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Silent Killer Polamalu Leads Stout Steelers Defense

The Associated Press

Troy Polamalu (43) speaks softly off the field, but his actions speaks volumes when the game is on the line.

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 30, 2009

TAMPA - The NFL leader in whispers was up on stage. There are at least three things you need to interview Troy Polamalu, the Pittsburgh Steelers' game changing Pro Bowl safety: a notebook, a pen and a lip reader.

"It'll be during games sometimes and Troy will come off the field and with 50,000 people screaming he'll whisper, 'Coach,' and he trails off. I I can't hear him," Steelers defensive line coach John Mitchell said with a grin. "I have to yell, 'Troy, you have to speak up, we're not alone.'"

Steelers linebacker LaMarr Woodley grinned.

"Silent killer," he said.

Meet Pittsburgh's mane man. His long hair is a tribute to his Samoan heritage and whose football game is ode to a Tasmanian Devil. Here on this Super stage, the Steelers, the best defense in football, have to try and stop Kurt Warner and the otherworldly Larry Fitzgerald, among others. That's where Polamalu comes in.

He comes in fast. He comes everywhere, anywhere, out of nowhere. He darts around before the snap, the quarterback trying to track him. Where is he now? He strikes without warning. He makes the big hit, the big play, like in the AFC title game, when he ran an interception in for a touchdown to seal the win over Baltimore. Silent killer.

He sometimes prays between plays. But he looks at a microphone as if it was a shotgun. That soft voice, kind of a cross between Michael Jackson and Marylin Monroe the night she sang "Happy birthday, Mr. President," to JFK, can't really belong to this 207-pound freight train, can it? You have come to the wrong place for dancing and chest thumping.

You have also come to the wrong place if you are trying to make a first down.

"I've never seen a guy with his talent be so humble and so selfless," Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel said. "You just don't see it in this day and age."

"He doesn't like the limelight or the cameras," safety Ryan Clark said.

"He's one of the classier guys in the league, he's so humble," cornerback Bryant McFadden said, "Then he goes out and takes your head off. He goes into a phone booth before he hits the field and changes into a whole different person."

Um, excuse me, well, Troy Polamalu, um, disagrees.

"Honestly, for me, I don't see any transition," he said. "I get the question a lot and I answer it the same way: I try to treat every aspect of my life with passion, with devotion to either my family or in this case football. Football is a very violent game. It's played very passionately. If I was doing ballet or something else like that, I would approach it with the same passion, it just doesn't have the violence."

I guarantee you that if this guy was in ballet, the swans in "Swan Lake" would die sooner, especially if they tried going over the middle. Not that Polamalu would come out and say that.

"I try not to be a player who is talking a lot of trash to guys or is real rah-rah guy that pumps up the defense."

He pumps up it up anyway. He led all NFL safeties in interceptions (7) and passes defended (24). He shuts down receivers, stuffs the run, blitzes, sacks. His teammates are still talking about the fingertip interception Polamalu made in the playoff game with San Diego three weeks ago. Whatever it takes. The 5-foot-10 Polamalu has even played nose tackles a few times. Bones rattle. Games change. A quiet storm.

Quiet Storm loves helping people. There are so many stories of Polamalu's kindness, including one where he made a home visit to a young cancer patient and sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed the child's feet. Quiet strength.

Sometimes, Polamalu and his wife will be at dinner and they'll see a young family and they'll call the waiter over and that family gets their dinner paid for, and they never find out who picked up the check.

If he wasn't so good at changing football games, "I'd probably be a teacher," Polamalu said. "I really enjoy being around children."

He studies the great safeties, looking for ways to improve his game. He studies wide receivers, too. His hobbies have included cultivating, wood carving, fishing and wine-making.

The kid in him is the side his teammates talk about. Ryan Clark said OK, enough with this quiet stuff.

"He's a prankster, he's a clown," Clark said. They all laughed the time during a preseason game when Bryant McFadden grabbed his helmet off the bench to run in the game, and was yanked back. Polamalu had taped it to the bench. He unties shoes, fills helmets with snow in winter, or hides them or playbooks. And then, when things get hairy in a game, here comes the mane man to save the day.

"He prays all the time," John Mitchell said. "But come Sunday man, he'll bite your head off."

We still need sonar to detect him on Super Bowl media days.

Forget wiring this guy for sound in games.

He doesn't even yell between plays, or even talk in formation.

"I'm more of a hand signal guy," Polamalu said.

Forget the lip reader.

We'll just watch him play.

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