Lori Falce: Helmets show team support isn't uniform

Being part of a team means doing a lot together.

It means you work toward a common goal. It means supporting and encouraging each other. It also means challenging each other to do better.

It doesn’t mean everyone has to think the same thing. Putting on a uniform isn’t surrendering independence.

Or at least it shouldn’t be.

The Pittsburgh Steelers announced Monday that the team would be “united as one” wearing helmets this season sporting the name of Antwon Rose II, the 17-year-old who died in a confrontation with then-East Pittsburgh police officer Michael Rosfeld in June 2018. Rose’s name has been frequently brought up during protests and conversation about race and police brutality since the death of George Floyd in May touched off renewed outrage.

But not everyone feels the same way about the young man some remember as a student and poet and others point to as a possible participant in a drive-by shooting.

That was made clear in the Steelers debut on “Monday Night Football” when left tackle Alejandro Villanueva added a handwritten name to his helmet instead. “Alwyn Cashe” his said in black marker.

Villanueva is a veteran, a former Army ranger and Bronze Star recipient who has taken other principled stands. He was the lone Steeler who came to the field for the national anthem when the team decided to avoid the thorny issue of silent kneeling protests over the same race and violence issue in 2017 by staying in the locker room until the music was over.

Cashe was another soldier — an Army sergeant who died in 2005 from wounds suffered in Iraq. He received a Silver Star for his valor in saving the lives of other soldiers. A concerted effort has been undertaken to posthumously award him the Medal of Honor for his heroism.

But this isn’t an issue of a Black teenager being spurned for a soldier. It’s an issue of two Black men who are a part of two very different conversations and whose names and stories both deserve attention.

On Thursday, Steelers center and co-captain Maurkice Pouncey said he would remove Rose’s name from his helmet. A Florida native, Pouncey does work with police at home and in Pittsburgh. He said he was unaware of the full story of the Rose shooting, and despite opposing systemic racism, he chose not to pick a side in the case.

“Moving forward, I will make my own decision about what to wear on the back of my helmet,” he said in an Instagram post.

And he should get to do that.

The NFL has previously chastised players for making political or personal or even commercial statements with their uniforms. In 2015, Steelers DeAngelo Williams and William Gay were fined for alterations supporting breast cancer research and domestic violence prevention, respectively. Both men lost their mothers to the issues they were publicizing.

If players are muzzled for making statements, they should not be forced to make statements either.

The NFL — with a leaguewide roster of 70% Black players — has definitely struggled with issues pertaining to race in the years since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee. Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to want to rewrite this history, but attempts to change the past with slogans and stunts won’t work.

Neither will requiring group thinking from players.

If some of them want to keep Rose’s name in play, reminding people that Floyd’s Minneapolis death has a local parallel, they should be allowed to do so. But Villanueva’s support for Cashe is a cause worth voicing, too. And if others, like Pouncey, just don’t want decisions made for them, they shouldn’t be used as marketing tools.

Being a team player doesn’t mean giving up your right to think. But leading a team should never mean forcing the members to do things they don’t believe in.