Super Bowl XL

Hair raising

Polamalu's mane attracts attention, play draws admirers

Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Troy Polamalu is perhaps the first mystic, social scientist, spiritualist, American history major, anthropologist, theologian, and strong safety ever to have played in a Super Bowl, let alone to have hit an opposing running back so hard he was knocked into the Monongahela River.

He might or might not be the first Super Bowl defender to have gone "three or four years" without cutting his hair.

He likely is the first NFL player ever to have referred to his trademark black mane as a "fifth appendage."

He is not necessarily the first gentle-voiced NFL player to have shown a flip side, specifically a knack for treating an opposing player's rib cage as if it were an "appendage" on a crash dummy.

He is not the first kid from southern California to have grown up, minus serious guidance from parents, and to have turned into a charismatic gentleman of grace and substance.

He might not be the difference in Sunday's Super Bowl between his Steelers and the Seahawks, but he sure could be.

He already has made three Pro Bowls in his three NFL seasons. He has been a defensive secondary unto himself through this winter's playoffs, where Polamalu's speed, his knifing paths to a receiver or to an off-the-mark pass, his Spiderman-like acrobatics, all have combined -- with his hair -- to make him one of the NFL's most devastating and identifiable defensive aces in memory.

About that hair, which spills from beneath his helmet like an NFL version of Rapunzel's locks. It's primary with Polamalu whether he wants to acknowledge it or not.

"It doesn't give me an identity," Polamalu insisted Tuesday during the annual Media Day at Ford Field.

"It gives the media an identity."

Perhaps. But it sounds a bit like Samson saying that his follicles were Biblically irrelevant.

Polamalu admits that during an off-night at training camp that he wore a disguise over his hairdo and most people had no clue who he was.

The audience has a much better sense of recognition today. Polamalu has been everywhere during Pittsburgh's full-throttle run to the Super Bowl. Fans remember him, particularly, for the interception that wasn't an interception during the waning minutes of Pittsburgh's playoff victory over Indianapolis.

Even after replays showed Polamalu made a clean pick of Peyton Manning's pass, the catch was ruled an incompletion. It took the NFL to set things straight a day later. Polamalu's response Tuesday to a miscue that could have put the Colts at Ford Field on Sunday:

"I made a lot more mistakes than the referee did that game."

No contradictions

You get scads of such stuff from Polamalu.

Call it what you want -- humility, deference, a belief in more universal elements -- Polamalu's views are personal to the extreme and unwavering.

He concedes people are often baffled. They're surprised a person of his cosmetics and football style wasn't instead all-pro at San Quentin prison.

"It is amusing," he said, speaking after practice last week. "Some people are surprised because they see a not-stereotypical side.

"But my belief is, if somebody is barbaric and charismatic on the field, but then can't go home and be a parent, or a husband, then there's something not authentic about him on a football team.

"To me, you must be the same person. It's why I don't believe in a game face, per se."

It is telling that Polamalu is of Samoan descent, one member of a generation of siblings and cousins who were born in the United States after parents, aunts and uncles came to this country about 30 years ago.

He was born in Garden Grove, Calif., then moved to Oregon when he was 9. It was not a Beaver Cleaver upbringing. His father was not present; his mother was part of his life only occasionally.

He talks of being "communally brought up" by 12 uncles and aunts in concert with 60-plus cousins who melded in such a way as to preview for him the life he would know in Pittsburgh.

"It's because it's so closely related to the family atmosphere Samoans grow up with," he said of his Steelers experience and how it is an extension of his youth. "It's the respect factor you're raised with. The passion you have in early life.

"It's why I don't think I have a split personality," he said of the duality people perceive in Polamalu's on-the-field, off-the-field personas. "I live my life with passion. I just love to play football."

Man of faith

Polamalu's dimensions are diverse and highly developed, which is where some see a contradiction. Congeniality and high-speed collisions seem out of place when Dick Butkus and Bill Romanowski painted different portraits and images. Faith and football have been front-and-center in the NFL for years. But faith articulated as theology, faith lived as spirituality, isn't always as clearly embodied as it is with Polamalu.

He is a Christian with no specific denominational attachment. He is a Bible student. He subscribes to no particular fundamentalist or evangelical faith practices. He said, rather, in a kind of summary statement: "Looking at my life there's no way I cannot see God's hand."

Opposing players often see Polamalu's hands, and arms, and feet, and legs, and shoulder-pads-crested torso bearing in on them ablaze in his No. 43 Steelers jersey. He is 5-foot-10, 212 pounds, with the body fat of a butterfly.

He was fabulous in college, at Southern California, where he became such a terror the Steelers decided to grab him with the 16th overall pick in the 2003 draft. He has since been an annual All-Pro and a marvel in the eyes of teammates such as linebackers James Farrior and Joey Porter.

"He plays like a madman, literally," Farrior said.

"He has such great speed and athleticism he can dominate a game. It's his instincts and tenacity that separate him."

Porter remembers last month's playoff game at Denver. He had seen Polamalu do just about everything in recent seasons. Or so he thought.

"It wasn't even a play he was in on," Porter said, half-shaking his head. "It was a screen pass. I slipped around a couple of guys and made the tackle.

"I look back, and Troy's coming. He took a single bounce, and jumped this guy in one bounce. I've never seen a man jump over a 6-5 guy."

An intimidator

Torry Holt, the Rams receiver, showed up Tuesday with a camera and interview microphone as part of his duties for NFL Network. Holt mentioned to Polamalu that he was "one of the most intimidating players" in all of football.

Polamalu smiled. Handling tributes is a challenge all to itself.

"You said 'intimidating?' Polamalu responded. "Let me puff out my chest a little bit. I don't think they find me intimidating at all."

No, he's a piece of puff pastry.

You're left to wonder if Polamalu could ever, for a moment, play the role, assume the air of a genetic NFL warrior without fearing that his whole being would be compromised. Polamalu's answer is anticipated: Who you are isn't something to be controlled or contrived.

It is for others to perceive there's irony, contradictions, paradoxes to Polamalu's pro football life. He believes it is all integrated: Football. Faith. Family. Not to mention that simple, quasi-juvenile word he considers essential: fun.

"You view the game as barbaric, played by barbarians," he said, good-naturedly. "To me, football is poetry in motion."

Check out the poet's motion Sunday against Seattle. It will be, at so many moments, the definition of free verse.

You can reach Lynn Henning at 313-222-2472 or lynn.henning@detnews.com