In Detroit, he’s still ‘Roney’
DETROIT – Before Jerome Bettis was The Bus, he was Roney.
To those in his hometown, the Pittsburgh Steelers running back still is.
“That’s what we call him now to this day,” his mother, Gladys Bettis, said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I never call him Jerome.”
The NFL’s fifth-leading career rusher will be among the brightest stars in the days leading up to Sunday’s Super Bowl because the charismatic, 13-year veteran likely will end his career at Ford Field, 8 miles from his childhood home.
Sitting in a beautiful house Bettis bought for his parents on Detroit’s west side – with a golf course in the backyard and limos in a neighbor’s driveway – Gladys Bettis shared stories and showed pictures of the youngest of her three children.
The new house looks far better than the place where those childhood scenes took place – that old house now sits abandoned and charred.
While Jerome Bettis is the face of this year’s Super Bowl, his mother still can envision him scurrying off to school with glasses, a white dress shirt and a broken briefcase his dad discarded. When he was picked up for school, papers would fly out of the briefcase with broken clasps.
Was he a nerd? Yes, she says.
Ethel Session-Burton was Bettis’ fourth-grade teacher at Detroit Urban Lutheran School, and her first impression is the one many have 24 years later.
“He always had a big grin on his face,” said Session-Burton, who was invited to attend Bettis’ NFL draft and 30th birthday parties. “He would even smile when he started to help the janitor clean up before school – every day – when he was in the seventh or eighth grade.”
After school during the winter, Bettis would put on double-blade skates – this is Hockeytown, after all – and head to the backyard.
“My husband would get the hose out to make that rink every year – it even had nice banks made of snow,” Gladys Bettis recalled.
On other days throughout the year, Bettis would go bowling – a sport he still loves.
Unlike many of the children in the neighborhood, Bettis didn’t play little league football. He began what is likely a Hall of Fame career in the ninth grade at Detroit Henry Ford High School. After a semester, he transferred to Detroit Mackenzie.
“I was sitting in my office doing paperwork and I heard this voice behind me, saying, ‘Coach, my name is Jerome Bettis. Can I play football for you?’ ” former Mackenzie coach Bob Dozier said. “I turned around and saw a 5-foot-11, 199-pound Superman-like kid and said, ‘Hell yes, you can play for me.’ “
As a sophomore, Bettis played on the defensive line and was a fullback who didn’t carry the ball.
Bettis wanted to play linebacker, and he did as a junior, when Dozier went against Bettis’ wishes and put the ball in his hands out of the backfield.
“In his first game, he ran 120 yards and two touchdowns, and 180 yards and two touchdowns in the next game,” Dozier said. “Then, he said, ‘Coach, I like this.’ “
Opponents did not like lining up against Bettis on either side of the ball.
Former Ann Arbor Pioneer High School defensive tackle George Michos remembers his coach taking their top running back out of the game because Bettis hit so hard.
“As a running back, I tackled him, but never by myself. We didn’t have one solo tackle on him,” Michos said. “We really didn’t know who he was before the game, but we did after it.”
Bettis’ family always was startled to see the transformation Roney made once he stepped on a football field. He got his childhood nickname because, when his mother says his name, it sounds like “Jerone.”
“As a kid, Jerome was the quiet grandchild,” his cousin, Lewanda Franklyn, said. “He has some of the people skills of his mother, and a lot of his father’s mild-mannered ways.”
His parents pushed him to earn an academic scholarship before it was clear football would pay for his education, and he excelled in the classroom.
Bettis was a member of the National Honor Society, and his mother bemoans that his grade point average slipped to about 3.6 by the time he graduated from high school in 1990. He fielded scholarship offers from top programs all over the country, including a powerhouse just 40 miles away.
“Michigan didn’t want him to carry the ball,” his mother said.
So Bettis passed on playing for the Wolverines and went on to star at Notre Dame – where his famous nickname, The Bus, was born, his mother said. A student reporter at Notre Dame gave it to him because he ran over defenders like a bus.
Gladys and Johnnie Bettis have attended every one of their son’s regular-season and postseason games, dating back to ninth grade.
“At first, we went to every game because he has asthma and we were afraid that somebody wouldn’t have an inhaler,” said Gladys Bettis, who had to be persuaded by her husband and son to let him play football. “We stopped carrying the inhalers when he went to college because the training staff took care of that, but we’ve kept following him from coast to coast every step of the way.”
After three strong seasons with the Fighting Irish, the Los Angeles Rams drafted Bettis 10th overall in 1993. His first purchase as a pro was a house for his parents.
“He always wanted to have Detroit as a home base,” his mother said. “I started to look out in Bloomfield and places like that, but I’m just not a suburb person. We’ve always been Detroiters, and we always will be.”
The Bettis family hosted about 65 people at their home for a Thanksgiving dinner in 1998 when Pittsburgh played the Lions, a game remembered for a botched coin flip in overtime with Bettis as a captain.
The family hopes to have another huge gathering with the Steelers, but it might not happen because the team is trying to have as normal a week as possible.
The Bettises, too, try to lead a normal life, regardless of the riches their son has shared with them.
“When Jerome found out we were going to the laundromat, he said that wasn’t acceptable and told us to go get a new washer and dryer,” Johnnie Bettis said. “But I kind of liked the laundromat because you get to meet so many interesting people.”
About 6 miles from the Bettis’ new home – which includes a sparkling white new washer and dryer – their old house hasn’t fared well.
The house on Aurora Street has the address spray-painted next to the beat-up door. Windows on the first floor are boarded up, and it appears a fire burned on the second floor. The detached garage behind the house is crumbling.
“We donated it to a church and had it fixed up, but we don’t know what happened to it,” Gladys Bettis said. “I didn’t even know it caught on fire.”
A football sat in the grass Saturday afternoon between the street and sidewalk in front of the house – as if it was a sign Bettis was coming home.
“It’s like a fairy tale, and Jerome was destined to be in it,” his uncle, Jimmie Bettis, said.
Because Bettis realizes many of those with a similar background haven’t been as fortunate, he created The Bus Stops Here Foundation in 1997. It assists troubled and underprivileged children in Detroit and Pittsburgh with a scholarship fund and computer literacy programs.
The city of Detroit will give Bettis a key to the city on Tuesday, when it also will proclaim “Jerome Bettis Week.” Gov. Jennifer Granholm will issue a proclamation declaring Wednesday, Feb. 1, “Jerome Bettis Day,” during a ceremony honoring him at Mackenzie High School.
“Jerome is the total package,” Dozier said. “He has great character and he’s a wonderful human being who is a self-motivated leader with an infectious, positive outlook on life.”
Dozier, who flew back to Detroit from his home in Texas, contacted some of Bettis’ former teammates and coaches for a photo opportunity and was awed when nearly two dozen showed up at Mackenzie’s field.
“I’m so happy for Jerome because he was just another inner-city kid like the rest of us, but he made it big without big-timing people,” said former Green Bay Packers player Gilbert Brown, who played in two Super Bowls.
Bettis, who turns 34 next month, likely will have more time to spend with his foundation in the coming years and with his 1-year-old daughter and her mother, whom he will marry this summer.
Bettis returned to play this season hoping to cap it back in his hometown. Many believe he will call it a career following Sunday’s game, and his mother is hoping that’s the case.
“I think he will retire, and I hope he does. It’s time.” she said, sporting a “The Bus Stops Here” T-shirt. “What else could he do to top this?”