DETROIT, Feb. 4 — Even if he does not lay a hand on
Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday, Seattle defensive end
Bryce Fisher will touch a lot of people during Super Bowl XL: a grieving
mother in Lompoc, Calif.; troops in mess halls throughout the Middle East;
friends in Colorado Springs.
Fisher is the
Seahawks' sacks
king and a captain in the Washington Air National Guard. His participation
in a sporting event that commands television advertising rates of $5
million a minute will afford his alma mater, the Air Force Academy, a few
exquisite hours of free publicity.
If the military handed out an award for most
valuable public affairs officer, the 28-year-old Fisher would be a lock.
"He has probably done more in the N.F.L., as far as publicity for the Air
Force, than he could have done in any operational capacity," said Blane
Morgan, the quarterbacks coach at Air Force.
In 1998 Morgan was the quarterback and Fisher the
defensive leader of a
Falcons squad that
finished 12-1, its only loss coming to a Texas Christian squad led by
LaDainian Tomlinson, now a Pro Bowl running back.
"It's funny," Morgan said. "Bryce used to always
talk about me being the poster child of the Air Force Academy since I was
the quarterback. Now he's turned into that. He's the poster boy."
Fisher has a smile as broad as his range of
interests. He deployed it like a parachute this week so his message did
not land with a thud in the middle of the Super Bowl revelry.
"All of us here owe any servicemen for the last 200
years a debt of gratitude because we live in a country where we can go
play a game for millions of dollars, people can come here and just go
watch it and are safe doing it, and we get to have this huge spectacle
that ultimately means nothing," Fisher said.
Fisher was drafted by the
Buffalo Bills in
the seventh round in 1999, but he had to defer his N.F.L. career until he
had completed his mandatory two-year military commitment. He served as an
assistant football coach at Air Force, then as a transportation officer at
Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.
In 2001, he made the Bills' roster and, as protocol
then permitted, petitioned the Air Force to be released from his
active-duty commitment. Instead of serving full time for three more years,
he agreed to nine years of reserve duty.
He stayed in Buffalo one season. He was cut after
the Bills finished 3-13. Fisher caught on with the
St. Louis Rams in
2002 and started 15 games over the next three seasons. The 2004 season
coincided with his military vulnerability period, which meant that he
played every game knowing that at any moment he could be shipped to the
Middle East.
"I packed my bag and had it set off in a corner of
my closet so that if they were to put me on notice, then I was ready to
go," Fisher said.
What did he pack? "A chemical preparedness suit,
underwear, jeans, uniforms, that kind of stuff," he said.
The call never came, and last March Fisher left St.
Louis. He signed as an unrestricted free agent with the Seahawks, his
hometown team.
Somehow, Fisher recorded nine sacks during the
regular season. Some way, he found himself bathed in the spotlight on
football's biggest stage. Fisher will be the third player from Air Force
to appear in a Super Bowl, joining defensive lineman Chad Hennings, who
won three Super Bowls with Dallas, and linebacker Steve Russ, a two-time
Super Bowl champion with the
Denver Broncos.
"I managed to get cut as a backup from a 3-13 team,
and now I'm going to start in the Super Bowl," Fisher said. He shook his
head in amazement. "I've been fortunate that some of the paths that I've
taken by choice or by accident have been the right ones."
Here at the Super Bowl, Fisher is not fooled by the
Roman numerals. He knows the difference between a football field and a
battlefield. One of his friends at Air Force, a water polo player named
Derek Argel, was among four United States airmen who died last May 30 —
Memorial Day — in a crash of an Iraqi Air Force surveillance plane during
a special operations training mission northeast of Baghdad.
The Iraqi pilot, Capt. Ali Hussam Abass, was also
killed. He was the first Iraqi buried at Arlington National Cemetery in
Virginia. His remains were interred with those of the four Americans, who
were posthumously awarded the Bronze Star. Fisher fondly recalled Argel,
28, who was promoted to captain hours before his death.
"The war has a personal feeling for me, because it's
not just numbers to me," Fisher said. "It's not just Democrats versus
Republicans. I've got friends over there who are going through difficult
circumstances. It's incumbent upon me to always honor them."
Fisher's words took some of the edge off Argel's
mother's pain. Debbie Argel Bastian is not a football fan. She said she
was not planning her Sunday around the Super Bowl until Fisher gave her a
reason to watch it.
"I'm just very, very honored that he would remember
Derek," she said in a telephone interview from Lompoc. "I'm overwhelmed.
I'm so happy for Bryce. I absolutely wish him the very best of luck. You
can tell him I said, 'Sack the quarterback for Derek.' "
Capt. Brian McKiernan will be at
Ford Field cheering
Fisher on. They are close friends from the academy. The seat that Fisher
procured for him will be a vast improvement from his location last year.
McKiernan watched the 2005 Super Bowl from a mess hall in Iraq. It was the
middle of the night, but it felt "as close to normal as it gets over
there," he said.
The Super Bowl is not superfluous to the troops,
McKiernan said. "I think it's pretty comforting," he said. "Everyone
really gets into it. To use a little cliché, when you're watching it, you
almost forget where you are."
A few dozen of Fisher's friends planned to gather
Sunday in the Colorado Springs home of another former teammate, Charlton
Warren, to share warm memories and cold beverages.
"Everyone will be glued to the TV, screaming Bryce's
name on every play," said Jemal Singleton, an assistant coach at Air Force
who played with Fisher there.
Singleton said he hoped Fisher would get to
Roethlisberger and take him down. He wants the world to see Fisher's sack
dance.
"When we were players, Bryce was quoted as saying he
was the best dancer on the team," Singleton said, his words practically
dripping with mirth. "I still feel I'm the best dancer to come through the
Air Force Academy. If he gets a sack, then the world maybe will see that
he's really not a good dancer."
After the Super Bowl, Fisher will trade his Seattle
jersey for his Guard uniform. He will spend the off-season at his other
job, serving as the liaison between the Air National Guard and the public
in Tacoma, Wash.
Fisher, officer and jock, is not your normal
football player. What he is, his friend Morgan said, "is your everyday
American."
Where they come from, there is no greater
compliment.