Penn State linebacker Sean Lee said he grew up in his Pittsburgh neighborhood watching Jerome "The Bus" Bettis dominate play for the Steelers every Sunday.
Now, Lee and the rest of the Penn State community will have the chance to see Bettis live. Bettis will speak as a part of the Distinguished Speaker Series (DSS) at 8 tonight in the Bryce Jordan Center.
The expected crowd of about 4,000 will hear the former Pittsburgh Steelers running back give a speech titled "Championship Choices," said Carley Bria, the Student Programming Association (SPA) chairwoman of the DSS committee. SPA is sponsoring Bettis' speech, which is the second DSS speech of the semester.
"He wants people to know that it's not necessarily winning that made him a champion, but it's the choices he made to get him to that point," said Jahmal Dokes, Bettis's business manager.
Bettis holds the fifth spot overall in rushing in the NFL and was also the recipient of the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award in 2001, according to his Web site, www.thebus36.com.
He retired from the NFL after helping the Pittsburgh Steelers win the 2006 Super Bowl and now continues work with his organization, The "Bus Stops Here" Foundation, which he created to help improve the quality of life for disadvantaged and underprivileged children, according to his Web site.
"He is a role model," Lee said. "As a kid in Pittsburgh, he is a guy you can look up to."
Though Lee has a class tonight, he said many Penn State football players are fans of Bettis, and he assumes they will try to attend.
This is the first DSS speech to be housed in the BJC, a move that was made to accommodate more students, Bria said.
"We feel strongly about students' getting the most out of their student activity fee," Bria said. "If we can accommodate more students, more people can see him talk and take a good message away."
Bria said Bettis seems like a very down-to-earth figure.
"Every day Penn State students have to make decisions that will affect them for rest of their lives. What he speaks about is a really good message a lot of people can relate to," Bria said.
Dokes' said Bettis' "Championship Choices" speech will center on the importance of making good decisions.
"After listening to him tell his story, a lot of people will figure out that it is as average as some of theirs," Dokes said. "It will be a heartfelt, honest and a very straight-forward speech everyone can relate to."
The final DSS of the year will be Frank Warren, the creator of PostSecret, who will speak April 7 though the location has not been finalized.
PostSecret is the ongoing community art project that encourages people to write their secrets on postcards and send them in to be published on Warren's Web site, postsecret.blogspot.com.
