Ron Cook: Holmes Shows Little Remorse in News Conference

Steelers' top pick shows no remorse on arrests, says Big Ben didn't call
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This is how badly Santonio Holmes' welcome-to-Steelers-training-camp news conference went yesterday:

The kid essentially called Ben Roethlisberger a liar and it wasn't the worst part of the session.

The worst part was that Holmes showed absolutely no remorse for his two arrests in a three-week period late in the spring.

"I don't think I have anything to prove to anybody," he said, almost defiantly, his first public comments since the arrests. "People know what I can do on the field and they know the type of person I am off the field."

Actually, we don't.

We know Holmes was a special player at Ohio State. That's why the Steelers made him their No. 1 draft choice in April and signed him to a five-year, $8.11 million contract Friday, including a $5.42 million bonus. It's also why he could comfortably wear a red Buckeye Football T-shirt around the St. Vincent College campus yesterday with "Da Man" on the back.

But we don't know Holmes as a person. All we know is he was arrested on Memorial Day weekend in Miami on a disorderly conduct charge and again June 18 in Columbus, Ohio, on a domestic-abuse charge.

That's why it would have been nice if Holmes had pulled a Floyd Landis yesterday and asked us to wait to judge him until all the facts of his incidents are out. Remember, he hasn't been convicted of anything yet. It also would have been nice if he had said something like, maybe, "This isn't the way I wanted to start my career in Pittsburgh, but if you give me a chance, I'll prove to you the type of character I have."

But Holmes didn't do that.

He didn't even come close.

"I haven't gotten any negative feedback from one person since I've been in town the past month-and-a-half," Holmes said, leaving the impression he thinks it's perfectly normal for a guy to get arrested twice.

The whole scene was bizarre.

That's the only word to describe Holmes' response to a question about why he didn't return Roethlisberger's telephone calls after Big Ben reached out to him to show his support after his second arrest. "I called him a bunch of times and left a bunch of messages for him, and he never called me back, so I don't know how to take it," Roethlisberger told the Post-Gazette's Paul Zeise earlier this month. "The ball is in his court ..."

Responded Holmes: "I didn't get any calls from him."

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

That Holmes and Roethlisberger really do need to talk?

Maybe there's a logical explanation there. Maybe Roethlisberger had the wrong number for Holmes. Or maybe Holmes had a bad cell phone day and never got the messages.

Maybe.

But, no matter the circumstances, Holmes' answer made Roethlisberger look bad. Call me crazy, but I just don't see the wisdom in a rookie wide receiver making his quarterback look bad. Holmes' timing seemed especially jarring because, just two hours earlier, Roethlisberger had stood on the practice field after the team's grueling conditioning run and gushed about how glad he was that Holmes made it to camp on time without contract problems and how eager he was to work with him.

It's unclear when Holmes and Roethlisberger will chat, but Bill Cowher had a sit-down planned with Holmes last night. Wouldn't you have loved to be a fly on the wall during that conversation? Presumably, Cowher made clear his displeasure with the negative attention Holmes brought the Steelers and gave him a little unsolicited advice about the responsibility that goes with being a professional athlete. For Holmes' sake, here's hoping he showed a little more humility with the boss.

Hey, it's tough to be too hard on the kid. Holmes is 22 and, as he put it, "a young guy stepping into a great deal of things ahead of me." It's also understandable why he was on the defensive when he met the local media for the first time under these circumstances. There weren't the usual queries that a No. 1 pick gets about how it feels to suddenly be a multi-millionaire or how soon he expects to contribute to the team. Virtually the first question for Holmes was about the possibility of him having to miss camp time because of an Aug. 15 court date in Columbus on the domestic-abuse charge. He shrugged it off and indicated he plans on being on the practice field on Aug. 15.

"All of that is behind me," Holmes said. "As far as I know from talking to my attorneys, there's nothing more that I have to do."

That was the good news to come out of the session.

The only good news, unfortunately.

Young, immature and nervous or not, it's still hard to get by Holmes' complete lack of contrition.
That's why you'll have to forgive me if I'm not willing to share in his joy when he said, "It feels good to be a Steeler."

At this point, I'm not ready to say I'm happy that Holmes is a Steeler.
And the two arrests are only a part of it.

(Ron Cook can be reached at rcook@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1525. )