Two years ago, there was likely a moment when Mike Tomlin envisioned something Calvin Austin III could not. The third-year Steelers receiver recently recalled a moment from his rookie season when he was at his lowest. A fourth-round pick who was injured, he remembers receiving the news that he would need surgery.
“My rookie year when I got hurt and was told I was going to have surgery”, Austin said, via The Athletic. “I just went out to the field and just started crying. I felt small. [Mike Tomlin] just didn’t make me feel small. He made me feel like I mattered”.
Austin’s was just one of numerous stories from current and former players about their dealings with Tomlin. Former OL B.J. Finney recalled multiple instances in which Tomlin didn’t even ask him any questions when he had family tragedies and needed to leave the team. RB Isaac Redman recalled Tomlin keeping his word when he had to leave the practice squad to attend the funeral of a dear relative, promising they would sign him back.
Tomlin’s belief in players helps empower them to maximize their future, and that is especially true for guys like Calvin Austin. Now in his third season, he is emerging as a significant weapon. On the season, he has 22 catches for 383 yards and four touchdowns. And his production has only peaked since Russell Wilson took over at quarterback.
Tomlin and the Steelers took a chance on Austin and his elite speed in the fourth round in 2022 out of Memphis. He injured his foot early in training camp, however, and never got to play. After attempting to return from injury in-season, he aggravated it and had to get surgery.
But he managed to make it back, and Austin has been a contributor since 2023. He had a 72-yard touchdown catch last year. This season, he notched his first punt-return touchdown in the NFL. It was a moment that reinforced not only his own belief in himself but Tomlin’s belief in him.
And Tomlin has a pattern of being there after an injury like Austin’s when a player is at his lowest moment. Former third-round ILB Sean Spence suffered a devastating injury during his rookie preseason, but Tomlin helped reassure him.
“When I got injured my rookie year and all the doctors said I probably wasn’t going to play again, [Tomlin] was one of the very few people that came out and disagreed”, Spence recalled. It follows a similar theme, even if Austin didn’t have quite as serious an injury. “Just hearing that as a 22-year-old kid whose career was maybe over before it started — it meant so much to me, man. I’m so thankful that he did that”.
The Athletic catalogued other stories about Mike Tomlin’s impact on his players of a similar nature. It’s well worth a read, regardless of what one thinks of him, or even of football generally. For me, as he did with Austin, it just speaks to the service of leadership, of being there when you’re needed and in the way you’re needed. And that is an area in which he has always excelled.
