LATROBE (93.7 The Fan) – We all could probably imagine being in a job or school or anywhere for 15 years and while the location doesn’t change, all of your direct bosses do. You are one of the team leaders and now dealing not only to you have questions, people are coming to you for answers.
Cam Heyward is back at St. Vincent College, now 37-years-old, and there is so much new in a familiar setting.
“He's from Pittsburgh, he has a lot of respect for the tradition here, but he's trying to forge something new, and I think that's gonna apply to everybody in our locker room,” Heyward said.
It’s been a high tempo with no breaks. The practices are over two hours earlier. The benches players would sit at in-between drills are gone. And now when the pads come on Monday, no live tackling.
“We'll see, you know when you can't tackle you really got to stress your technique and I'm looking forward to doing that,” Heyward said very diplomatically, hiding any doubt he might have in Mike McCarthy’s decision.
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“It’s about taking great angles, making sure you go for the far leg, and then on the other side making sure you finish every drill. So you know we can really just stress those details.”
If it’s different, heading into full pads without full contact doesn’t seem to be a deal breaker for Heyward in terms trusting his new head coach.
“We understand there's going to be growing pains, but being professional means doing what your coach asks of you,” Heyward said. “And we're very big on servant leadership and serving the entire group. Coach McCarthy said to us, he wants to serve us. We're all gonna be in this together and we're gonna put our hands in the pile.”
What does resonate with the 11-time Steelers captain is McCarthy saying it’s going to take 68-plus guys to win a Super Bowl. That he included the practice squad Heyward said shows the respect he has for all in the room.
After building a tight relationship with Mike Tomlin, Heyward is prepared for change.
He doesn’t want to go extinct.
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“I got to, the dinosaurs didn't look what happened to them,” Heyward said, pausing slightly for effect. “So for me, I got to embrace change.”
