisberger was in high school. He maintains that Big Ben was so dominant he should have been Findlay High's starting quarterback as a sophomore.
But, the mayor hastens to add, had Mr. Hite unleashed Big Ben on the world so soon, life might not be so good now. Instead of playing college football at Miami of Ohio, Mr. Roethlisberger probably would have ended up in an elite conference, such as the Big Ten. With that pedigree, he might have been drafted by an NFL doormat instead of the Steelers.
"By not playing quarterback here as a junior, the only thing Ben missed out on was the Heisman Trophy or a national championship," Mr. Iriti said, laughing.
In Findlay, a white-collar city of tree-shaded streets and 40,000 people, perhaps only one man is facing more heat during Super Bowl week than Mr. Hite. That would be Mr. Iriti. The mayor recently asked everyone in town to wear black and gold in honor of Findlay's most famous athlete.
Mr. Iriti might as well have said he wanted to raise taxes and leave potholes unfilled.
For Mr. Iriti, a native of Etna, rooting for Mr. Roethlisberger and the Steelers seems natural. But legions of Cleveland Browns fans live in this part of Ohio. The Browns' first training camp almost 60 years ago was in Bowling Green, a half-hour drive from Findlay.
Don Ewing, of Findlay, became a Browns fan in 1947, when he was 7 years old. He said the mayor's call to turn the town black and gold is out of bounds.
"I have nothing against Ben," Mr. Ewing said. "But I'm not changing allegiance. I would wear my Cleveland colors even if the whole Pittsburgh team were from Findlay."
Other Browns fans are more willing to cover the town in black and gold, at least for a week. Eileen Bensen, Findlay's director of public safety, is one of them.
She painted her office "autumn rust" in honor of the Browns. Her license plate says "Woof," for Cleveland's dog pound of fans. She has not watched the Super Bowl in 19 years, so heartbroken was she after Denver defeated the Browns in overtime of the 1986 American Football Conference championship game.
But now, because of Big Ben, Ms. Bensen said, she will break her string of Super Bowl abstinence and cheer for Mr. Roethlisberger.
"I'm OK with this because he's a hometown boy," she said.
Mr. Iriti said it also made good business sense to emphasize Big Ben's roots in Findlay. The city is two hours south of Detroit, site of Super Bowl XL. Mr. Iriti expects a wave of national publicity this week, and having the town decked out in black and gold will only increase the exposure and number of visitors, he said.
Mr. Iriti and a town committee plan to put up four billboards featuring Mr. Roethlisberger. The mayor hopes to fill windows with Big Ben placards, and to adorn the downtown Dorney Plaza in Pittsburgh team colors.
As Detroit and Toledo hotels fill up, the mayor thinks Findlay will capture spillover business as fans look for affordable lodging.
"We know people will be coming to Findlay, at least to see where Ben grew up," Mr. Iriti said.
His one concern, he says, is protecting the privacy of Mr. Roethlisberger's parents and his sister, Carlee. A junior basketball star at Findlay High, Carlee already has been the object of derision by an opposing team, the mayor said.
When hosting Findlay High eight days ago, Harding High, of Marion, offered discounted tickets to students who wore any NFL jersey except Pittsburgh's. Then, during the game, the Marion public address announcer repeatedly and intentionally mispronounced Carlee Roethlisberger's name, said Jerry Snodgrass, Findlay's athletic director.
Carlee said nothing in response. Instead, she did what hurt Harding High most, hitting the winning basket at the buzzer.
"She handled it very well," Mr. Snodgrass said.
But, he said, he was annoyed by unsportsmanlike conduct perpetrated by adults against a 16-year-old girl.
Mike McCreary, the Harding principal, said nothing of the kind occurred.
"We didn't do anything wrong," Mr. McCreary said, adding that he was mystified by complaints about "Roethlisberger" being mispronounced. He said he never heard that.
Mr. Snodgrass, who was Big Ben's basketball coach for two seasons, said poise seemed to run in the Roethlisberger family. Sophomores rarely started on the varsity at Findlay, but Mr. Snodgrass never hesitated in making Big Ben his point guard.
Lanky and gifted, Mr. Roethlisberger was full of confidence without being full of himself, Mr. Snodgrass said.
"We talk to each of the players when we make cuts or keep them on the team. When we told Ben he was going to be with us, he sat right there in my office and said he was going to break the school scoring record."
He did, too. His 1,095 points remain the highest total in Findlay's basketball history. Big Ben was equally gifted in baseball, turning heads as the tallest, smoothest shortstop in northwest Ohio.
"Ben could do everything. He just plain old loved to compete," Mr. Snodgrass said.
Like so many in town, Mr. Snodgrass says he thinks Big Ben should have been Findlay's starting varsity quarterback for three seasons. But Mr. Hite says he is astonished to hear so much made of a decision that generated no controversy at the time.
As he recalls, the entire football coaching staff was unanimous that his son, Ryan Hite, should play quarterback when Big Ben was a junior. Ryan had been conference player of the year when Ben was a sophomore.
"My son was playing quarterback because I wanted to win football games at Findlay High School," Mr. Hite said. "We needed receivers because Ben couldn't throw it to Ben."
After a pause, he added: "Am I overly defensive about this? If we made the wrong choice at the time, it still worked out all right."
The mayor agrees, saying Big Ben's path to stardom might have stalled a little in Findlay, but that bump in the road helped him land in Pittsburgh. Now he's in the Super Bowl.
This has led to two popular T-shirts in Findlay. One says, "I've always Ben a Steelers fan." The counter slogan is, "I've never Ben a Steelers fan until now."
Posted by Ron at January 29, 2006 04:00 PM