Someday, if somebody asks me to name the most interesting athlete I covered, Troy Polamalu probably will spring to mind.
Former Penguins defenseman Andrew Ference might make the cut, too, but neither of them and nobody else measures up to the 6-foot-9 Army man/Carnegie Mellon grad/Spanish-American left tackle who played for the Steelers for six years.
Alejandro Villanueva, 33, retired from the NFL on Wednesday, after spending his final season with the Baltimore Ravens, and he was in typical form Thursday during an interview with myself and Ron Cook on 93.7 The Fan.
This is a man who speaks openly and intelligently on everything from metaphysics to eating habits of African bullfrogs to world politics to his paralyzing fear of heights to his mixed feelings about life in the NFL.
Will he miss the game?
“I’m not going to miss football at all,” Villanueva said. “The world of football and the NFL always seemed a little bit circus-like to me. I enjoyed the locker room and being with my friends, but the game of football? Ping-pong is a lot more entertaining, in my opinion, than just sitting out there and suffering and hoping you don't find yourself in 3rd-and-10, 20 times a game.”
The first time I encountered Villanueva was in the Steelers locker room Sept. 2, 2014. He’d been with the Philadelphia Eagles a few weeks earlier, playing defensive line in an exhibition game against the Steelers. Now he was on the Steelers’ practice squad, as an offensive tackle, going against Cam Heyward.
The idea that he would become a starter seemed ridiculous. He hadn’t even played football in five years. He'd played wide receiver, among several other positions, at Army.
“I never thought I was going to play in the NFL,” Villanueva said. “I just wanted to fool a coach for one year so I could pay for business school and start my family right away and not get in debt.”
A few things stood out from that first locker-room talk. For one, Villanueva was one of the largest human beings I had ever seen. For another, he was incredibly humble regarding his heroic service in Afghanistan, where he served three tours.
Ashley Fox's piece from ESPN.com chronicled the night of Aug. 25, 2011, when Lt. Villanueva's unit responded to a call involving an accused U.S. informant and Taliban militants. Villanueva and his troops were “ambushed by as many as eight Taliban militants in a spray of bullets.”
Three soldiers were wounded. Villanueva, under heavy fire, dragged the three to a nearby school, where they waited for help. One soldier — Army Pvt. 1st Class Jesse Dietrich — did not make it. He died shortly after being lifted onto a helicopter. Villanueva told me he had since thought of Deitrich every day.
When I asked about that harrowing night, Villanueva rejected the notion that he’d done anything out of the ordinary.
“Anybody who's served in one of those deployments where you really try to bring it to the enemy can relate to a night where, as a leader, you have to react, and it's not on your terms,” he said. “It's what I had to do to fix the situation on the ground. Everybody would have done the same thing. You're obviously not going to back away from that.
“It was a very unfortunate night. That's the only way I would describe it.”
A little more than a decade later, a day after his retirement and with the world in upheaval, Villanueva says he would go back to active duty in a second. Cook asked him if the thought had crossed his mind.
“A thousand percent,” he said. “That’s why I’m so skinny. I’m 265 right now. The moment we have to go, there’s no way I’m going to be on the sidelines. I think most veterans, if there’s a war, you don’t want to see somebody else go fight it. How are you going to look at yourself after the war if you didn’t take part in whatever went on?
“Obviously, I wouldn’t want any conflict. I feel terribly bad for the Ukrainians and the Russians, because I don’t think the Russians are feeling particularly enthused about this war, either.”
It's still hard to believe Villanueva beat the odds in Pittsburgh. Under the guidance of then-Steelers offensive line coach Mike Munchak, he became a Pro Bowl left tackle — one who eventually signed a $24 million contract. He is now settled with his wife and four young children in Miami, where he loves the fishing, the family life and the Spanish-speaking environment.
“I”m barely speaking any English right now,” he said.
In a few weeks, Villanueva expects old teammates David DeCastro and Maurkice Pouncey to join him for a fishing trip. He might eventually put his MBA from Carnegie Mellon to use. He might do a lot of things.
He already has.
