Steve Breaston Gives Back Through Both Words and Action

When Arizona Cardinals (and former Woodland Hills star) Wide Receiver Steve Breaston isn’t evading tackles on the field, he’s helping North Braddock youths evade the streets. Breaston has teamed up with I Miss You, Inc. to create the “I am What it Is” t-shirt, which all proceeds from go to the Steven Breaston Foundation. Breaston’s goal for the foundation is to create a center for the children of North Braddock to use for both study and play. The “I am What it Is” shirt is based off of a poem that Breaston wrote about how the people of North Braddock have helped him grow as a person. Breaston, who off the field has always had an interest in poetry, decided to use the poem as a vehicle to help those who he feels have enriched his life.

Breaston’s desire not only to stick to his roots, but rather to reinforce them, is a refreshing chorus from a league whose off-season has been a refrain of missteps and unwanted publicity. You won’t see this story in the headlines next to the latest on Ben Roethlisberger or Lawrence Taylor, but you better believe the people of North Braddock know that this is front-page material.

Pittsburgh should be as proud of Steve Breaston as he is of us.

If you are interested in helping out the citizens of North Braddock via the Steven Breaston Foundation and I Miss You, Inc., here is a link to the Steve Breaston “I Am What It Is” t-shirt.

http://www.imutheinsideout.com/product/i-am-what-it-is

Also, here is the poem that inspired the shirt:

"I Am What It Is"
I don't regret what I did and I'm not shameful for where I've lived. Remembering how I took cookies from under the babysitter's lid.

I am what it is, a product of Red Nerds and overflowing pop fizz, red stains on my shirt as I played games around the church... Wiffle balls in the lots where I slid in rocks instead of dirt, for this felt good it never hurt... Grilled government cheese is how my parents made it work, with these memories I go to work...

Or Zips' corner store, where a bag of fish was 25 cents and not a nickel more, add a quarter and that's what you can get a pickle for, and sure there were a few pickles I got into... But few questioned the things that I might do...

Even if I did, but I fight through because they reminded me that I was in reach of what's under my eyelids...

My dreams, the reason there are more than eleven on my team. For my little league friends in heaven know what I mean, and by any means, I will show the light of my birthplace, the community that showed me that victor is not always the one who stands in the first place, the basis on why I'm here in the first place... 


For these memories are what I'm worth,

And for what it's worth, I think about them first.

-Steve Breaston

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