Yo, Holmes: Drug Dealer to Super Hero?

TAMPA, Fla. -- He's doing it for the kids. That's what Santonio Holmes wants us to believe, anyway. When he uses the global Super Bowl platform to disclose his first occupation in life -- selling drugs in his hometown of Belle Glade, Fla., a dismal place of crime and poverty about three hours and 10 back roads from here -- he says he's showing children how to learn from his youthful errors.

"We don't have a Wal-Mart. We don't have a Target. There are maybe two grocery stores, no movie theaters, no mall,'' he said. "There isn't really anything to do where we live, so all you're going to do is chase rabbits, go to school and play football -- or you're going to stand on a corner and sell drugs.''

He chose the dumb and dirty route for a year, following the lead of friends and family members who sold drugs in a small town that had America's second-highest rate of violent crime in 2003, not to mention the country's highest rate of AIDS infections in the mid-1980s. It wasn't until his mother recognized his dead-end trail and moved them out of the neighborhood that Holmes focused on football, a path that has propped him into a potential game-breaking role for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the grandest of games.

"I feel it's time to share things,'' he explained. "I'm on the biggest stage, everybody's going to be watching. I'm pretty sure some kids can get a feel for changing their lives and not doing those type of things and can get an opportunity to get out of the ghetto, the 'hood, to be successful."


There's a fairly big problem, however, concerning Holmes and his timing: I'm not certain he's totally removed from the drug culture, which casts suspicions on any honorable claim about teaching children well. As recently as October, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin deactivated him for a game after Pittsburgh police found several marijuana-filled cigarettes in his SUV during a traffic stop. When Holmes confessed the blunts indeed were his, he was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor. Now, only three months later, we're supposed to have amnesia when he waves the "Just Say No" banner? How can Holmes talk from one side of the mouth and toke from the other?

"It happens -- being in the wrong place at the wrong time, not being responsible, being around people that aren't responsible enough to respect what I do," he said, somehow blaming others for his own weed. "I knew what my path was like before, and I didn't want to go down that path again."

An isolated incident, he calls it. "I've never failed a drug test in my life, so I wasn't too concerned," Holmes said. "Most of (his teammates) were frustrated at the fact I didn't play, but they all understand and respect the decision Coach Tomlin made. I deserved it.''

He never has failed a drug test? What does that mean? Is that to imply he wasn't using the marijuana? And if he wasn't, why did he have the cigarettes? "I was working as hard as ever leading up to that point, and I've just continued doing that,'' he said. "Nobody has talked to me about the situation -- family members, nobody has asked me. I told them I'm a grown man, that people make mistakes but only the strong survive. I was able to overcome it."

There were a couple of arrests in 2006, too. One was for disorderly conduct, the other for domestic violence. While charges were dropped, Holmes agreed to seek anger counseling. Point is, before standing up at the Super Bowl to tell a triumphant life story, make sure your house is entirely clean. Tomlin says Holmes is still maturing at 24, which is a good way to put it.

"He is growing as a person. I see it on a daily basis,'' Tomlin said. "But there are a lot of those stories on a football team. I think a lot of times, people look at professional athletes and they view them as something they are not. But working with those guys on a day-to-day basis, at times it's very evident that they are young people. They are 22, 23, 24, and they are going through the normal things that people in that age group go through.''

The unexpected revelations of Holmes come in a week when his team will need big plays from him Sunday, perhaps more than anyone thinks. You might not have heard this, but the Steelers' best receiver and resident blood-and-soul warrior, Hines Ward, has a sprained right medial collateral ligament and will play with a balky knee brace. Tomlin took great lengths to say Ward looked "awesome'' at practice Thursday, yet it's hard to imagine him being anything but limited against the Arizona Cardinals. This is an injury that normally takes several weeks to heal, and Ward is only two weeks removed from injuring the knee in the AFC title game. He can hang out in his hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which he had transported from Pittsburgh, until his face turns blue. Ward will be operating at a deficit.

There are increasing hints, too, that quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is still dinged. Remember when he was leveled in the back, helmet-first, by a Baltimore defender in the conference title game? Well, an Internet report had him taking an X-ray Wednesday on his back and ribs. When asked Thursday about it, Roethlisberger refused to comment -- but didn't deny having the X-ray. When asked again, he said, "Didn't you just ask if I was going to comment on that?" Again, no denial. Tomlin also had a weird response when asked by pool reporter Peter King if his quarterback had an X-ray this week.

"Not that I heard," he said. "Ben's health is often the subject of inaccurate reports. He's fine.''

During practice, Roethlisberger was said to be favoring his mid-section at times. It also was noted that he made some impressive deep throws, including a 40-yarder to ... Santonio Holmes, which is what I'm getting at. For all the well-deserved talk about Arizona's Larry Fitzgerald as an explosive weapon, Holmes quietly has inspired the Steelers this postseason with high potency. When they needed a lift against the Chargers, he took a punt return 67 yards for a score. In the conference title game, he bailed out a scrambling Roethlisberger by getting open over the middle, then weaving through traffic and taking the ball 65 yards for Pittsburgh's only touchdown. At midseason, no one was a bigger Steelers joke than Holmes. In his last seven games, he has five touchdowns.

The Terrible Towel formula doesn't require much offense. Armed with an elite defense, among the league's best over the last 20 years, the Steelers need the offense to manage the clock, break a couple of long gains and let the defenders rest. That's where Holmes becomes an enormous figure in this game. In his three pro seasons, five of his 19 touchdowns have been at least 59 yards, and six more were between 30 and 45 yards.

"He has that personality where he always wants to deliver a splash play," Tomlin said. "He loves that. He's a guy that wants to be a reason we win, and not through drudgery. He wants to kill you with a bullet. That's why we try to find new and different ways to put the ball in his hands, whether it's passes over the top or punt returns or reverses.''

Said Ward: "It's just a matter of him getting more and more opportunities. He's a phenomenal wideout, an up-and-coming kid. He has all the tools to be very special. I've always told him, 'The playoffs are where you make a name for yourself,' and he has totally done that.''


To his credit, Santonio didn't foam at the mouth when presented with the concept that he could be the Super Bowl's biggest star. "That would be a big accomplishment. If I do all of the necessary things to help this team win, and, Lord willing, the opportunity comes for me to be the MVP, then I'll definitely accept it,'' said Holmes, who will be shadowed by Arizona's talented rookie cornerback, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. "But it will definitely be on behalf of all the guys that allowed me to make the plays and helped me make those plays. ... I've thought about it a couple times, just being that guy, always being prepared and ready to make that big play. It jumpstarts the team. It gets everyone motivated and ready to play ball.''

His speed, admittedly, was honed by chasing rabbits in Belle Glade. That was his profession before and after he sold drugs. "We did it because it helped us get money. Now, people are saying these guys are really fast because they chase rabbits,'' he said. "I never thought of it that way. Running in the muck, the soil down there, it's not like a football field. You have divots all over the ground that you have to maneuver through. I think it strengthened my legs, but a lot of the guys that chased rabbits also ran track. That probably helped elevate their speed, too.''

How does rabbit-chasing work? "We'll probably catch between 40 and 80 rabbits a day, depending on how many come out of the field or how many people are chasing them at a time,'' he said. "We would go out around seven in the morning and not get home until 6:30 at night. That was our job, what we did to make money. Our parents didn't have enough money to supply our needs. We wanted shoes and clothes, so we went out and did it on our own.''

How does one hunt down a rabbit? "You've got to take a dog with you because they love to chase the rabbits,'' he advised. "Also, you've got to take one of the cane stalks. If you're not fast enough to chase them, you've got to throw that cane stalk at them. When they're sitting in the bushes and you walk up on them, you just grab them by the body, break their neck so they die instantly, throw them in the backpack and keep moving. We're out there hunting just like people would do if they were trying to survive.''

Break their necks so they die instantly? Uh, I don't like the imagery, the idea that Holmes is the Michael Vick of rabbit-chasing. "It's between three and five dollars a rabbit. We would take them home, and my grandfather was well-known for selling fish and rabbits outside of our house,'' he said. "People would come up to the house and say, 'Hey, I want to buy five or 10 rabbits.' We sell them by the bag and put five in a bag. The price would go up depending on what kind of rabbit it was.''

Strange? Put it this way: I'd rather hear about selling rabbits than drugs.

Jay Mariotti is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse.com. He is a daily panelist on ESPN's sports-debate show, "Around The Horn," seen Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. ET. Mariotti spent 17 years as a lead sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and has covered every major sporting event -- national and worldwide -- on multiple occasions.