Ben’s ‘new’ attitude still hasn’t changed

Associated Press

pittsburgh

Back in August, Ben Roethlisberger couldn’t stop smiling as the Steelers trudged through the first week of training camp. No teammate was immune from kidding, no autograph request was met with a glare or a condescending shrug of the shoulders.

This was the new, improved Roethlisberger, a player as good as the one who won two Super Bowls in four seasons but also a much different person, one who was less rude and less crude. His troubling offseason and the four-game suspension that resulted from it changed him, he insisted. He promised to mend his ways.

Some Steelers who had grown tired of the old Roethlisberger wondered if it was only an act. And, if it was, how long it would last. They’d seen too much of the self-absorbed Roethlisberger, the what’s-in-it-for-me Roethlisberger, and they questioned if one could change his personality so quickly.

Five months later, those teammates and the organization they play for are pleasantly surprised with the preliminary results.

As Roethlisberger winds down his suspension-delayed regular season, he appears to be as determined as ever to put what he calls the “Big Ben” character he had become into his distant past. There have been no public slip-ups, no locker-room grumbling about any regression in the way he performs his job or treats people.

And in the year in which he didn’t talk to reporters for months following allegations he sexually assaulted a Georgia college student — he wasn’t charged — the Pittsburgh chapter of the Pro Football Writers Association voted overwhelmingly to present him with a media cooperation award that is named for Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. Past winners include Steelers chairman emeritus Dan Rooney, Rod Woodson, Jerome Bettis and Hines Ward.

If it’s all an act, it’s becoming a long-playing one.

Roethlisberger called it an “awesome honor” — perhaps because he realizes he never came closing to winning it before.

“I said I needed to be more cooperative with people, be a better person,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s just a change I wanted to make in my life.”

Maurkice Pouncey, the Steelers’ center, doesn’t know if Roethlisberger truly is a changed man because he never saw the player who admittedly was self-absorbed and occasionally rude to his own teammates. All he knows is this Roethlisberger — a man he likes, a player he respects.

“He’s helped me so much,” Pouncey said. “He’s always giving me small little tips to help. I’ll do anything for Ben.”