Sunday, June 12, 2005
By Chuck Finder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Two local motorcyclists have been killed in the past month roaring down the same stretch of Route 28 that a certain Steelers quarterback navigates on his Harley-Davidson Softail, his hair flitting in the wind.
Hulloh, Ben Roethlisberger?
Anyone home in that helmet-free head?
If the latest piece of tragedy doesn't cause pause at the throttle, maybe Jamie Henderson will.
Jamie Henderson used to play in the NFL. Used to play safety for the New York Jets, the team that twice confronted the Steelers last season with him on its roster but nowhere in sight. Used to tool around almost half his life on a bike that nearly took all of it 14 months ago on a curving patch of two-lane Georgia road.
Spent three weeks in a coma. Breathed on a respirator. Sported a freshly drilled hole in his skull where doctors desperately tried to reduce brain swelling.
Oh, yeah, and he was wearing a helmet.
"I just wish people would put their bikes up and wait till after their career. Then they can ride the rest of their lives," Henderson said this week from Carrollton, Ga., where he continues to work out in hopes of returning first to his former self, then to the NFL and where he no longer rides his Kawasaki. "Bikes are dangerous. All of us who ride bikes know that. You only have two wheels. Shoot, all it takes is one driver not paying attention. It's not like a car crash -- you ain't going to have a fender bender."
Henderson remembers nothing of his April 2004 crash. Remembers nothing of being on that road. "My bike's fine. It was just me. I wish it would've been the other way around."
His isn't the only pro career to become a casualty of a two-wheel accident.
Former Penn State running back Gary Brown was, for all intents, left for dead on the streets of Williamsport after a June 1999, hit-and-run accident in which a car ran a stop sign and smacked his Suzuki. Brown went from a 1,000-yard rusher to a 177-yard rusher and done after three New York Giants games.
Bulls guard Jay Williams concluded a dazzling NBA rookie season, and possibly a career, when he crashed his Yamaha sportsbike into a Chicago pole in June 2003. Two years later, after doctors once whispered about amputation, Williams tries to rehab himself into some semblance of an NBA player.
Browns rookie tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. ... well, no need to go there. That's the stupid incident provoking all this Roethlisberger, TV-sweeps-month hoohah in the first place, the one that got the rookie quarterback's back up and prompted him to vehemently contend he was no "risk-taker."
There were 3,661 motorcycle deaths on American roads in 2003. Two wheels, no air bags, no reinforced metal surrounding, no control over every other auto on the roads. It's an equation rife with deadly risk
......
"He says he's good on a bike? I'm good on a bike, also." Henderson's unspoken words being: Look at me now.
Big Ben might not listen to coach Bill Cowher, might not listen to the Rooneys, might not listen to the caterwauling Steeler Nation (a welder named Eddie wrote on Roethlisberger's Web site, "Brother, wear a helmet; I've had too many friends die on bikes that I still wear mine, and I work at the Harley plant here in York, Pa."). He might not listen to gal-pal Natalie Gulbis or the squawk-show screechers. He might not listen to his own family, to whom he is the most valuable resource -- one that no millions could replace.
Don't they ever learn :brickwall
