DETROIT – How do you win the lottery and barely collect a dime?
How do you contribute to the biggest sporting event of your life and never even slip on a uniform on game day?
How do you reach the pinnacle of your professional sports career at age 25 and know in your heart that you’re never going to suit up again after it’s over?
These are the bizarre circumstances that Steelers’ defensive tackle Grant Bowman faces this week.
They are hardly stressful circumstances, though.
Bowman is living the kind of dream few in professional sports ever dared to dream.
Twelve days ago, Bowman was sitting in his midtown Manhattan office of Lehman Brothers at the Global Futures Desk with an eye on studying for the Secruties and Exchange exam when he got a message on his cell phone from the Steelers, who one day earlier had won the AFC Championship game in Denver to advance to Sunday’s Super Bowl XL.
The Steelers had lost LB Andre Frazier to a broken ankle in the Denver game and had to sign LB Arnold Harrison off the practice squad. That left an opening on the practice squad. Thus the Steelers’ call to Bowman, an overachiever who’d spent 2004 on their practice squad.
Bowman, who’s been simulating certain Seahawks’ defensive linemen on the scout teams in practice, will not suit up for the game Sunday. He will be on the sideline in street clothes and will receive a Super Bowl ring if the Steelers win.
And, of course, no one can take this experience away from him.
“I figure I’d hung them up and I was never going to put a helmet on again,” Bowman told The Post yesterday. “I was resigned to that. I felt good about that. I felt good about where I was going. But when you get a call for a Super Bowl, you can’t turn it down.
“If they didn’t pay me a dime, I’d still be out here having fun. It’s already been an amazing ride so far. I’m sure Sunday is going to be one of the most incredible days of my life, something I’ll remember for a long time.”
When the call came a week ago Monday to Bowman’s cell, he noticed the Steelers’ number on the message and said to himself, “Something crazy is about to happen.”
“I called them and they wanted to sign me and said we’ll get you a flight tomorrow. Pack your bags for two weeks.
“I hung up the phone and looked at co-worker and said, ‘I think the Steelers just signed me,'” Bowman said. “Everyone went nuts. It got around the firm real quickly. It’s just been a whirlwind since then.”
Bowman, who lives in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn with his wife, Teresa, a neo-natal intensive care nurse in Manhattan and a Michigan grad, has even gotten a congratulatory call from the Lehman Brothers’ CEO.
He was given two weeks off and is due back in the office on Tuesday.
Asked if Bill Cowher told him he wanted him back on the team next season, what he would do, Bowman said, “I think I’d tell them, ‘Thanks, but I’ve found my spot in life.’ I like Lehman Brothers. I like what I’m doing there. I like where I’m living. I like the career path, and that’s where I’m going to take this after the Super Bowl.
“Then I can put my football life to rest and be happy after everything plays out.”
Bowman is not sweating the fact that he knows he won’t play in the game.
“I know my role,” he said. “They brought me in because they knew I practice hard and they know I know the team well, so I’m trying to give them best looks I can and try to prepare them for the game the best I can.
“Hopefully,” Bowman went on, “that’ll play one small part in the victory. Whether it does or not [it does], I’ll never really know. But I know what my role is and I’m happy with it.”
SUPER FACTS
Isaiah Kacyvenski, Seahawk LB, earned nine letters in three different sports at Union Endicott High School in New York. He was a National Honor Society member and a scholar All-American. He graduated from Harvard with a degreee in pre-med.
