Editor’s note: This excerpt appears courtesy of On The Green Magazine. For more content like this, visit onthegreenmagazine.com.
Rocky Bleier had his ambition to be an NFL football player to lift him from the solemn challenges of returning to civilian life in 1970 after suffering injuries to both legs and seeing Army comrades die in the rice fields of Vietnam.
Bleier was shot in the left leg and had grenade shrapnel in his right leg – injuries that were supposed to end his hopes of ever playing football again.
Yet Bleier won four Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers and teamed with fullback Franco Harris in 1976 to be one of just five – at the time it was just two – running back duos to each have 1,000 yards rushing in the same season.
“For me, I had a focus. I wanted to come back and play,” Bleier said Tuesday at Wachesaw Plantation. “So it was like, ‘What do I have to do to be able to do that.’ That was all on me, so that became the driving force so I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself, or being like, ‘What am I going to do?’”
Bleier is a rare case.
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