Mental toughness is many things. It is humility because it behooves all of us to remember that simplicity is the sign of greatness and meekness is the sign of true strength. Mental toughness is spartanism with the qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love. – Vince Lombardi, NFL Coach and General Manager
I love football. I played on a winning program in high school. I was named as an all-district player in my senior year. My position was offensive guard. I weighed around 150 pounds, so I was not big enough to have any hopes of continuing as a player beyond that point. However, the lessons I learned on the field have served me well over the succeeding 40 plus years, such as winning isn’t easy, practice always precedes perfection, sometimes you have to perform at your best when you’re feeling your worst, that winners on the field and in life face up to the challenge at hand, while the losers make up excuses to avoid them, and to excel you must remain confident, enthusiastic and positive – even in the face of adversity. These are just a few of the timeless principles of success that one has the opportunity to acquire in team sports – treasures that can serve one well throughout their business, personal and spiritual lives.
For me, despite public and media desires to portray the notoriety that is often attendant to the lifestyles of professional athletes, I prefer to concentrate instead on the effort and commitment that must exist for anyone who wishes to compete at this level. You don’t have to dig too deep from the performance enhancing drugs and criminal conduct of the few to uncover inspiring personal stories that are more prevalent as the unsavory ones. One such story is about a player that was one of my personal idols back when I was playing. His tale is one of unbelievable tenacity. His name is Rocky Bleier.
The Pittsburg Steelers selected Bleier as their last pick of the 1968 draft in the 16th round. But Bleier was also drafted by the U.S. Army that year and sent to Vietnam.
On August 20, 1969. Robert Patrick Bleier, a member of the U.S. Army’s 196th Light Infantry Brigade, was not thinking about the days when he was the captain of the Notre Dame football team. He was not reminiscing about the epic 1966 battle at Michigan State when he led the Irish in rushing in a 10-10 stalemate that sealed the national championship for Notre Dame. He was not remembering that January day in 1968 when he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Bleier, stationed in Hiep Douc in South Vietnam, had more pressing matters at hand. Bleier’s C Company had been beckoned to rescue B Company after an ambush by the North Vietnamese Army. The fighting escalated and Bleier found himself in trouble.
“About a hundred meters ahead of us we could see the leaves rustling,” recalled Bleier. “We knew there would be gunfire and grenades. One of my platoon mates kept yelling, ‘Rock, Rock.’ Then I felt a sharp thud in my leg. I thought my buddy threw a rock at me to get my attention. When I looked at my leg it wasn’t a rock. A bullet went right through my thigh. It didn’t hit bone, but created both an entry and exit wound.”
His day would get worse. A live grenade landed close to him and before he could jump out of harm’s way, it exploded and riddled his right foot with shrapnel, rendering him immobile. Every member of Bleier’s company was either killed or wounded.
“I had a wrap on my leg and we had just lost three or four men,” remembered Bleier. “A grenade bounced off Captain Murphy and landed right next to me. I couldn’t get out of the way in time.”
A third platoon was sent to help, but time and distance seemed like eternity. Bleier crawled through rice paddies, was dragged and was carried in a poncho. All the while, he was losing blood and his foot was burning from the sulfur laced into the shrapnel. When Bleier became too heavy to carry, his fellow soldiers decided to set Bleier down and get to a helicopter with hopes of bringing back a board that would make the job of transporting him possible.
“A few minutes later, I saw a black hand reach down to pick me up,” said Bleier. “This man put me over his shoulder and carried me the rest of the way to the helicopter. Racism was never more turbulent than back in the 60s, but in those rice paddies, we were colorblind. We were Americans. I never found out his name. I thought for sure someone would come forward, but to this day no one ever has.”
Not a moment too soon, Bleier finally reached the helicopter that took him to a medical camp. His first shot of morphine was administered 14 hours after the initial bullet wound. Flown off to Tokyo, Bleier was treated by Dr. Andy Laorr and Dr. John Baughman. They performed surgery on Bleier, removing more than 100 pieces of shrapnel from his foot. Safe from the enemy at the moment, Bleier thought about football again and asked his doctors about its future. Playing football, Dr. Baughman informed, “was going to be impossible.” Walking again with some degree of normalcy was a more plausible goal.
“Dr. Laorr was more diplomatic, but he too told me to forget about playing football,” noted Bleier. “He said he was sorry, but there was too much damage to my right foot. Ironically, Dr. Laorr (from Thailand) later set up practice in Indiana, Pennsylvania and saw me play a lot of football.”
Three weeks later, Bleier was flown to Fort Riley, Kansas to begin recovery. Accompanying him back to the States was a Purple Heart for being wounded in action and Bronze Star for heroic or meritorious achievement. In January, 1970, Bleier underwent a second surgery to remove bone spurs and cut ligament out of scar tissue. He was rendered 40 percent disabled by the U.S. Army.
What followed is a lesson in human determination that is difficult to fathom. Bleier took shock therapy treatments. He stretched with large rubber bands. He ran before dawn, lifted weights and ran sprints every day. On weekends, he ran the steps of the Kansas State University stadium with 10-pound weights on his ankles. He ate every vitamin known to mankind and supplements like wheat germ and calf’s liver.
“I just wanted to play football more than anything else in the world,” recalled Bleier. “I was a bachelor. Football was my life and my dream at the time. Nothing else mattered. I loved the game so much. I didn’t want to look back later in life and regret not giving the game every ounce I had.”
When the Steeler’s training camp opened in 1970, Bleier was there, battling eight running backs for only five spots available.
“I didn’t want to face the truth,” Bleier recalled years later, “I have a certain self-discipline, an ability to persuade myself that reality is not what it seems. During that training camp, I convinced myself that I actually had a chance to make the team. I forced myself to ignore the fact that I still had a noticeable limp, especially late in the day when I was tired. Years later, in better times, my fellow teammates told me how they collectively shook their heads back watching me struggle through that camp.”
Most of those who were shaking their heads were doing so in astonishment and admiration at the fact that Rocky would just not quit. This in spite of the fact that the coaches, trainers and doctors had all advised Bleier to give up football rather than take a chance on suffering permanent injuries. Rocky almost made the team that year, but was the last player cut before the final roster was set. Bleier underwent yet another operation. Pittsburg did, however, keep him in their organization. They put him on the injured reserve list and used him as a scout during the season and reactivated for the team’s final game. When training camp arrived for the next season, Rocky was given another shot at his dream to play in the NFL.
“I tried to rationalize that workout. Ten laps, two and a half miles. That’s all I could do. My right toes ached; I still couldn’t push off of them I was still running cockeyed on the hell and side of my foot. My toes had no strength, no endurance, no flexibility. I couldn’t do any more. Then I thought of the other running backs – Bankston, Pearson, Fuqua, plus the rookies who would be coming in. Ten laps would be nothing for them. Then I imagined myself…in super shape, running the football, breaking tackles, the crowd roaring. I got up and ran some more.”
During that training camp, Bleier ripped a hamstring muscle in the leg that had been injured in Vietnam. Again he was advised to give up football. But by that time, the doctors undoubtedly knew what Rocky’s answer would be. Rocky taped up his leg and returned to the field.
By 1972, Bleier was playing every game with the Steelers on their special teams. He was timed faster than he had been before he suffered his wounds. In 1974, he moved into the starting backfield. In 1976, he gained over one thousand yards rushing and became a key player in Pittsburg’s emergence as the dominant team of the 1970’s.
Rocky Bleier became a great football player simply because he refused to quit on his dream to be one. Do we apply that same standard of tenacity to the quest to attain our own dreams? We should.
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William J. “Bill” Bacque