The Man in the Middle : Steelers’ Hall of Fame Inductee Mike Webster, Once Indestructible, Has Made the Circuit From Super Bowl Arenas to Sleeping in Bus Stations

Mike Webster, the indestructible Pittsburgh Steeler with the rolled-up shirt sleeves and the ever-present stare that warned don’t tread on me, never met another man he couldn’t beat.

With Webster often serving as his solitary defender, Terry Bradshaw always had the best protection. With Webster pushing aside much bigger defensive tackles, Franco Harris always had the biggest holes. The Pittsburgh Steelers always had the most Super Bowl rings.

Webster, the man in the middle of so much greatness, had it all from 1974-90 as a nine-time Pro Bowl center on what in the late 1970s was the best team in pro football.

“Just the way he broke the huddle, you could tell it excited the Steelers’ offense,” former Dolphins Coach Don Shula says. “On defense, you knew he was coming after you on every play. He was a real warrior.”

Then, in seemingly as little time as it once took Lynn Swann to beat a defensive back, Webster lost it all--his livelihood, his family, his home, his identity and, nearly, his life.

Now, on what should be a great weekend for him, his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, next Saturday, with Bradshaw as his presenter, Webster is a pained man trying to rebuild his life.

At times, it must seem as overwhelming as taking on the entire Dallas Cowboys pass rush by himself, which he did in two Super Bowls.

“I’ve been better off,” says Webster, who has battled recurring health and financial problems since leaving the NFL seven years ago. “But I’m not destitute.”

No, destitute arrived several years ago, when one of the most recognizable figures in Pittsburgh sports was so broke he slept in the downtown bus station or the back of his car.

The fashionable house in Pittsburgh’s southern suburbs that was home to Webster, his wife, Pam, and their four children was long gone, lost to financial problems that led him to file a malpractice lawsuit against his former lawyers.

Webster estimates he was homeless for about a year and a half out of the last five years.

Too proud to ask for help, and at times, too despondent to seek it, Webster--ever the loner--knew he would not encounter at the bus station any of the corporate executives or ex-teammates he once counted as friends.

Today, things are better, but not dramatically so.

Home is a budget-rate motel near the Pittsburgh International Airport. He works for a sports marketing company, but much of his time is spent pursuing his lawsuit and undergoing medical tests. He fears he may have Parkinson’s disease, similar to the malady that struck Muhammad Ali. Webster is 45, but looks 10 years older.

He suspects he had a couple of minor heart attacks a few years ago, causing his lungs to fill with fluid and leading to breathing problems. He also has been tested for depression, post-concussion disorders and convulsive spasms that disrupt his sleep and inhibit his concentration.

“I’m not as bad off as people say,” says Webster, who has stubbornly rejected offers of financial help from his ex-teammates. “People see me and they say they can’t believe how good I look.”

But while he is working and upbeat about the future, he is without his wife, who filed for divorce a year ago, and his children, who live with her in her Wisconsin hometown. Previously, they would not hear from him for weeks at a time, but he now visits them regularly.

Mindful of his problems, the Steelers regularly dropped hints of help, and he was the honorary chairman of their annual springtime 5K run. But Webster, who seems to trust only himself, recoils at sympathy or handouts.

Even now, many of his ex-teammates are reluctant to discuss his problems for fear of alienating him.

“My problems are my problems,” he recently told Pittsburgh’s WTAE-TV. “I’m working in marketing now and I’m trying to win their (ex-teammates’) business,” rather than accept their offers of charity.

Webster also must deal with persistent speculation about the true reason behind his health problems, which appear unusually severe for a relatively young man who once went 10 years without missing a game.

Webster’s medical troubles would seem to mirror those of Steve Courson, a former Steelers lineman and close friend of Webster’s for six seasons (1978-83) who has spent the last decade speaking out against steroid abuse.

Courson, who also developed heart problems shortly after his career ended, contends steroid use among NFL lineman was widespread while he played. He blames his own poor health mostly on his use of artificial strength and bulk builders.

Webster was always the first in the weight room and the last to leave, and his Popeyelike forearms, always bare even on the coldest December day, were his proud signature of proof. But Webster insists--not just publicly, but to his doctors--that steroids were not part of his training regimen.

“I wasn’t that knowledgeable or that interested about them,” he told ESPN.

But many who knew Webster as one of the NFL’s strongest men wonder how a man so healthy, so strong and energetic could have had so much medical misfortune.

Maybe it took until his career was over to find the one man he has never beaten--Mike Webster himself.

“I know I’m on the way back, it’s just a matter of time,” Webster says. “I always finished everything I ever started, every game. I’ll finish this, too.”