'I knew it was time to go'

Centre Daily Times

March 25, 2008

UNIVERSITY PARK -- Jerome Bettis, 36, retired from football because he loves the game, he said Tuesday night.

'I knew when it was time to go,' he said before a Bryce Jordan Center audience. ' ... I didn't want to disgrace the game in such a way that you say to yourself, 'Why is he still here? He can't get it done anymore.' '

Self-deprecating and gregarious, the former Pittsburgh Steelers running back known as 'The Bus' held the crowd close for just about 75 minutes. He appeared here as part of the Penn State Distinguished Speaker Series -- and drew the biggest crowd the series has ever seen, an organizer said.

Penn State distributed about 4,000 tickets for the talk, a rare campus appearance for Bettis. Typical speaker events, held in Eisenhower Auditorium, draw no more than 2,500-or-so listeners.

The event on Tuesday also was different in its makeup. Far more families than usual helped fill the seats, many sporting Steelers jerseys or Terrible Towels.

They greeted Bettis as though he were a rock star or a long-lost cousin, or perhaps a touch of both. Speaking without notes, he took the stage under a line of yellow-tinted lights after a taped presentation of his Steelers career highlights.

'I didn't have a lot of fond memories of this place,' he joked in an initial riff on Penn State, recalling his days as a Notre Dame football player. 'We were driving in (today) and passed the stadium, and I almost had a nightmare -- because we got beat so bad in that stadium.'

But his talk here, titled 'Championship Choices,' went beyond football. Bettis used his life -- and personal stories from the gridiron -- as a vehicle to deliver a bigger message.

He said life is a series of decisions. A life well-lived, he went on, centers on four core principles: character, love, determination and care.

And never fail to trust gut instincts, Bettis advised. When he weighed whether to retire after the 2004 season, something about the idea just 'didn't sit right' with him.

He stayed on for one more year -- and helped the Steelers win the Super Bowl in February 2006.

To cap the night on Tuesday, Bettis fielded questions from 13 members of the audience. The last one asked if she could try on his Super Bowl ring. Bettis agreed.

'Security?' he said with a playful grin, motioning for help on stage. 'Just in case.'

Adam Smeltz can be reached at 231-4631.

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