Craig “Ironhead” Heyward was a beast of a player on the football field. The 5’11”, 265-pound fullback made his mark on the league as one of the best blocking fullbacks in the game. However he gained stardom as a bruising, punishing ball carrier who routinely lowered his iron head and left defenders flat on their backs with a nice view of the sun above. He was a rare talent who achieved enormous success despite well-known battles with his weight and alcohol. Heyward was even featured in a series of Zest commercial during the mid-1990s, a remarkable feat for a fullback, the Rodney Dangerfield of football positions.
Sadly, Heyward passed away in 2005 at just 39-years-old from brain cancer. For the past two weeks, his son Cameron Heyward, a defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers, wore eye black with the words “IRON” and “HEAD” to honor his late father. Considering that we’re in the midst of the NFL’s October breast cancer awareness campaign, one might think that Heyward’s gesture would be featured in a snazzy ad. Maybe the league would run a tear-jerking piece during halftime about the son living out his father’s legacy. Instead, the league hit Heyward with a fine for each incident because writing personal messages on eye black is a violation of the NFL’s uniform rules.
Yup, the NFL fined a player for honoring his dead dad.
After appealing to the league, Heyward has announced he will find other ways to honor his father “on and off the field,” including a charitable partnership with an eye black company.
I’m sure there are plenty of rigid rule-followers who will claim the incident is unfortunate, but “a rule is a rule.” However, last season, former Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Devon Still was allowed to wear eye black that read “LEAH” and “STRONG” for the entire season. Still’s daughter, Leah, became the face of pediatric cancer after she was diagnosed with Stage IV neuroblastoma and given a 50/50 chance to live. Still was never fined, never asked to take it off and didn’t even realize it was a violation of NFL policy. Why would he when the NFL went out of its way to promote him and his courageous daughter’s fight against cancer.
Seemingly every week the father and daughter duo were in the limelight. Despite being a marginal player, the Bengals kept Still on the practice squad for much of the season so he could keep his NFL insurance to pay for Leah’s treatment. He was eventually promoted to the 53-man roster. The Bengals did a great thing. The NFL was right for promoting it. The league’s motives must now be questioned though. Did the league only allow it for the sake of publicity? Imagine the backlash that would’ve occurred if the NFL fined a player whose then-four-year-old daughter was potentially dying of cancer. (For the record, according to Still, Leah made a “complete 180” from treatment and is currently cancer-free.)
Heyward isn’t the only NFL player who’s been smacked down by the league for trying to honor a parent who died of cancer. Steelers’ running back DeAngelo Williams petitioned the NFL to allow him to wear pink accents for the entire season, instead of just during the league’s designated month of October. Williams’ mother, Sandra Hill, passed away last year to breast cancer. The NFL shot a moving 30-second clip of the running back honoring his mother. However, they still shot down his request. Williams has dyed the tips of his dreadlocks pink in a bit of a workaround, but it’s absolutely absurd that he is not allowed to honor her memory and promote breast cancer awareness by wearing a pink patch, socks, gloves, towel, eye black or some other uniform accessory.
I guess the NFL doesn’t want to open that can of worms. After all, if they allow one (more) player to express an individual sentiment, they’ll have to allow it for everyone, right? Who knows, players might honor their sick parents, spouses or siblings. Eye blacks across the league would read the name of fallen friends or pets. It would be complete anarchy. Maybe some nefarious player could encode top-secret NFL information and broadcast it to ISIS via NFL broadcasts. The risk of giving its players a tiny sliver of an individual voice is far too risky for a league of such high, moral standards. After all, in September, the league made it a calendar month without having a single player arrested for the first time in six years. The uniform policy is finally working!
At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, the NFL used to be a league that allowed its stars personalities to shine. Whether it was the Rams’ Bob-N-Weave celebration (which is now banned), the Ickey Shuffle or Deion Sanders’ Prime Time Dance, players were allowed to express themselves and many became stars because of it. Now the league wants every player to look, dress and act alike so it can determine which players you can like and which causes you can support. I’m sure if Heyward or Williams wanted to wear Nike (the official uniform sponsor of the NFL) eye blacks, they would be welcomed with open arms. However, in today’s NFL, if it doesn’t make the NFL money or benefit its PR machine, it’s a no-go. Yet another fumble by the head honchos of the No Fun League.
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