Bettis shared what 'Renegade' means to him

By Mike Mettler
Official Biographer for Styx

(This article originally appeared on www.styxworld.com)

Anyone who has ever seen The Pittsburgh Steelers defense rally in the fourth quarter knows just how much “Renegade” plays a role in the way the team surges under pressure. Since January 2002, the Steelers have regularly shown a video compilation of its defense in action with “Renegade” as the soundtrack on the JumboTron at Heinz Field whenever the team needs a boost. During a recent event, Jerome “The Bus” Bettis, star running back for the Steelers from 1996-2006 (he retired after the team won Super Bowl XL) and a 2015 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, exclusively told Styxworld how special the song has been to him and his former team.

“I want to let those guys know how important it was to me as a player, because sometimes, they don’t know the impact they make,” says Bettis. “‘Renegade’ is a song that has taken on a life of its own, and as a football player from Pittsburgh, I just wanted to let those guys know I appreciate it — the fact that they allowed us to play that song, because it brought us so much joy. But it also brought some wins. It helped the defense pick it up. It made a difference with us, and those guys need to hear it from me how important that was.”

READ MORE: http://www.steelers.com/news/article-1/Bettis-shared-what-Renegade-means-to-him/9e3ccdb1-169f-45ab-b607-c7daa18f030e

Awesome read. I know when they play renegade it fires me up. I can only imagine what it does for the players..

blazing steel wrote:

Awesome read. I know when they play renegade it fires me up. I can only imagine what it does for the players..

I think sometimes people underestimate the emotional aspect of the game. We get caught up in all the physical things, and it's easy to overlook the emotional part of it. Renegade doesn't just pump up the fans. It also pumps up the players.

Emotional part is huge. You can bet a lot more games are won and lost due to emotions rather than physicality.

blazing steel wrote:

Awesome read. I know when they play renegade it fires me up. I can only imagine what it does for the players..

Same. If only my wife would let me play it in the bedroom..... It would be the greatest 4 and a half minutes of her life...



Then we can try it on repeat.

When we first started Steelers Xtreme, we had it set up to play Renegade when you logged on to the board. Sounded like a great idea. Turned out that it wasn't.