Monday, July 13, 2009
Media / Silverman / Sports Why Did Steve McNair's Death Resonate So Much With Nashvillians?
Posted by Jack Silverman on Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM
Rarely has there been an outpouring for an athlete's death quite like the one Nashville gave McNair this week. Certainly not for a retired player who never won a championship or made the Hall of Fame, though McNair, along with running back Eddie George, did lead the Titans to the Super Bowl following the 1999 season. McNair was just 36 when he died, and he hadn't been the Titans' quarterback since 2005, the year before he was traded to the Baltimore Ravens. His career had been over for two years. He was no longer the face of the franchise, but rather just a memory and a nameplate on the facade of LP Field, where the Titans play their games. And yet for a week the city mourned. The restaurant, Steve McNair's Gridiron 9, that he opened across from the Tennessee State University campus just days before his death became a shrine where people, mostly strangers to him, came to write messages of farewell on the front of the locked glass doors and across the windows. And when the windows were filled, they wrote messages on cards, on photographs and on post-it notes and affixed them to the glass. Perhaps the most poignant was the most simple. A white sheet of unfolded paper, taped to the window, upon which someone had scrawled the words: "Steve we forgive you."As someone who grew up in Cleveland--a major, if hapless, sports town, where people live and die by their teams' fates--I can't ever remember any similar outpouring for the death of a sports figure. Nor do I recall witnessing any news coverage of a similar reaction to a sports figure's death in any city. Why did McNair's death strike such a chord? He certainly had some great years as a quarterback, but compared to elite NFL players, his body of work was far from remarkable. And though he was certainly a generous, community-minded soul, he was hardly Mother Teresa. Perhaps it has something to do with Nashville's relative infancy as a big-league sports town. When you spend decades with the Nashville Sounds as your biggest sports draw, The Titans (and Predators) coming to town is like manna from heaven. Die-hard Browns fans, for instance, live and breathe football, but still, there's nothing special about it. It's just like breathing and eating. They've been doing it since they were kids. But just like religious converts are more zealous than their fellow believers who grew up in the faith, maybe Titans fans reflect that same phenomenon. And, counterintuitive though it may be, I suspect the scandalous circumstances of his death may have increased the public outpouring of emotion, for a couple of reasons. First, though it was certainly nowhere near the magnitude of a major disaster such as 9/11 or Katrina, the news was so shocking to many Nashville sports fans that it shook them out of their daily doldrums and transported them to that same surreal netherworld people experience after such catastrophic events, a sensation intensified by the 24-hour news cycle. Also, because of the violent nature of his death and the character flaws it revealed, it left those who adored him even more pained and bereaved, with an even greater need to grieve. Would Steve McNair's death have triggered such a massive public response if he'd died of a heart attack? We'll never know.
Comments (13)
Showing 1-13 of 13
I think the public response if his death would have been from a heart attack or car wreck would have been pretty close to what it was, if not equal. Obviously, the media coverage would not have been as in depth or as prolonged, but the guy was a legend around here.
As a native, I'll put in my two cents:
Ten years ago, Nashville was a pretty different town. With the Titans came excitement, expectation, and skepticism. It was the first year the team was actually the "Titans", and the first year of the new stadium, so we actually felt like the team was ours and not still sitting in a pawn shop (Memphis or Vanderbilt). As the first season gathered momentum, fans began to see potential for something special. After all the incredible wins that year, and one devastating Super Bowl loss, Steve McNair became the face of the franchise, and for many, the city. We finally had somebody we could stand behind that had no relation to Garth Brooks or Hee-Haw or anything related to country music. That season brought an incredible unity to the city, where old gray haired Belle Meade ladies and young black men from North Nashville had something in common, for the first time ever.
Nashville felt that Steve was one of its own: Southern, poor, straightforward, easy with a smile, soft spoken, hard working. Nashville doesn't demand winners, but it does demand work ethic and accountability. When Steve was a player, he played well and he played poorly, he was showered with praise and with boos, but people always appreciated the fact that he tried his hardest and he played through pain. Not to mention the fact that he was easy going, shunned all aspects of celebrity, and was so good with the fans and the community. He didn't complain or pass blame, he just did what he did.
It comes to light that he was a lousy husband and a dishonest father. I can't defend that. I will say that he did more for other people than most people ever could, or even would given the chance. He'll always be an important part of the city, and important to the city, even if he was not really the person we had hoped he was.
like
dislike
As the former poster stated so aptly, he helped break down racial barriers in Nashville and on the social scenes. I do see an element of the grief perhaps exaggerated by the recent loss of MJ. It immediately took on a very similar element of Tabloid-isum.
We don't know if he was a "bad" husband or father. All we know is he sacrificed time with them to party. He had two other children before he married Michelle. She must have been extremely naive to his behaviors or looked the other way. The sad part isn't the he was having this one affair per say, it's that he probably always had affairs, lots of them, and was never a monogamous partner. Many seemingly "good" men feel entitled to that.
The underlying grief of the community is the knowing that his death won't change anything, people are still going to be stupid and allow their biological drives to overcome logic. In that sense his death was in vain. Men will continue to make bad, history making choices all for the attentions and time of a 20 year old girl. That is the human condition, and that is part of what is so overwhelmingly sad about what happened. That is why society so reveres female beauty and it's power to overcome all reason and logic.
Perhaps it would have been better for his family had he died of a heart attack, but he didn't. I believe people responded so dramatically in part because of the circumstances surrounding his death. He was a flawed sports hero, but he was ours. In the same way I may not like my brother, and may call him a bigot, I better not hear you call him a bigot...he's my brother and I will defend his name when a stranger tries to talk about him. That's how I feel about Steve. I don't want to judge his private life, and I really don't want to hear others doing it either. He came to our attention as a football player, and that is how his life should be viewed by those who did not know him. What kind of football player was he? I can't say what kind of father and husband he was. Only his family can do that, and I am perfectly content to let them be the judge of that.
God rest his soul.
There's something to Kotz's point about the newness of Nashvillians to the big leagues. No adult here grew up with the Titans. We all had to make a decision that they were our boys. Steve McNair made that decision very easy.
Every team has a blue collar kind of guy, who made it on guts and toughness. Every team has a guy who pays a lot of attention to the community, hanging out with normal folks and showing up at events with a smile and extra ballpoints. And good teams have good players who are obviously team leaders. Mac was all that, and made it very easy to get to living the Titans for being something others than "ours."
Wow, rarely have I seen four consecutive comments on Pith as thoughtful and eloquent as those. Maybe we could work something out where you folks write my posts for me and I slip you a few bucks under the table. Though OG DG, as long as you're agreeing with me, I'll point out that it was I, not Kotz, who wrote the post. If you had been chastising me, I would have let you continue to believe it was Kotz.
Jack, I just want to chime in to agree. I'm not sure I exactly agree with what folks are saying here (I don't actually know what I think about this exactly yet), but I'm really, really glad I clicked in here to read, because it's given me a lot of food for thought.
OG DG, not a problem.
You wouldn't know it by looking at us, but in many ways Kotz and I are cut from the same cloth.
(I'd like to say first that I agree with Jack's comment (and post). This is the most thoughtful, civil and insightful comment thread I've read on Pith since I stopped reading them.)
In addition to his being the personification of our 'coming of age' experience that the Titans provided us, I think also that McNair's relative youth also added to the outpouring of grief. And perhaps there was something about McNair's death coming in the context of the spectacle of Michael Jackson's media-overloaded death: perhaps we were having our smaller version of the bizarness taking place in L.A. because the local media was modeling CNN et al's coverage of that event. (Just a theory)
I do think that when a public figure dies -- especially one who is associated with lots of happy and positive moments in our memories -- we mourne for that which we may be losing personally, along with the loss of the public figure.
I have two children, ages 21 and 18, who attended Titans games with my wife and me for the past decade. I am certain my feeling of loss was wrapped in nostalgia for the un-fettered joyful hugs and high-fives we celebrated many times when Steve broke free of a sure-sack and dumped off a short pass to Wycheck who then made an impossible first down.
"rarely have I seen four consecutive comments on Pith as thoughtful and eloquent as those"
Well, let me do something about that.
"YOU NUMBNUTS LIBTARD CARPET BAGGERS DON'T GET IT. Mac Nair could have SAVED HIMSELF if he had a GUN PERMIT but you communists push your party line in your PRAVDA newspaper and scare the good people away from carrying guns. Simply owning a handgun permit makes you bullet proof, and nobody can prove otherwise. Oh, Mac Nair had a permit, you say, and Sahel Kazemi legally purchased a handgun with no check or waiting period despite being 20 year old? If it weren't for you Socialist Libtards scaring the good people about GUNS none of this would have happened."
McNair's death was obviously a big story, but there was very little reporting on it here and in the Scene.
-i personally think this should be a wake up call for the asshole football players that play these games with women. From personal experience these assholes continuously build u up an let u down and I'm not about killing no one but u know what that nigga ran up on the wrong one so get the message out for these assholes to stop playin games.
