Breath of Fresh Hair

Troy Polamalu is among the NFL’s most humble stars. All the success he has had in his three seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers hasn’t gone to his head.

But it has gone to a lot of others.

The wavy locks that spill out of his helmet and down the back of his jersey are all the rage in the Steel City, where costume stores can’t seem to keep Polamalu wigs in stock.

“They’re our best seller,” said Wendy Chambers, manager of Costume World Inc. in downtown Pittsburgh. “It caught on really fast. We’ve been ordering them on a daily basis, two dozen at a time.”

Her store sells two versions, one for $18 and another more realistic one for $40. They have vastly outsold the giant Afro wigs or yellow-and-black “bumblebee” wigs that some Steeler fans have purchased.

The success of the Steelers -- and, in particular, that of All-Pro strong safety Polamalu -- has created “a second Halloween” for the store, Chambers said.

“Last weekend, we basically had to have crowd control in here,” she added.

Polamalu, a former USC standout, has joined Jerome Bettis and Ben Roethlisberger as the most recognizable and respected Steelers. He’s the soft-spoken defensive leader for a storied franchise that today will play in its first Super Bowl in a decade.

At 5 feet 10, 212 pounds, he has earned the nickname “Tasmanian Devil” for his disruptive style of lining up and making plays anywhere and everywhere. He drops back into coverage, darts up in run support, and rockets through soft spots in protection to reach the quarterback.

“His talent lets us do a lot of things that you could not do with many people who might be pretty good football players,” said Dick LeBeau, Pittsburgh’s defensive coordinator. “Troy has that rare ability to play at all levels of the defense -- deep, intermediate, at the line scrimmage, and blitz. Those types of people don’t come along every day.”

Polamalu and linebacker Larry Foote share the team lead with 19 postseason tackles, 11 unassisted, as compiled by the club. In the regular season, he had 91 tackles, three sacks, two interceptions and two fumble recoveries -- and helped set the tone as far as Steeler work ethic was concerned.

“He is a madman on the field, but the thing that makes him be able to do that on the field [are] things that he is able to do in the classroom,” cornerback Deshea Townsend said. “The way that he studies film, the in and outs, the little things that people don’t see, makes him the player that he is.”

Sometimes, Polamalu would prefer being neither seen nor heard. He’s not terribly at ease being a celebrity in his adopted hometown.

“A lot of times, people don’t set boundaries when prestige comes in,” he said. “When they lose that, they lose control of their lives. My wife and I are very personal people and we like our privacy, like I’m sure a lot of people do. So in some sense we set a lot of boundaries for ourselves so we’re not defined by football.”

He rarely talks football when he’s at home, and there’s almost no evidence around his house that he’s an NFL player. Asked where he keeps those mementos, he says that’s what an attic is for.

“My wife loves me because of me,” he said. “My friends like me because of me, not because of football. I think for a lot of people, football defines them.”

That said, it’s often hard to escape when he sets foot outside his front door, especially in a city that so loves its Steelers. That was a major adjustment for a kid coming from Los Angeles, where he could blend into the crowd.

“Being a football player in Pittsburgh is like being a Hollywood celebrity in Hollywood,” he said. “You could be walking next to Brad Pitt or some famous actor or actress, and people would be like, ‘That guy’s on the practice squad for the Steelers!’ They wouldn’t even notice the guy next to you.

“That’s the great thing about Pittsburgh, how fanatic they are about that. But you don’t like too much prestige; that’s a negative as well.... In L.A., the only people who get everything they want are actors and actresses, or billionaires’ sons and daughters.”

Polamalu, who grew up in Santa Ana as the youngest of five children, has let his hair grow as a tribute to his Samoan heritage. He last cut it in 2000 at the insistence of one of his USC coaches.

While an offensive player might worry about someone grabbing his hair and hanging on -- which is legal -- that doesn’t concern Polamalu. After all, he’s a defender, so people might only pull his hair if he had the ball.

“If I have the ball,” he said, “they can go ahead and pull.”

That’s not to say he’s easygoing when it comes to his on-field demeanor. He can be ferocious, which is in stark contrast to his soft voice and friendly smile.

“One day something happened on the practice field,” USC Coach Pete Carroll recalled. “[Polamalu] felt like he got blocked and looked bad. He responded with a ferocity you rarely see. We almost had to call practice off because he was tearing people’s heads off.

“He has an extraordinary will to be great. If someone knocked him off that track, he was coming back. And we’re talking about a guy with an extraordinary spectrum of personality because he is also one of the most kind and gentle people you’d meet.”

Trojan quarterback Matt Leinart too has a vivid recollection of that day at practice. Polamalu was clobbered on a crack-back block by a receiver and got up enraged. He wasn’t angry at the receiver -- the block was clean -- but he was furious at the cornerback, who failed to tell him the block was coming.

“The corner, I don’t remember who it was, was supposed to yell ‘Crack back!’ so Troy could see it coming,” said Leinart, who stopped by the Super Bowl last week on an endorsement swing. “I’ve never seen Troy flip out like that. He was so mad. He picked the guy up and threw him on the ground and started cussing. Troy never cusses.

“[The corner] was just like, ‘Uh, sorry.’

“Troy Polamalu was the Man at SC.”

Although the setting has changed, the sentiment hasn’t.

Polamalu is the Man in Pittsburgh too.

And the Hair.

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Times staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.