Ward Learned by Mom's Example

DETROIT — There was a time, years ago, when Hines Ward was embarrassed to be seen with his own mother.

He just didn't understand, and she was so ... \o7different.

\f7Mother and son literally did not speak the same language.

But the passing years and Kim Young's undying devotion to her only child eventually forged such a bond that Ward, the Pittsburgh Steelers' leading receiver for six seasons, couldn't help but grow emotional when talking about her this week in advance of Sunday's Super Bowl.

"My mom is the reason why I'm here today," he said. "All the values that she instilled in me, that's who my mom is: a hard worker, nothing ever given to her, worked her tail off. I am here today because of my mom."

Their journey started more than 30 years ago in Seoul, South Korea, where Ward's father, a 20-year-old African American U.S. serviceman, was serving a tour of duty with the 2nd Infantry Division. Outside a Seoul nightclub one evening, he met Young, a 25-year-old cashier.

A few months later Kim was pregnant. She and Hines Ward Sr. were married and their son, Hines Jr., was born on March 8, 1976.

Little more than a year later, they all came to the U.S., where Ward was assigned to a base in Georgia. But within months the couple had split up and, after Ward was reassigned to Europe, he left the young boy with his mother.

In time, the serviceman returned, remarried and took Hines Jr. with him to Louisiana, where the boy lived with his paternal grandmother.

All the while his heartbroken mother set about reclaiming her son. The courts had deemed her an unfit parent because she couldn't speak English and had no way to support him. She proved otherwise, taking a series of low-playing jobs.

Her son was 7 when they were finally brought back together in Forest Park, Ga., outside Atlanta, but it was far from a happy reunion.

The boy resented the woman he didn't really know, wanted nothing to do with her, really.

"I was ashamed of that side of my family," he said, "because I couldn't really understand. I had grown up around all black people before moving in with my mom, so coming into a predominantly mixed neighborhood, that was something that was new to me and something that I was ashamed of as a little kid."

Classmates teased him, he said, and called him names.

So one morning he ducked down in the car seat because he didn't want anyone to know that the woman driving him to school was his mother.