One of the bigger controversies surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers over the last decade was during the 2017 season. Athletes around the league were standing up for their beliefs, which involved kneeling for the National Anthem. It was a display that numerous athletes described as a protest against systemic racism in the United States. This was a very touchy subject at the time, with most teams, or at least individual players, joining in on this display of protest.
The Steelers found themselves at the epicenter of the controversy when former Army Ranger and offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva was the lone player standing in the tunnel during the anthem. The rest of the team remained in the tunnel and out of sight.
Given Villanueva’s background as an Army Ranger, the story almost wrote itself at the time. The story was larger than football. It became a national media headline.
Recently, Villanueva was a guest speaker at an event hosted by RiseUp Outreach on YouTube and briefly discussed the National Anthem debacle, saying the media misconstrued the moment.
“I am known, especially by a lot of people, for the incidents surrounding the National Anthem. But I think those were incidents that were very, very misleading in terms of what we were all trying to achieve as a team,” Villanueva said. “The situation that I put myself in and the outcome in a world that is trying to use the media always to pit people against each other to get more clicks.”
“If we can say anything about the times right now, it’s that we feel like puppets that are being used to get pitted against each other, and that is hurting us,” Villanueva said. “There was nothing to be done or nothing that could have been said that would’ve truly showcased my intentions as a person, as a Christian, and obviously as a teammate.”
He echoes similar sentiments here as to what was said in the immediate aftermath of the controversy. To be clear, he said at the time that he was perfectly okay with his teammates protesting if they saw fit.
Alejandro Villanueva is a hero for his service in the military and his unlikely story of becoming a starting left tackle in the league is inspirational to all. It is a shame that the situation turned into such a controversy when the Steelers were attempting to display unity. The specifics of how it went down and the optics of it all that put the team in a difficult situation were missing the point in Villanueva’s eyes. He learned the hard way that the media will take a situation and run with a narrative regardless of how it was meant to be construed.
