Juju Smith-Schuster had season-ending surgery Wednesday on his right shoulder, after sustaining a hard hit to that arm in Sunday’s 27-19 victory over the Denver Broncos.
On Monday Juju held an event for his charity The Juju Foundation, which supports under-funded youth programs. While addressing the crowd he made some emotional remarks about what football means to him.
They say behind every great man there’s a great woman. In this case, literally: Juju’s mother – Sammy Schuster – steps onto the stage to offer support to her son as the words swelling up in his throat were having a hard time escaping his mouth. We should all send her a card this Mothers’ Day.
The prototypical “Man’s Man” kind of men are taught to be strategically stoic. Especially on the football field where our emotions can be weaponized against us by your more crafty opponents, we effort to be repressed. “Act like you’ve been there before,” we say.
Men from past generations would hide behind that podium and talk about everything other than their injury. They’d shame themselves for feeling because they’re so accustomed to their playground bullies, and their divorced fathers, and all the lonely town drunks, shaming them for feeling. Juju got right into it; he told us he cried all night, and he clearly still wasn’t done.
In doing so he sent a message to young boys all over the world and it says more than “it’s okay to cry.” In graciously accepting his mother’s strength he showed us its okay to need help sometimes. So much of the Myth of Manliness is wrapped up in self-sufficiency but sometimes the strongest thing we can do is ask for help, or admit we don’t have all the answers, or just stop and ask the guy in that gas station for directions because we’ve passed him four times and we’re clearly going in circles at this point.
With the ousting of Jon Gruden earlier this week, it seems the football world is taking a positive step in distancing itself from the problematic machismo of yore. If I’m the NFL, I’m making Juju the face of the brand. Whether it’s quantified in the stat sheet or not this guy goes out there and plays with everything he’s got, but more importantly he’s a true man off the field.
Smith-Schuster – who signed a one-year contract last March to return to Pittsburgh for Ben Roethlisberger’s farewell tour – had 15 receptions this year for 129 yards and 0 TD’s.
Steely Cam 