If you were a football fan in the late 1990s, you probably remember Steelers star Kordell Stewart -- the man who was nicknamed “Slash” for his positional versatility, and then led the team to two AFC Championship games as a quarterback.
If you remember Stewart, then you might recall rumors swirling regarding his sexuality. The speculation began in 1998.
For the first time, Stewart is addressing everything he went through back then, in a new column he has written for the Players’ Tribune.
Society has changed in the 20-plus years since Stewart was the top of rumors, but sadly the accusations were, as Stewart puts it, a potential "death sentence" to his career.
Stewart says he has grown a lot in the years since, and now accepts everyone for who they are, but adds he was a product of his environment as a young black quarterback in "blue-collar town" in the late-90s.
In the personal piece, Stewart talks about how then owner, the late Dan Rooney wanted to make sure he was okay and after an investigation had discovered that the allegations, that had spread all over town (before social media) were started allegedly by a local police officer.
Stewart says a few weeks later after a home loss against New England, a man in a Steelers jacket called him “an effing N*****.”
He says he believes the rumor spread so quickly because some people wanted to see him fail.
“What killed me was that there were people in the city who really wanted to see me suffer," said Stewart.
Stewart also talks about the smile his mother gave him, the strength his father gave him, and how he never ran from Pittsburgh and stuck it out.
“Three years after I had my name dragged through the mud, three years after they threw beer in my face, three years after they called called me n***** in my own stadium, I led the Steelers back to the AFC Championship Game in 2001. Nobody can ever take that away from me, man.”
Stewart admits that he wasn’t a perfect quarterback, but that is what he wanted to be.
When everyone else wanted him to be “Slash” he wanted to be a quarterback.
He even tells the story of running into Dan Rooney at Jerome Bettis’ Hall of Fame induction and how he said if he would’ve stayed a receiver he would also be in Canton, but that wasn’t what Stewart wanted. He wanted to be himself.
He ends the piece with:
“You know what I heard about Kordell Stewart???”
Oh yeah, I heard it all.
But let the record show….
I took all the shots.
I took all the slurs.
I took all the slander.
I made a lot of mistakes.
But I stayed in that pocket.
And dammit, I did it my way.
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