Steve Young recalls stories from the Pro Bowl
While joining the panel discussion for the Paley Media event, Changing the Game: The NFL Pro Bowl Goes Virtual, Steve Young tells some memorable stories of his time in Hawaii during this seven Pro Bowl trips.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
STEVE YOUNG: My favorite stories and memories are not necessarily the game. It's the guys getting together. It's all of your fellow comrades that you fought against and now you're on the same team with. And you've been around, and you get to know them better. And like anything, when you know somebody more deeply, you appreciate them and you develop relationships that are lifelong. The Pro Bowl is a place where I developed lifelong relationships.
Funny story, Troy Aikman and I were both NFC Pro Bowl quarterbacks one year, and so we were gonna split the game. He was gonna play half. I was gonna play a half. And he needed to get to a family situation where he was like, the flight that I need to make-- Steve, if I could play the first half, then maybe I could just catch this flight. I can get back to the family thing.
And I was like, oh my gosh, of course. Family first. Let's do it. And so he and I had this plan where he played the first half, and then he'd disappear. And that's what happened. In the second half, I played. But somehow we didn't alert anyone else.
And so someone during the-- John Madden or whoever was covering the game said, well-- they said something about Troy Aikman, and they panned to Troy Aikman and said, "Well, he's not there." And so suddenly-- and, of course, Madden doesn't let that alone. He goes, "Well, where's Troy Aikman?" live on camera.
So now it became a big thing. So then it came out that he left town, and so we got in so much trouble. And I had to come clean to say that it was me. But we got in trouble for that one.
And another funny story is Reggie White, who was-- you talk about Pro Bowlers, and then there's like the king of Pro Bowl. There's certain guys that are so good and so dominant that they were not just Pro Bowlers, but they were the royalty of the Pro Bowl. And that was Reggie White. He held court.
And I just remember him baptizing different players in the ocean outside in Honolulu. They'd have this moment of accepting Jesus Christ, their savior, then they'd go out and baptize in the water. And everyone would gather around. And it was like some of the funnest memories of my time with Reverend Reggie White as he held court in the Pro Bowl.