#39 — Willie Parker

Fast Willie.

He was responsible for the second-most exciting play in Super Bowl XL and arguably the turning point of the game, a 75-yard fireball off right tackle in the third quarter that made it 14-3.

Willie was kind of forgotten in the lead up, and wind down, of the Super Bowl. Not surprisingly, I suppose, considering he was all but forgotten in college, after college and through his NFL career to date.

Parker, an undrafted free agent out of North Carolina where he carried only 48 times in nine games in his senior year, came into 2005 as the fourth-string running back before injuries to Duce Staley and Jerome Bettis surprisingly thrust him into the starting role on Kickoff Weekend. Sixteen regular season games and 1,200 yards later, Parker had made his name known as a game-breaking back, a guy who could go off at any minute and flash his ridiculous 4.28 speed.

Sunday, 10 million people watching the game on TV, got to see it. Tuesday was Willie Parker day for me in my "Five Jerseys in Five Days Tour" that is sweeping southwestern Manitoba.

Parker still has to learn how to be an every-down back in the NFL, but he's certainly showed that he has the potential to be that guy even if he is the first Steeler with that kind of skills set.

Furtherto Monday's rambling about the refs in the Super Bowl and how Seattle fans, and some media members, bawled about how the Steelers were handed the game by shoddy officiating. Total bunk and Gene Wojciechowski agrees. Maybe now we can get over this.

After all, there was this:



The Steelers ticker-tape parade, their first since 1980, provided a number of lasing images not the least of which was Troy Polamalu crowd surfing.

Something else was 250,000 people descending on downtown Steel Town in the middle of the day to celebrate something a city has lived to see for the past two-and-a-half decades.