Polamalu the Prankster

(Peter Diana/Post-Gazette)

Good afternoon,

Want some stories about Troy Polamalu? You’ve come to the right place.

--- Dick LeBeau marveled at how well Polamalu and fellow safety Ryan Clark worked together at the two safety positions.

“It’s interesting that he and Ryan Clark are retiring the same year,’’ LeBeau told me over the phone today. “They were the perfect complement. Ryan was so intuitive. I’m not sure right now how they communicated, they did it with a look and little hand gestures. Somehow Ryan would know where Troy was going and in those few occasions that Troy went went to the wrong place, Ryan went to the right place. They were fantastic together.’’

--- Soft-spoken Troy the prankster?

“He’s a prankster,” Hines Ward told me today. “All these crazy jokes and stuff like that. That’s what I miss about him, as a friend being around him on a daily basis. He was very competitive on the pool table and in ping pong in our locker room.

But a prankster?

“He had some great pranks,’’ Ward said. “He used to get all the rookies, give them water bottles in a preseason game and unscrew the cap so when guys came to the sideline, they’d grab the water and it would dump out all over them. It was hysterical. That’s the type of guy he was.”

--- Polamalu did not start a game his rookie season in 2003, but he played in all the nickel and dime defenses and on special teams.

“The first year we got him, we gave him everything – dime, nickel, safety, two or three different positions,’’ Bill Cowher said today. “I never forget going up to him when we were playing the St. Louis Rams at home when they were very, very good.

“Marc Bulger was moving their offense up and down. Troy had blown some defenses. I said to him, ‘It’s going to be OK, you’re in your first year.’ He looked up at me and said, ‘I just want to be like Carnell Lake.’

“I never forgot that. He ended up with Carnell Lake coaching him.’’

--- Polamalu might never have been drafted by the Steelers if their first plan had worked out. They pursued Tampa Bay free agent Dexter Jackson, a safety who intercepted two passes to become Super Bowl XXXVII MVP. He was in his prime, not yet 26 years old in the spring of 2003.

The Steelers struck a verbal deal with him and his agent. But then, Jackson reneged, backed out of it and signed a five-year contract with the Arizona Cardinals.

Bill Cowher was ticked. They had their eyes on another free agent but decided to wait until after the draft. They dropped those plans when they drafted Polamalu.

“We drafted him as the tight end position started to become more prominent in the NFL,’’ Cowher told me. “What we saw with him was a cover-safety, kind of like what we once had in Carnell Lake. When we first got him, then you realized not only was he athletic but he was really smart.”

--- A personal story that has nothing to do with Polamalu’s football talents. I was walking through the Steelers locker room in the middle of one week a number of years ago and something dangling from the front of Polamalu’s locker caught my interest. I stopped to look at it, a somewhat large religious medal on a chain.

“Do you like it?’’ Polamalu asked me.

“It’s something I’ve never seen before in a locker room,’’ I replied.

“Do you want it?’’ Polamalu said.

“No, no, Troy, I just was admiring how it looked.’’

He again asked me if I’d like to have it and I said, no, Troy, that is yours, and departed.

The next day, I was interviewing a player several lockers down from Troy’s when he approached me, the medal in his hand that had been above his locker. “Here,’’ he said, “I want you to have this.’’

I did not protest a second time, because I did not want him to think me insulting for refusing his gift, which we still have.