Hines Ward retiring

To honor his Korean heritage, Hines Ward decorated his face
and his uniform with the Han•gŭl characters ㄴ, ㄱ, and ㅇ.

We got word last month that the Pittsburgh Steelers were letting go of Korean-American (and Black American) football sensation Hines Ward. Now we're getting news that, rather than playing football on another team besides the Steelers, Mr Ward has decided to leave the NFL entirely.

From ESPN:

Hines Ward believes he can still play football. The longtime Pittsburgh wide receiver known for his high-wattage smile and his bone-crunching blocks just couldn't stomach the thought of doing it in some strange uniform on some strange field with nary a Terrible Towel in sight.

Hines Ward could have chased another ring or paycheck in another uniform but it wouldn't have been for the Steelers and that just wouldn't be right, Jamison Hensley writes. Blog

"I just wouldn't feel right," Ward said.

So rather than play for a 15th season -- and his first outside the Steel City -- a tearful Ward opted to retire on Tuesday and secure a legacy unmatched in the franchise's long history.

"I can say I'm a Steeler for life and that's the bottom line, that's all I've really ever wanted," Ward said.

Ward holds every significant franchise receiving record, including receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns. His 1,000 career catches rank eighth all-time and he is one of two players with at least 1,000 receptions and two Super Bowl rings.

Good on him for such loyalty. Now I hope he can head to Korea and work on some of the inclusion projects with which he'd previously been involved. Here are some suggestions.

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Hines Ward released from Pittsburg Steelers

I brought this up before when it was a mere rumor, but now it looks like it's really happening:

In a move that will play well with the finances but probably not the fans, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced Wednesday that they will release All-Pro receiver Hines Ward.

"We had a conversation today with Hines Ward and informed him that we plan to release him of his contract prior to the start of the 2012 NFL calendar year," Steelers President Art Rooney II told Steelers.com. "Hines has been an integral part of our success since we drafted him in 1998, and we will forever be grateful for what he has helped us achieve.

"He has meant so much to this organization both on and off the field, and we appreciate his efforts over the past 14 years. Hines' accomplishments are numerous, and he will always be thought of as one of the all-time great Steelers. We wish him nothing but the best."

The guy is thirty-six now, which is ancient by NFL standards, so there's a question of whether he'll try to get on another team.

As I suggested before, I wouldn't mind seeing him head back to Korea and try to get "American football" to take off. If anyone is in a position to do so, it's him. Hines Ward is the most famous Korean in the NFL ever, and SoKos were steeped in Hinesanity long before there was any Linsanity. See how I did that?

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Is Hines Ward's NFL career over?

Earlier today, there were reports that Hines Ward, probably the most famous Korea-born player in American football, would see his career end soon as the Pittsburgh Steelers sought to get out of the last year of his contract. Ward, who has always and only been a Steeler, is now suggesting he is willing to restructure the end of his contract, which had called for him to be paid $4 million this coming season:

Pittsburgh wide receiver Hines Ward said Saturday he's willing to restructure his contract in order to remain with the team after a report said the Steelers are planning to cut the 14-year NFL veteran.

Ward posted on his Facebook page that he wants to "finish my career with the Pittsburgh Steelers" and said he's told the team he's willing to make changes to the final year of his $4-million contract.

Ward's comments come on the heels of an NFL Network report that said the Steelers are looking to cut Ward in an effort to get under the salary cap. The Steelers' all-time leading receiver is coming off his worst statistical season since his rookie year in 1998, finishing with 46 receptions, 381 yards and two touchdowns.

The guy is thirty-five years old, which is positively octogenarian for the NFL, so he knows he isn't going to be around much longer as a pro football player, but it's just human nature to want to end one's career on one's own terms. Whether you're thirty- or sixty-something, who wants to get the axe a year before retirement?

Anyway, since his career is nearly over, this is as good a time as any to ask what Mr Ward should do next. Some suggestions:

• Go back to Korea and work on making mishik ch'ukku* a thing in Asia.

• Continue his important work at making life better for mixed-race kids in Korea, especially those who live in single-parent families or grew up without any parents at all.

• Ride the Hallyu Korea Wave into a movie career.

• Be global spokesman for Tokto awareness.

• There's enough time between now and 2018 to master speedskating.

• The ROK is electing a new president this year. Hint hint. 

Feel free to share your own.

* Mishik ch'ukku (미식축구) is what it's called in Korea, but it's known around the world as "American football." In America, it's known as "football."

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Hines Ward arrested for drunk driving

Oh, I wish he hadn't done that. I'm now torn between my strong liking of Hines Ward as a great role model for people of mixed Korean descent and an all-around great guy (and a snazzy dancer), and my intense dislike of drunk drivers.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Hines Ward is facing a DUI charge after being arrested on suspicion of drunk driving early Saturday morning in Georgia, according to sheriff’s officials there.

No more Mr Clean?

The Steelers star turned "Dancing With the Stars" champ was booked at 3:41 a.m. at DeKalb County Jail near Atlanta and later released on $1,300 bond (though according to the sheriff’s website it was $1,000).

Ward, 35, is a former Super Bowl MVP -- he has two Super Bowl rings -- and four-time Pro Bowl selection. He started his career in 1998 when he was drafted in the third round out of Georgia.

In May, Ward was held at gunpoint by police in Los Angeles in what turned out to be a mix-up over whether the car he was riding in was a stolen vehicle. It wasn't, and the wide receiver didn't make a big deal about it after the fact. "The police were just doing their job," he said on Twitter. "Apologies were made and it's now in the past."

The Pittsburgh Steelers hadn't yet publicly commented on the wide receiver's arrest. Paperwork has moved along from the sheriff’s office to the courts.

Like with the actors on Lost (I'm looking at you Daniel Dae Kim and Michelle Rodriguez), I'll probably have to force myself to re-like him again. Hate the sin but love the sinner and all that.

I do wonder what his blood alcohol level was. I'm also surprised that I missed that whole being-held-at-gunpoint story in May.

UPDATE:
Over at ROK Drop, GI Korea wonders if Mr Ward is having a midlife crisis.

Hundreds of ticket-holding Superbowl fans turned away because seats don't pass fire code; K-blogosphere mocks NFL organizers and questions whether US is up to task of hosting Superbowl

Well, the first part is true, but the second part is not.

But the second part is what might have happened had the same fiasco occurred in a Korean stadium, based on what swirled around the anglophone blogs when (among other problems that are not too terribly atypical of massive events, like traffic tie-ups, transportation snafus, and a dearth of rooms) loads of seats were not yet ready for the Formula One in Yeongam last fall.

I say kudos to the Fire Marshal for not signing off on the temporary seats. It would royally suck to spend so much time and money to travel across the US in snowmaggedon and have to watch the game in a "hospitality tent," but that would sure beat whatever disaster might have occurred if those rickety seats were filled by football fans the size of, say, those people on the right who actually got seats.

And it was a good game, by the way, even if Korean hero Hines Ward didn't pull out a victory in the end.

Mr Ward goes to Washington

Hines Ward, to South Koreans probably the most famous Korean-American, has been given a White House appointment. Specifically, the celebrated quarterback wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers will serve on the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

WhiteHouse.gov provides some background:

Hines Ward is a professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers who was voted MVP of Super Bowl XL. Born to a Korean mother and an African American father, he has long been an advocate for biracial youths. He is actively involved in various philanthropic initiatives, including starting his own foundation, the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation, which seeks to help mixed-race children suffering from discrimination.

It seems like only five years ago that we were told five years later nobody but football fans would remember who he is. And being on a commission to advise on Asian-Americans? Not bad for a guy with merely "a fraction of kimchi blood."

Seriously, as I stated back in 2005 and 2006, Hines Ward has become a catalyst (actively and passively) for changing attitudes toward honhyŏrin in South Korea.

NYT on Hines Ward and the problems of growing up biracial (and poor) in South Korea

The New York Times has another piece focusing on the racial problems in South Korea, this one focusing on the difficulties and barriers faced by those who grow up biracial in the ROK. Well, I would amend that to biracial and poor. From the article:

Steelers receiver Hines Ward surrounded himself with old friends at the dinner table on a recent Saturday night. The bond was as obvious as the look on everyone’s faces — half Korean, half something else. The shared experience was far more than skin deep.

There was a boy who was bullied into depression and tried to commit suicide. There was a girl ordered by a teacher to keep her hair pulled back tight, to straighten the natural curls she inherited from her black father. There was another too intimidated by her taunting classmates to board the bus, choosing instead the humiliating and lonely walk to school. There were the boys who were beaten regularly and teased mercilessly. There were college-age girls who broke into tears when telling their stories of growing up biracial in South Korea.

But when they looked around the table, they saw familiarity. And a future.

“It is so special that no one is staring at me, and no one is asking me about my hair,” Lisa So, 20, said. “It gives me hope.”

The eight boys and girls, between 16 and 21, were visiting Ward from South Korea, where people of mixed races are considered everything from a curiosity to an abomination. What starts with teasing from childhood peers often turns to widespread ostracism and discrimination. It eventually leads to higher dropout, poverty and suicide rates.

The rise of Hines Ward in American football in 2006 put him on Korea radar. And that put biracial Koreans on Korean radar as well (though not for the first time).

To their credit, at least a few in South Korea noted that nobody would be talking about this half-Black and half-Korean dude unless he was an NFL star so maybe we should be paying more attention to those of a similar background in South Korea who aren't so lucky.

Hines Ward himself has been very savvy about this, and has been walking through this potential minefield quite adeptly:

“It’s a great culture,” said Ward, who was born in Seoul to a Korean mother and an African-American soldier father, and was raised mainly in Georgia by his mother. “I love everything about it. But there’s a dark side to that culture. And me, I’m just trying to shed a light on that dark side and make Korea a better place than it already is.”

The plight of biracial children in South Korea was largely ignored until 2006, when Ward was the most valuable player of Super Bowl XL. Koreans were quick to make the link to his Korean heritage.

That spring, Ward and his mother, Young He Ward, visited South Korea for the first time since Ward was a baby nearly 30 years earlier. They were mobbed by television cameras and gawking fans. They were honored by the South Korean president.

“I got more love there than I did in the States,” Ward said.

Ward was only starting to understand the underlying hypocrisy. Biracial children in South Korea recognized it instantly.

“They liked someone because he is famous,” So said. “If you are not famous, they are very cold. So I was happy, but also bitter.”

It represented, however, a slow turn toward tolerance.

I'm really not sure how "slow" this change is. In fact, like many other types of change in Korea, it has been seismic: change that was so little it was unrecognizable, followed by a dramatic shift due to a singular event. But the timing of that event works as Korean officialdom has been going through a pro-multiculturalism phase which has seen many of the legal barriers faced by biracial children and foreign residents dismantled.

That shouldn't be seen as the end of it, of course, and I would dare say that South Korea may require some affirmative action for a while to help some biracial Koreans get on their feet. But even if that doesn't happen, demographics marches on. There will always be those who

See you again.

Well, Hines Ward is gone now. All we can do is wait and see how much the new-found enthusiasm toward diversity sticks, if at all.


In honor of his departure, here is my one Hines Ward encounter (sort of). While visiting Ewha University Tongdaemun Hospital, I encountered a banner that said this:

Hines Ward, This is the hospital where you had your beginning.
We are very proud of you.
하인즈 워드, 당신이 태어난 병원입니다. 당신이 자랑스럽습니다.

In fact, I saw the same banner in two different places. They were determined that he would see it. I wonder if St. Mary's Hospital in Long Beach will ever put up such banners if I make the big time.

While in Pusan, I did happen to catch a TV show focusing on Hines Ward. He seemed very friendly and nice, a really good guy. The man is a devoted son, a hard worker, a good father, and a genuine charmer. All things Koreans have been (indirectly) taught for so long were less likely in a child of mixed heritage, particularly those of Black parentage. As I said before, the problem is ignorance, not malice. And Hines Ward—and his outspoken mother—are shaking the unfounded beliefs of the ignorant to the core.

Honorary Seoul citizenship brings Hines Ward to tears

From Yonhap:

Hines Ward, MVP of the U.S. Super Bowl, shed tears Wednesday when he became an honorary citizen of Seoul during his first-ever trip to his birthplace as an adult.

"I'm at a loss for words, very emotional," Ward said after receiving the citizenship certificate and a gold medal from Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak.

He said he felt sorry that he didn't want to associate with Korea as a child.

"I used to be ashamed of myself that I was born in Korea... Thank you guys," he said, wiping tears from his eyes with a hankerchief offered by the mayor.

His mother Kim Young-hee also became teary-eyed as silence filled the hall.

Lee gave him a book showing Seoul scenery and refrigerator magnets with pictures of the Cheonggye stream, which was restored last year and runs through downtown Seoul. Ward gave the mayor a jersey of his team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

"We were surprised. It was emotional. When I heard what he said, I thought he is an upright young man with proper thinking," Lee Jin-woo, the city government's marketing department official who prepared the gifts, said.

Ward, 29, born in Seoul to an African-American serviceman and Korean mother, is one of the few sports figures to get the honorary citizenship that has been given mostly to political or economic dignitaries. Honorees are invited to serve as advisors on public events organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and receive free entrance to public museums and parks, city officials said.

Guus Hiddink, the Dutch football coach who led the Korean team to the semifinals in the 2002 World Cup, received the citizenship in 2002.

Ward arrived in Korea on Monday for the first time since he left at the age of one. He met President Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday and plans to meet Korean children of mixed parentage Saturday.