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Tuesday, October 22, 2002

A 19-year-old wound finally scabbed over. So long as Terry Bradshaw doesn't pick at it, consider this healing. But you never know with this guy, who still revealed signs of bitterness in the minutes before he was warmly embraced on a see-your-breath cold Monday.

On a night made for Shreveport, La., Virgos who grow to become Steelers quarterbacks -- Tommy Maddox shares the same birth date (Sept. 2) and hometown -- Bradshaw stole the black-and-gold spotlight, stole the North Shore ovation. It was a long time coming.

He'll tell you so.

"My last year here, I got booed coming off the field, and I never got over that," Bradshaw told ESPN shortly before this Indianapolis-Steelers kickoff, referencing his bitter 1983 end. "Then I got hurt, and I never got over that. I went through a lot of things. Then, one day I woke up: Terry, you're 54 years old. You don't have a football family.' I made a point to mend all my fences so I could go back home." He added to WTAE-TV, "It took awhile to get comfortable coming home."

He has been in and out of Pittsburgh 10 times since retiring because of that awful elbow. He has been in and out four times within the past 14 months, the bookends of those trips being for book signings, like yesterday's. The thing is, he never once in the interim returned for a Steelers game.

Question: What took so long to come back, man?

Answer: I just got invited.

After signing more than 100 copies of "Keep It Simple," his latest book, he mounted the stage in the Coca-Cola Great Hall for a Q&A. Most of his answers were vintage Bradshaw: funny, self-deprecating, entertaining to the 750-plus who crowded around for the 20-minute session shortly after 7 p.m. Yet that one answer wasn't completely true, for he had been invited to reunions and the Three Rivers Stadium end game.

Not that he needed an invitation to, say, Art Rooney Sr.'s funeral in 1988, an absence Bradshaw has come to regret.

He has admittedly gone through therapy since retiring. He has tried to come to grips with his emotional hurt, claiming he once spent money on one therapist to help explain another. He remained so unsure in anticipation of his Pittsburgh reception last night, he brought his teenage daughters, Rachel and Erin, for cover.

No need.

For the coin toss, he donned his No. 12 and stood with the Steelers' captains, fans waving Terrible Towels and screaming "Terr-ee, Terr-ee." Before he reached the Steelers' sideline, Maddox stopped him for a quick chat, a conversation between Steelers quarterbacks past and present, not to mention Dallas neighbors. (Bradshaw says Maddox approached him at the famed Trophy Club two years ago to seek his assistance in gaining an Atlanta Falcons roster spot, but Bradshaw told him there was nothing he could do.)

Come halftime, most of the fourth-largest crowd in Heinz Field's existence stayed at their seats or stood on the ramps to watch the main ceremony. Art Rooney II -- a graying Steelers vice president whom Bradshaw can still recall as a long-haired college kid loafing at Latrobe -- presented him with a No. 12 jersey circa 1988, with an AJR patch on the left shoulder for the late Chief "because of your special relationship." Earlier, Dan Rooney remembered, "He was a great friend of my father's. He used to steal his cigars and talk to him about anything."

A video tribute on the scoreboard, its Immaculate Reception replay drawing the loudest crowd reaction, ended simply: Welcome Home, Terry. Bradshaw stepped to that midfield microphone, surrounded himself with his daughters and owned Pittsburgh once again.

"That sounds good. That's all right. Keep going," he began to thunderous cheers. "I want to thank the Rooney family. It's been 19 years since I've been on this playing field. I want to thank their dad, who was my father away from home. I want to thank Dan Rooney, who signed me on the Three Rivers Stadium field for the paltry sum of $25,000. And I haven't gotten over that yet."

You think he was kidding?

"I want to tell all of you that there's no place like home," he continued, stressing a familial theme similar to the one he invoked weeks ago at Mike Webster's funeral service. "I think it's important tonight that I let all of you know, you all need your family, you all need your football family, you all need your Steelers family. Though I've probably been an enigma to you, believe me, I have missed you very much."

Bradshaw has been an enigma to himself and probably three wives, too. In his latest book, he wrote that he believes attention-deficit disorder -- diagnosed later in life -- caused him so many problems, prompting three failed marriages, among other flaws. I don't know if that explains his bitter feelings toward Steelers fans, his Chuck Noll rantings earlier in his retirement, his lingering emotional pain over the injury that cut short his Hall of Fame career. But if it helps to heal the sorest Steelers spot of all, why not?

"Ladies and gentleman," he closed his 2 minute, 45 second speech, "it's good to be home."

For now, he seems comfortable in this new skin, 19 years in the growing.