If you need to clear a path, ask Alan Faneca.
The Hall of Fame guard opened up numerous running lanes for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1998-2007 and later for the New York Jets (2008-09) and Arizona Cardinals (2010).
Faneca, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021, is partnering with SK Life Science to open up the lanes of awareness about epilepsy with the STEPS (Seize the Truth about Epilepsy Perceptions Survey) Toward Zero campaign.
The six-time All-Pro sat down with Touchdown Wire to answer questions about his experience with epilepsy and also shared insights on the Pittsburgh Steelers and coach Mike Tomlin.
1. How is the general public unaware of epilepsy and how does STEPS Toward Zero raise awareness?
AF — “I think the general lack of knowledge that so many Americans have epilepsy is the one misconception. There’s 3.4 million people in the United States who have epilepsy. So, the chances that you know somebody who has epilepsy is pretty high, directly or indirectly, friends or work. You probably know somebody who has it. Maybe they don’t come out and speak about it, but they have it and maybe keep it to themselves.
“The whole STEPS Toward Zero campaign is designed to educate and inspire and activate the epilepsy community. We want to get people to reimagine their healthcare plan, to revisit with their doctors, and kind of evaluate where they are. So many people who have epilepsy stay on the same path of medicine and care for years and just deal with wherever they’re at. Maybe they have three seizures, maybe they have 10. Who knows? But medicine changes. Our bodies change. Sometimes things can improve and we’re trying to get people to get back to their doctors and restart that conversation again with them. It’s the biggest part of the campaign.”
2. When were you diagnosed with epilepsy and how did you manage?
AF — “We’re in the holiday season. So, it was my freshman year of high school and I was sleeping at my great grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve and I had my first seizure, my first couple of seizures. During the night I was upset and crying and just really had no idea why, and I was kind of running around the house. Everybody is trying to calm me down, and eventually I did get back to bed. I believe I had two to three during the night. You know, you wake up and it’s Christmas morning. I just shake it off as a couple nightmares and let’s get to opening presents and having Christmas Day. All the adults around me are a little concerned. It wasn’t a normal, typical night.
“So, then, shortly thereafter we start going to all of the doctors visits and figuring things out and taking the test and come to find out I have epilepsy. So started my path of starting treatment and getting things figured out for months for the right medication that worked for me and the right amount. Kind of got me to where I am today.
When I first got the diagnosis of having epilepsy, you know, we didn’t have the internet like we had now. You couldn’t just pop open a laptop and figure away and get answers. So, my family and I, we went with a long list of questions of just basic life questions of day-to-day things, how this was going to change my life and what I needed to know or do. Once we got through all of those questions, we got to the extracurricular, the sports and the football questions and things of that nature. The doctor said it so quickly that I could keep playing football, my family and I, we looked at each other, and then we looked back at him and said, ‘You know what football is, right? It’s a bunch of guys running around with helmets on and butting up heads and stuff.’ He knew what football was and he told me to keep chasing my dream and to keep going after it, and I never asked him again. Took that and ran.
“Just kind of really attacked having it, if you will. I’ve always had a great support system that always pushed me to own it and be upfront with people. And it’s really where I kind of learned to kind of have my kind of mantra of ‘I have epilepsy but epilepsy is only part of me; it’s not who I am.’ And I learned that from my family and my friends and my coaches and teachers in those high school years.”
3. Are there any foods, lifestyle habits that are helpful for epilepsy?
AF — “You know, everybody is different. I know know about everybody’s. But just like with any kind of condition, there’s always this baseline if you can figure like a line graph. And anytime your health goes down in whatever form or fashion, that threshold gets lowered and you get more susceptible to having whatever it is you’re having, in this case a seizure. So, your health is always your utmost concern.”
4. As a veteran OL, how did you weather the transition from experienced QBs to a talented first-rounder?
AF — “You have to be more patient. Things are happening at a different speed. I think our coaching staff did a great job of kind of taking some of the things off of the quarterback, off of Ben [Roethlisberger] and putting them on us and letting us call a lot of the defenses, especially earlier on, making some of the checks of plays at the line of scrimmage — just clearly all based on defensive alignment and things. Kind of freed Ben up to play quarterback and be who he was and not have to be worrying about making so many decisions. So, by us taking that on as much as possible, I think the coaches are always looking in some way or form to alleviate the pressure of the game so that Ben could go out there and play.”
5. What did Ben Roethlisberger exude that let you know he had it?
AF — “Confidence. He believed he could get the job done. He knew he could get the job done and he just exuded it and always had a swag, whatever you want to say, even for a young guy as a ‘rookie’ in here with all these old guys. But he had that swag with him as well as he did things and got things done, and you saw the sparks. So, when somebody is walking around and they believe it and they show you in bits and pieces that he has the ability, you just want to support that guy and help him through and do what you can. It’s much like when you see a backup quarterback come in and the team wins the game when they’re not supposed to win the game. What happened is everybody on the rest of the team rallied around him. Everybody else picked up their game a little bit, did a little bit extra to help win that game. And it’s kind of like with a young quarterback. That’s what happens.”
6. Did Mike Tomlin show anything in 2007 that made you think he would be around for a long time?
AF — “It was a little bit of a rough transition, I think, in the beginning. I’ve definitely gone back and coached a couple years in the summer in training camp and what not. To view it from the beginning to now, this, I guess, would have been five years ago when I was doing this with the Steelers. He’s come far, but at the same time, he’s the exact same coach. He’s so consistent and I think that first year was just about everybody learning about his way and his consistency and kind of learning his approach, because his approach was different than Coach [Bill] Cowher’s obviously.
“A lot of times people always want to know what’s going on in Pittsburgh and how has Pittsburgh always been so good consistently, and I used to tell people — and I still do — it’s the guys in the locker room. A good locker room wins you two or three games a year, gets you over the hump. So, if you’re a .500 team and all of a sudden now you got 10 or 11 wins. You’re now above .500. Visa versa if you’re a 10-win team, now you got a 13-win. It just wins games. Good locker rooms win games. The mentality, the attitude, the drive, and going back now, so much of that is driven, not by the players, but it’s driven by Mike. Mike is the one driving the bus to a certain point now, and he’s the one now pushing the guys and pushing the narrative, and that’s just how he is and it’s great. It was very interesting for me to see when I went back and coached in those summers. And it didn’t take me long to come to that realization that it was really Mike driving the bus now.”
