British Invasion? Rugby player looks to stick with Steelers
PITTSBURGH » Christian ScotlandWilliamson looks the part.
Standing on the practice field with the rest of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the rookie tight end blends in seamlessly. The 25-year-old is tall (6-foot9), big (275 pounds) and athletic.
Then Scotland-Williamson opens his mouth. A polite British accent comes out, the kind that would go unnoticed on a soccer pitch, but on a field crammed with dozens of players practically weaned on America’s Game, it raises eyebrows. Lots of eyebrows.
Scotland-Williamson gets it. The former rugby player who was raised in the London suburbs understands he’s a bit of a curiosity as a member of the second graduating class of the NFL’s International Player Pathway program. At the heart of it all, however, Scotland-Williamson figures the only thing separating him from his teammates is experience. Not passion. Not athleticism. And certainly not drive.
“It’s one of those things where when I was younger, if I’d been exposed to American football I probably would have played it at an earlier age,” Scotland-Williamson said. “But being a British kid, it’s not at your doorstep, so it’s quite hard.”
So Scotland-Williamson opted for rugby. He turned professional at 20 and spent four seasons with the Worcester Warriors of the English Premiership, the top rugby division in the United Kingdom.
Started in 2017, the IPP selects a handful of athletes from other countries to come to the U.S. to learn the finer points of pro football. If they make it through a four-month boot camp at IMG Academy in Florida, they can be assigned to an NFL club.
The initial IPP graduation class last spring included three athletes from the United Kingdom and another from Germany. The current group includes Scotland-Williamson and Australian rugby player Jordan Mailata, who impressed the Super Bowl champion Eagles so much they used a seventh-round draft pick on him to make sure he didn’t end up somewhere else.
49ers’ Bolden suspended
SANTA CLARA » San Francisco 49ers receiver Victor Bolden has been suspended for the first four games of the regular season for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
Bolden said in a statement that he unknowingly used a substance on the NFL banned list. He said he takes full responsibility for not verifying the ingredients of the supplement and will be better educated in the future.
Ex-cheerleaders sue Texans
HOUSTON » Five former NFL cheerleaders sued the Houston Texans on Friday, alleging the team failed to fully compensate them as required by law and subjected them to a hostile work environment in which they were harassed, intimidated and forced to live in fear.
The lawsuit, filed in Houston federal court, accuses the franchise of paying the women less than the $7.25 per hour they were promised, not compensating them for making public appearances or performing other tasks related to their jobs and creating a workplace where the women were threatened with being fired for voicing any complaints.