During his professional football career, Steve Young won Super Bowls, was recognized as the NFL’s Most Valuable Player and was named to Pro Football’s Hall of Fame.
Despite his success, the former BYU quarterback said he has long struggled with anxiety.
As a child, Young experienced separation anxiety so severe that he rarely left home at night. Sometimes before college games, he secretly wished the stadium would explode so he didn’t have to play. In the pros, he was known as a player who would vomit before each game.
“I’d hear my teammates whisper, ‘Has he thrown up yet? He plays great when he throws up,’” Young said.
Seated on the main stage during his keynote session at RootsTech, Young said his struggle with anxiety led him to embrace and appreciate a piece of wisdom from his grandfather: “Go through it, don’t go around it.”
“I’ve taken that to my heart, that no matter what I come in front of, it feels like it’s super hard, but I’m not going to go around it. Let’s go through it,” he said.
Young was the main keynote speaker on the third and final day of RootsTech in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, March 7, preceding Family Discovery Day, which featured Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Melanie Rasband.
Young is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
‘Truest truth’
Reflecting on his experience of playing quarterback, one of the most scrutinized, high-pressure roles in sports, Young noted how easy it was to slip into a “victim mindset” and focus on factors beyond his control. He countered this by learning to accept responsibility for his mistakes and do his best to fix them.
“The most important thing that I learned, going back to our theme of ‘Going through it,’ was to own what I say is the ‘truest truth’ — there was a lot of things that happened that I couldn’t control, but the truest truth was the ball’s in my hands, yeah, and so I am ultimately accountable," he said.
Young linked this lesson back to his parents, grandfather and his wife, all of whom have modeled what it means to “go through it” instead of hiding behind excuses.
Love and shared experiences
Young remembers a football practice in 1987 when his coach, Bill Walsh, stood in front of the team and said, “I don’t care what play we call on the field. I don’t care what defense we run. We will win because we have shared common experiences together and an element of love for each other.”
“I remember being in the back and thinking, ‘This is football. Did he just say love?’” Young said.
Young connected this idea with the work of genealogists and family historians at RootsTech, who seek shared experiences across generations. Whether in a family tree or a locker room, knowing and loving people at a deeper level can become a type of “North Star” that influences behavior, he said.
Young told a story about Reggie White, a Hall of Fame defensive lineman known both for his on-the-field dominance and his faith. While loud and ferocious in his pass rush, when White sacked Young, he would often cushion the hit by pulling the quarterback down on top of him. White would then hold onto Young and become a caring friend who casually asked about his family.
“That’s emotional and spiritual athleticism, which I honor more than physical athleticism,” Young said. “Can we be more like Reggie? ... We are all in this together. Can we find the bounty in each relationship that we have by putting the North Star as love?”
Legacy of healing
Asked how he wants his descendants to remember him, Young said he hopes to be remembered as a person who was responsible, accountable, humble and showed love towards others.
“My legacy, the only one that really matters, is the amount of healing that I brought to other humans,” Young said. “See how much healing you can bring to the human family.”
