Big Ben's 'Family' - couple hosted future Steeler
At his kitchen table one summer night, Guyton Giannotta asked the tall, slim man a question: "What do you want to do with your life?"
It was the same question he asked every Big 33 football player he had hosted for years.
This man, Ben Roethlisberger, offered a different answer than the others.
"Ben is the only one who looked at me and said, 'Mr. G, my goal in life is to play on Sunday afternoon,'" Giannotta said.
Giannotta rattled off the challenges ahead and discipline needed to achieve such a goal. "And he said, 'Yes, sir. I will play on Sunday afternoons.' Not arrogant at all."
Roethlisberger, quarterback for Ohio in the 2000 Big 33 high school football classic, went on to become a Sunday afternoon fixture as the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Big 33 game is in its 50th year of bringing college-bound standouts from Ohio and Pennsylvania to Hersheypark Stadium. The game is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday.
The players live with host families -- like Roethlisberger did with the Giannottas -- who drive them to practice, feed them and make them feel like part of the family.
That year, Roethlisberger quarterbacked the Ohio team in a 31-14 defeat.
"His first Pennsylvania game was a loss, and he sure turned that around," said Giannotta, an environmental remediation consultant from Derry Twp
Giannotta said he believed then that Roethlisberger, from Findlay in western Ohio, had the drive and talent to make the National Football League, but at 175 pounds, he needed to put on some weight.
"He's gained, like, 75 pounds," Giannotta said, perhaps beginning with his Big 33 after-practice snack of two Jo-Jo's subs, French fries and garlic knots.
"Ben was a human garbage can," he said. "He could live on cold subs and pizza."
Giannotta and his wife, Aderia, are welcoming their 18th Big 33 player this year. Their son, Adrian, 22, who has always befriended the players, works in Florida but comes back for Big 33 week.
Many of the players have never been away from home and arrive with a bit of "stage fright," Giannotta said.
Roethlisberger exuded confidence even then.
"We tell the player that our home is his home," Giannotta said. "Ben walked into the kitchen, set his bag down, opened up the refrigerator door, and said, 'Well, Mom, what's here?' That's how comfortable he was. He was very mature, and we found out later that he'd never really been away from home."
Roethlisberger "worked extra hard here," Giannotta said. Daily practices ended at 9:30 p.m., but Roethlisberger asked for more time so he could throw to receivers and learn about their timing and speed.
Roethlisberger and Adrian played video games "endlessly," Giannotta said, and the two stayed in touch throughout Roethlisberger's college career at Miami University, Ohio.
The family lost contact when Roethlisberger started playing for the Steelers. They thought he might have forgotten them, until a neighbor encountered Roethlisberger at a Pittsburgh restaurant and said he lived across the street during the Big 33 game. "You live across the street from the Giannottas?" he asked.
Giannotta knows NFL players are busy, and he's heartened by the story of another host family who got a call from a former guest and retired Jets player, 10 years after they'd last heard from him. He hopes that Roethlisberger will someday find the time to catch up.
"He's young, and look at his accomplishments," Giannotta said. "We figure that at some point in time, we'll probably hear from him, a little later in his career."