Glades Central alum Holmes exits NFL
Wide receiver caught game-winning TD in 2009 Super Bowl.
Former Glades Central star Santonio Holmes has officially retired from the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced Tuesday.
Holmes, 33, who hasn’t played an NFL game since 2014, held a news conference Tuesday in Pittsburgh to announce his retirement.
“To be remembered around the world, it’s something that you dream about,” Holmes said at his news conference.
Holmes played nine seasons in the NFL — four with the Steelers, four with the New York Jets and one with the Chicago Bears. He racked up 389 receptions for 6,030 yards and 36 touchdowns. His most famous touchdown came in the last minute of Super Bowl XLIII in 2009, when he caught the game-winning score in the game’s final minute and put the Steelers ahead of the Arizona Cardinals, who boasted fellow Muck Bowl star Anquan Boldin.
Holmes had nine catches for 131 yards in that game — four for 73 yards on the game-winning drive — and was named the game’s MVP.
“I don’t have to remind anyone that was one of the most exciting Super Bowls of all time,” Steelers President Art Rooney II said Tuesday. “That last drive was something we all remember, and that last catch was something nobody will forget, that’s for sure.”
Before going to Ohio State to play college football, Holmes was a star for the Raiders. He helped carry the dominant Glades Central teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s and was a part of two state championship teams. He was an All-Area and Super 11 pick as a senior, when he caught 21 passes for 712 yards and 12 touchdowns.
Holmes also won a pair of state titles in the 4×400 relay in track and took the Raiders basketball team to the state finals in basketball in 2002.