Ward Learned by Mom’s Example

There was a time, years ago, when Hines Ward was embarrassed to be seen with his own mother.

He just didn’t understand, and she was so ... different.

Mother and son literally did not speak the same language.

But the passing years and Kim Young’s undying devotion to her only child eventually forged such a bond that Ward, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ leading receiver for six seasons, couldn’t help but grow emotional when talking about her this week in advance of Sunday’s Super Bowl.

“My mom is the reason why I’m here today,” he said. “All the values that she instilled in me, that’s who my mom is: a hard worker, nothing ever given to her, worked her tail off. I am here today because of my mom.”

Their journey started more than 30 years ago in Seoul, South Korea, where Ward’s father, a 20-year-old African American U.S. serviceman, was serving a tour of duty with the 2nd Infantry Division. Outside a Seoul nightclub one evening, he met Young, a 25-year-old cashier.

A few months later Kim was pregnant. She and Hines Ward Sr. were married and their son, Hines Jr., was born on March 8, 1976.

Little more than a year later, they all came to the U.S., where Ward was assigned to a base in Georgia. But within months the couple had split up and, after Ward was reassigned to Europe, he left the young boy with his mother.

In time, the serviceman returned, remarried and took Hines Jr. with him to Louisiana, where the boy lived with his paternal grandmother.

All the while his heartbroken mother set about reclaiming her son. The courts had deemed her an unfit parent because she couldn’t speak English and had no way to support him. She proved otherwise, taking a series of low-playing jobs.

Her son was 7 when they were finally brought back together in Forest Park, Ga., outside Atlanta, but it was far from a happy reunion.

The boy resented the woman he didn’t really know, wanted nothing to do with her, really.

“I was ashamed of that side of my family,” he said, “because I couldn’t really understand. I had grown up around all black people before moving in with my mom, so coming into a predominantly mixed neighborhood, that was something that was new to me and something that I was ashamed of as a little kid.”

Classmates teased him, he said, and called him names.

So one morning he ducked down in the car seat because he didn’t want anyone to know that the woman driving him to school was his mother.

Later, when he jumped out, he looked back to see her crying.

“Seeing my mom cry like that made me say, ‘Hey, this is who I am and I have to accept it and move on,’ ” he said. “I’m a Korean American.”

He opened his eyes to the sacrifices she had made, all for him, and opened his heart. To keep him clothed and fed, she held down three jobs at once, washing dishes at the airport, cleaning hotel rooms and working at a convenience store, a series of backbreaking positions that kept her busy late into the night, though she always seemed to find time to make his lunch and cook his dinner.

Ward, who will be 30 in March, said his mother’s example helped define him as he made his way from Forest Park High to Georgia to the Steelers.

At Georgia, he played quarterback, running back and wide receiver, moving among positions without complaint, although the constant shuffling may have contributed to his lasting until the third round of the 1998 draft.

And while climbing past Hall of Famer Lynn Swann and others into second place behind John Stallworth on the Steelers’ all-time receiving list, the resilient Ward made it all the way through high school, college and his first 7 1/2 NFL seasons before finally sitting out a game because of injury in October.

This week, he fairly glowed in the Super Bowl limelight.

And his mother?

“She’s a nervous wreck right now,” he said. “She knew it was always a dream of mine to get an opportunity to play in the Super Bowl and I’m just glad to have her here to be a part of all this.

“Hopefully, we can go out and win it, not only win it for the city of Pittsburgh and for my own family and for Jerome [Bettis], but I think it would be special for me and her considering all the stuff she’s been through in her life.

“To say that you’re a champion, you’re on top of the world for one year, I think it would be very gratifying for the both of us.”