Steve Gleason: Athlete, symbol and teacher

Unless you are a die-hard fan of the New Orleans Saints, we probably first heard of Steve Gleason on the same day: September 25th, 2006. I was sitting in my living room with my wife on RAF Alconbury, England, serving a long-tour as part of my service commitment to the to U.S. Air Force.

We were watching Monday Night Football, and we were watching for a specific reason. It was the night that the Superdome in New Orleans was reopening for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. I was watching to catch a glimpse of a city — perhaps America’s greatest city — celebrate like only it knows how. The dome was open for business and the beloved Saints were home.

The Monday Night Football broadcast began with a musical video/montage of sorts, focusing on a preacher in what we were led to believe was a church in New Orleans. He was passionately recalling the struggles the city had faced in the wake of Katrina. As the church broke into “When the Saints Go Marching In,” the preacher repeated the words “We are still here.”

And they were.

It was quite simply the greatest intro to Monday Night Football I’ve ever seen. And the home team did its part to make the entire night magical. Just minutes into the game, the Saints had forced the Atlanta Falcons to punt deep in their own territory. The ball was snapped. A second later, history was made. In that moment, an athlete named Steve Gleason screamed through the line of scrimmage, extended his arms, and blocked the punt. The ball was scooped up by a teammate in the endzone, giving the Saints a lead they wouldn’t give up.

In that instant, for the first time in his life, Steve Gleason became a symbol.

He became a symbol of the mettle of New Orleans. Not only wouldn’t they die, but they’d be back — bigger, better and louder than ever. You wouldn’t know their names or faces. You’d only know their actions, and they would have been reborn.

Today, a statue of Gleason blocking the punt greets visitors to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The name of the statue: Rebirth.

Five years later, Steve Gleason would be diagnosed with ALS. His battle with the disease and subsequent efforts to bring awareness to it and raise money for a cure have been well documented by virtually every major media outlet. When this past month’s “Ice Bucket Challenge” took the nation by storm, there was Gleason — one-upping everyone — taking the challenge naked.

Steve Gleason has become the face of ALS in the 21st century. Thanks to the awareness he has helped bring to it, fewer and fewer people every day know it by the nickname it carried for most of the 20th century: Lou Gehrig’s disease. The cause and fight called for a new face in a new time.

For the second time in Steve Gleason’s life, he has become a symbol.

Steve Gleason is a little less than a year older than me. Like myself, he grew up with the grunge music of the 1990s. As a result, I felt a special connection with him during the ESPN segment last year where he interviewed the members of Pearl Jam. A bounced ball here, a different life choice there, and Steve Gleason and I could have met on a football field somewhere. But we didn’t.

Despite that, I still feel like I know him. During that segment with Pearl Jam, he asked Eddie Vedder a question that has stuck with me ever since. He asked Vedder to talk about some things he wished he knew about his father. Vedder’s reply was along the lines of wanting to know if his father loved him and how much. You could tell Steve was soaking it all in, as he was assembling a video diary to leave to his own son, in the event that, as he says, the experts are right about his life expectancy.

Steve’s question and his video diary weigh on my mind every day. Like Steve, I am blessed with the opportunity in this life to be a father. I love my kids, they love me, and for the longest time that was good enough. But Steve Gleason changed me and in reality, taught me to embrace what we are all often too afraid to embrace: We aren’t here forever.

It made me rethink my relationship with my kids. It made me rethink think this hobby of writing — one that I’d like to have pay the bills someday. You see, there are a lot of news outlets and blogs on the internet. What many people don’t understand unless they write for one of these outlets is that many of the stories and articles you read were written by someone who either isn’t getting paid or is getting paid roughly a penny for every ten “clicks.” I’m one of those people, trying to make it in this age of new media. I have no problem paying my dues.

In order to keep up, we have to digest the same amount of information as “the big boys.” This takes time. It takes time away from our families — often our children. We work our day jobs to put food our our tables and keep the heat on — eight hours at a time away from our loved ones. When we come home, our minds are never really 100 percent focused on the activities around us. We are thinking about our next article. We are trying to figure out our next piece that will net us 1,000 reads for a buck or possibly grab the attention of enough people to garner a bit of name recognition.

And then it happens. And then nothing happens. And it’s over.

But then, as I put down the smartphone or fold up the laptop, I see my kids begging for my attention. “Is it worth it?”, I think to myself.

And then I think about Steve Gleason, dedicating his life to two causes: finding a cure for ALS and making sure his son knows who he was and how much Steve loved him. In that moment, the phone goes away and I ignore the laptop. It’s time to let my kids know who I am and that I love them, unconditionally and forever.

It shouldn’t be that way. It shouldn’t take a story like Steve Gleason’s to make me see what I’m taking for granted with every second I don’t spend interacting with my kids. But it does. And for that I thank him.

Too often in life, we lose people — good people — and never really get to tell them how much they meant to us or that they made a difference. That is why I decided to write this. I’ll likely never meet Steve Gleason. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that he knows that he made and continues to make a difference — not as an athlete or a symbol — but as a teacher. I’m always learning, especially when it comes to being a good parent. I’ll take advice, knowledge and direction whenever and wherever I can get it.

Steve Gleason is still here, and without knowing it, has given me  — a total stranger — all of those things.

Please donate to to the Gleason Initiative Foundation or the Gleason Family Trust. I will do the same with the earnings from this article.