"Pressure is what you make of it," the Tennessee Titans star quarterback, Steve McNair, once told Thomas George for the New York Times (August 28, 1994). "It makes me play harder. Something comes over your body, you just say to yourself, 'this is what I want.' Then you go get it." The pressure McNair has faced over the course of his career includes entering the National Football League (NFL) in 1995 from a small school, Alcorn State University, that was relatively obscure in football circles, and playing a position that had traditionally been difficult for African-Americans to obtain in the pros. McNair overcame a rocky start in the NFL to lead the Titans to the Super Bowl in the 1999 season and to postseason play in three of the following five years. Along the way he was named the league's co-MVP (Most Valuable Player) in 2003; emerged as one of five players in NFL history to have passed for 20,000 yards and rushed for 3,000 yards; and became, in 2000, the first black quarterback to pilot an American Football Conference (AFC) team to the Super Bowl. As quoted on the Tennessee Titans Web site, the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb said, "Steve has defined how a quarterback can suffer through adversity and overcome it."

    Steve Latreal McNair was born on February 14, 1973 in the tiny rural town of Mount Olive, Mississippi. His father, Selma McNair, who worked on an off-shore oil rig, separated from McNair's mother, Lucille, when the boy was eight years old. Lucille McNair, left to bring up five sons alone, worked 14-hour shifts at a chicken hatchery and, later, at an electronic-component factory. McNair helped out at home by picking peas every morning before school and working in the garden after school when needed. For his less helpful antics in the front-yard cherry tree, McNair earned the nickname "Monk," as his mother explained to Tim Crothers for Sports Illustrated (August 30, 1993). "When he was escaping a whupping, Steve could climb that tree faster than any monkey I've ever seen," she said, "so we just started calling him Monk."

    McNair also displayed his athleticism on what was called Mount Pleasant Arena, a small, weedy field near his house where the local children came to play football. The first big star at Mount Pleasant Arena was Fred McNair, Steve's older brother, who went on to become a star quarterback for Alcorn State University, in nearby Lorman, Mississippi, and enjoyed a brief stay in the NFL before moving on to the Canadian Football League. Fred McNair had a huge influence on his little brother. He helped raise McNair and even lent him his on-field persona: Fred, as a star at Mount Olive High School, became known as "Air McNair," while Steve initially settled for "Air II." Soon, though, Steve McNair would supplant his brother as the sole owner of the moniker. At Mount Olive High School, McNair played both quarterback and safety while leading his team to a state championship. He was also scouted by the Seattle Mariners baseball team, but his brother advised him against leaving school. McNair listened to his big brother, as he would in making several other key decisions.

    McNair has often emphasized the influence his older brother has had on him. "Fred has taught me absolutely everything I know," he told Crothers. "I can't thank him enough for giving me a map and then showing me how to take the short road when he's taken the longer one." Because of his athletic prowess, many major universities courted McNair, but most were interested in making him a safety rather than a quarterback. (He had 30 interceptions as a safety at Mount Olive High School.) Even though his brother had encouraged him to follow his dream of becoming a quarterback, McNair decided on the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, where he was to play safety. The night before he signed on, though, McNair had a change of heart. Like his brother before him, he would go to Alcorn State, where he could be the leader of the team as quarterback, the position he had always loved.

    Cardell Jones, the Alcorn head coach, was immediately rewarded for giving McNair the chance to play quarterback. During a 1991 game against their arch-rival, Grambling, Alcorn got nowhere with their first few possessions--and then someone suggested putting in McNair, who was just another freshman sitting on the bench. McNair went in and threw for over 200 yards and three touchdowns to lead Alcorn to victory, 27-22. By McNair's sophomore year there was no doubt in Jones's mind that he had a future star on his hands. Playing Grambling again, McNair was carried off the field at halftime with a severely sprained ankle. The quarterback not only returned but threw three touchdowns in the second half and limped across the goal line with a minute left to seal the victory, 35-33. (One of McNair's prime receivers was his older brother, Tim.) By the end of his senior year, McNair had broken every game, season, and career passing and total-offense record at Alcorn. He also broke the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) career-yardage record, with 16,823 yards in total offense. His average yardage per game (400.55) was also an NCAA record. His career passing statistics were impressive as well: 928 completions on 1,673 attempts for a total of 14,496 yards, 119 touchdowns, and 58 interceptions. With those numbers, McNair became a unanimous choice for All-America. "Steve has the intelligence of a [Joe] Montana, the release of a [Dan] Marino, the scrambling ability of [John] Elway," Alcorn's offensive coordinator, Rickey Taylor, said to S. L. Price for Sports Illustrated (September 26, 1994). "He's got all that like I've never seen in an athlete before. This is my 19th year, and I've seen a lot of great players. . . . I haven't seen anybody yet I can compare this kid with."

    That assessment notwithstanding, when it came time for journalists to pick the winner of the prestigious Heisman Trophy, many said that McNair was not at the level of the best players in the NCAA--and that he had not encountered serious competition while playing at his small southern college. Many others felt that McNair's race played a part in such conclusions. The Heisman Trophy balloting is determined largely by players' exposure in the national media; Alcorn State, an all-black Division I-AA college, was unable to get any of the bigger Division I teams to play them, a fact that has itself been attributed to racism.

    At his brother's suggestion, McNair passed up an opportunity to join the NFL after his junior year, so that he could continue to perfect his game and earn his bachelor's degree, in recreation, in 1994. (In the NFL there was still some resistance to the idea that African-Americans could play quarterback. Fred McNair, whose time in the NFL had been filled with difficulties, maintained that he was given fewer chances to play quarterback because of his race; he warned his younger brother to give critics little room for accusations, both on and off the field.) In 1995 McNair was picked third in the NFL draft by the Houston Oilers, who signed him for a seven-year, $28.4 million contract. Soon afterward McNair purchased a 640-acre ranch near Mount Olive and had a large house built for his mother. (As a boy he had slept in a bunk bed in a small room with three of his brothers, until he grew so large that one day he crashed through the top bunk onto an unfortunate sibling.) On the field, McNair's adjustment to pro football was more difficult. For one thing, he saw less playing time initially than he had in college; because the Oilers already had a talented quarterback in Chris Chandler when McNair arrived, the plan from the beginning was to cultivate McNair's talents slowly. For another, the quarterback position in the NFL is extremely demanding, as McNair discovered in his first exhibition game, against the Arizona Cardinals--a contest in which he was blitzed constantly, resulting in three sacks, a fumble, and a safety. Finally, he had trouble at first earning the respect of his fellow players. When he filled in for an ailing Chandler against the Detroit Lions later that season, McNair made an attempt at establishing a tone of leadership and camaraderie in the huddle. The response from one of his linemen was, "Shut . . . up, rookie, and call the play."

    McNair did not call many plays his rookie season. He played in only six games and threw only 80 passes. During the off-season he came into the Oilers practice facility nearly every day to work and study with the offensive coordinator, Jerry Rhome. As Rhome told Dennis Dillon for the Sporting News (August 12, 1996), "For a whole month, [McNair] struggled. He'd get back some tests that looked like they had been painted in red, because I mark things with a red pen. He'd just look at it and say, 'I've got to do better, huh?' And he'd keep hammering away." In his second season, McNair started four times and played in nine games, increasing his pass attempts to 143 and completing 61.5 percent. Though the Oilers coaches had hoped that their starting quarterback, Chris Chandler, would help tutor McNair, the relationship between the two was tense. Chandler made little attempt to speak with McNair at all, and eventually the decision was made to trade Chandler. The Oiler guard Kevin Donnalley expressed his approval of the decision to Michael Silver for Sports Illustrated (September 1, 1997). "It's better for everybody that we traded Chris," he said. "Steve handled that whole thing in a first-class manner and never once complained. He came out of it smelling like a rose."

    In 1997, McNair's third season, he became a starter. That year the team moved from Houston to Nashville, Tennessee, changing their name to the Tennessee Oilers. McNair performed well over the course of 16 games. He helped the Oilers set a team record for the fewest interceptions in a season (13) and had the most rushing touchdowns on the team, with eight. With 674 yards rushing, he attained the third-highest season total ever by an NFL quarterback, and his rushing average of 6.7 yards per carry led all NFL rushers that year. McNair proved to be the rare quarterback who could pass with accuracy in the pocket and also scramble under pressure to keep the defense off-balance. In 1998 McNair continued to improve. Once again, he broke the team record for fewest interceptions, this time with only 10. He became the youngest quarterback in franchise history to reach 3,000 yards passing, amassing 3,228 yards for the season. And he continued to astound fans with his running prowess, leading all quarterbacks with 559 rushing yards that year. In Tampa Bay on November 8, he turned a broken play into a 71-yard touchdown run to seal the victory. His completion average was a very respectable 58.7 percent, with 289 completions in 492 attempts, leading fans to vote him the most-improved NFL player in an ESPN poll.

    The 1999 season was a break-out year for McNair and his team, which changed its name to the Tennessee Titans that year. For the season opener, against the Cincinnati Bengals, McNair threw three touchdown passes and racked up 341 passing yards to win the game, 36-35. In the next game he suffered a ruptured disk, which required back surgery; in spite of that, McNair missed only five games. In the meantime, the team's backup quarterback, Neil O'Donnell, had done a good job, winning four games and losing only one. McNair picked up where he had left off and went 7-2 for the rest of the season, thus securing a wildcard play-off berth for the Titans. The team's first play-off game was a January 8, 2000 nail-biter against the Buffalo Bills--a defensive battle that Buffalo appeared to have won when they kicked a 41-yard field goal to take a 16-15 lead, with little time remaining. But on the following kickoff, with three seconds left on the clock, the Titans' tight end Frank Wycheck lateraled the ball to Kevin Dyson, who ran it 75 yards into the end zone for a stunning victory. The play was surrounded by controversy, with many commentators saying that Wycheck's lateral was actually an illegal forward pass that should have been called a penalty. The Titans nonetheless walked away with a win, with McNair completing 13 of 24 passes for 76 yards and rushing for 19 yards on six carries.

    For the American Football Conference final, the Titans faced the favored Indiana Colts, led by another young star quarterback, Peyton Manning. At halftime the Titans were down 9-6 in a game that was, like the contest with the Bills, a defensive battle. Then, in the second half, McNair made six straight completions, producing 13 points, and the Titans held on to beat the Colts, 19-16. In the game McNair had 13 completions on 24 passing attempts for 112 yards and also ran for 35 yards on seven carries, including a 29-yard run that led to a field goal. Though his numbers were not particularly high, McNair was doing exactly what coach Jeff Fisher wanted: he was playing smart football, eating up time on offense, not turning the ball over, and letting the Titans' formidable defense do its job. After the game, Frank Wycheck said to Jim Wyatt for the Tennessean (January 17, 2000), "Steve was our leader today--he pumped us up. He handled himself great."

    McNair continued to pump up the Titans in the 1999 Super Bowl, in which they faced the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. McNair kept the Titans even with the Rams, until St. Louis scored in the fourth quarter on a 73-yard pass to take a 23-16 lead. With less than two minutes left, McNair came onto the field determined to lead an 88-yard drive. He completed five of his first six passes, rushing for 12 yards on one play and then breaking two tackles to complete a clutch 16-yard pass, which set up the final play. With seconds left, McNair dropped back and looked to the end zone, but no one was open. He then fired the ball to Kevin Dyson, who caught it on the five-yard line and seemed to have a relatively clear path to the end zone. But the Rams' Mike Jones hit Dyson near the goal line and knocked him back a yard shy of it, to clinch the game for his team. McNair had come a yard short of leading what would have been one of the best clutch drives in Super Bowl history. As it stood, his 22 completions on 36 attempts for 214 yards, along with his 64 rushing yards, proved once and for all that he was a force to be reckoned with in the NFL.

    In the 2000 season McNair, working with a new offensive coordinator, Mike Heimerdinger, led the Titans to a league-best 13-3 record. Among their wins was a come-from-behind victory on November 5 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, who had led 7-6 with just over two minutes remaining; McNair and the wide receiver Derrick Mason then made a 17-yard completion, helping to put Al Del Greco in position to kick a 29-yard field goal and win the game, 9-7. The Titans fell in the postseason, however, losing to Baltimore on January 7, 2001. McNair made 248 completions on 396 attempts that year and accumulated 2,847 yards.

    The 2001 season was a dismal one for the Titans, who won only seven games and lost nine. For a time in 2002 things looked even worse, as the team won its first game of the season, against Philadelphia, and then proceeded to lose the next four. At that point head coach Jeff Fisher, Heimerdinger, and McNair changed tactics, having McNair, who had been the league's leading rusher among quarterbacks for several seasons, focus less on running and more on passing. The plan worked, and the Titans amassed an 11-5 regular-season record, which included five straight wins in December alone--a feat that was all the more impressive since McNair, with toe, rib, and back injuries, could not even make practice that month. The Titans followed a hard-fought, 34-31 victory over Pittsburgh on January 11 with a 24-41 loss to Oakland on January 19. For the season McNair racked up a career-best 301 completions on 492 attempts and amassed 3,387 yards, another career high.

    The McNair-led Titans had another winning season in 2003, with 12 victories in the regular season against four losses. In a postseason game against the Baltimore Ravens on January 3, 2004, McNair and the star running back Eddie George "delivered a clinic on resiliency," as Damon Hack put it in the New York Times (January 4, 2004); following a series of Titan errors that left the game tied at 17, with two minutes left to play, the two men led a drive that allowed Gary Anderson to kick a 46-yard field goal to win the game. On January 10, though, the Titans lost to the year's eventual Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots, 17 to 14. McNair's statistics for the season included 250 completions on 400 attempts with 3,215 yards gained.

    McNair shared the NFL's 2003 MVP award that year with Peyton Manning, becoming only the second Oilers/Titans player to win the award (the first was Earl Campbell, in 1979) and the first black quarterback to be so honored. In his acceptance speech, on January 2, 2004, as quoted on the Titans' Web site, McNair acknowledged the trail blazed by African-American quarterbacks who had preceded him in the NFL. "First and foremost," he said, "I'd like to thank the guys who paved the way for myself and a lot of other guys. The Warren Moons, the Doug Williamses, the Randall Cunninghams. Those guys paved the way for us as black quarterbacks to come in this league and be successful." That season McNair was also named the Sports Illustrated Player of the Year. At the end of the 2004-05 season, the Titans' record was five wins and 11 losses, with McNair's play having been hampered by injuries during the season. The beginning of the 2005-06 season was equally dismal for the Titans. As of October the team had two wins and five losses, and the threat that injuries would compromise McNair's effectiveness for the rest of the season had become a concern for the Titans' coach, Jeff Fisher. McNair was forced to sit out the Titans' game against the Arizona Cardinals because of a sore back, and the media began speculating that he would soon retire. But McNair, who had thrown for 1,375 yards with an impressive pass-completion percentage of 65.2 in the six games in which he had played, worked hard to become fit to play.

    Steve McNair is six feet two inches tall and weighs 235 pounds. On June 21, 1997 he married his longtime girlfriend, Mechelle, in Mount Olive, as 1,200 guests looked on. He has four sons. The McNairs divide their time between Nashville, Tennessee, and their ranch in Mount Olive. Since 2001 the quarterback has hosted the annual Steve McNair Golf Classic, in Gulfport, Mississippi, which benefits Boys & Girls Clubs in that state and Tennessee and provides scholarships for McNair's football camps in the two states.