Mel Blount remembers when he was a rookie in 1970 at Steelers training camp, seeing an injured player on the sideline. This guy was hobbled. He wasn’t playing. He could hardly walk.
Later, Blount found out he was looking at Rocky Bleier. The same Rocky Bleier who would transform his Vietnam War-wounded body into one that eventually ran for more than 1,000 yards in 1976 and won four Super Bowl titles with the Steelers.
Blount was there for all four, too, and he and Bleier will be reunited tonight at the 81st annual Dapper Dan Dinner and Sports Auction at David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Bleier will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award and Blount with the Dr. Freddie Fu Sports Leadership Award.
“I think Rocky exemplifies to all of us the inner spirit of a person and what the desires of their heart is,” Blount said of Bleier becoming a football star after being a war hero. “It was something he wanted to do very badly, and I think he has demonstrated to all of us if there’s something you want to accomplish, there’s no excuses. And the challenges may be great, but, if you want it bad enough … if you want something and you’re willing to go work for it, it can happen.”
Both former Steelers agree it’s a tremendous honor to be feted in the same breath as the other tonight, when three other Pittsburgh sports figures will join prestigious lists of past Dapper Dan winners.
General manager Jim Rutherford and coach Mike Sullivan, the engineers of the Penguins’ 2016 Stanley Cup championship season, will share the Co-Sportsmen of the Year Award, the first co-winners since 2011. Steelers receiver Antonio Brown had won the award two years in a row, while other past recipients include Arnold Palmer, Roberto Clemente and Mario Lemieux.
The Sportswoman of the Year for 2016 is Amanda Polk, an Oakland Catholic High School graduate who won an Olympic gold medal in August in Rio de Janeiro with the U.S. women’s rowing team. Polk, a Bloomfield native, is the third consecutive Olympian from Western Pennsylvania to be named Sportswoman of the Year. She was directly preceded by 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup champion Meghan Klingenberg, a Pine-Richland alumna and member of the U.S. women’s national team at the Olympics last year. In 2014, Hopewell’s Christa Harmotto Dietzen won Sportswoman of the Year for her accomplished career with the U.S. national women’s volleyball team.
Tonight, Rutherford, Sullivan, Polk, Bleier and Blount will add to the long list of Pittsburghers — native or adopted — to be etched into Dapper Dan lore. A cocktail reception will begin at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.post-gazette.com/dapperdan17.
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.
First Published: February 15, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
