For a long time, Mike Webster and his family resented the Steelers and the Rooneys for what they perceived as a lack of compassion and assistance when their failing former center needed both.

But no more.

"I know there were some bad words and some bad blood, but I don't blame them," youngest son Garrett Webster said over the telephone from Lodi, Wis., where he has been living with his mother, Pam, and youngest sister, Hilary, with their oldest sister, Brooke, nearby.

"The Steelers did do a lot of stuff for my dad that he didn't know of. Pride can be a weakness and a strength."

With the estate of Mike Webster taking the NFL's disability plan to federal court in an effort to attain $1.14 million in benefits, the family's ire is aimed somewhere else, the youngest son said:

The NFL Players Association, the league and the evenly distributed representatives of both that comprise the six-member Retirement Board which determines how such disability benefits are doled out by the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Pension Plan.

Garrett Webster, who lived in Moon and cared for his father from mid-1999 until his death Sept. 24, 2002, believes Mike Webster was neglected by the highest levels of the league and the association that represents its past and present players.

The Hall of Fame center from the Steelers (1974-88) and Kansas City Chiefs (1989-90) never got the chance to meet with NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue or anyone from the NFLPA as he had hoped, Garrett Webster said.

"I know for a fact that we never received one phone call or one letter from the Players Association," he added. "We didn't even get an offer of help from them. And that's why the Players Association is there, to help out the players."

"When my dad was alive, he wanted to sit down and talk about it. But they never did. They don't want to acknowledge that there's any Mike Webster problem. They don't want to talk about it. It's about human being's lives. And no one cares. They could care less if a thousand Mike Websters die in the street."

The Players Association disagreed.

"We've had a long history of trying to take care of not only his father, but any disabled NFL player. I believe that certainly players were concerned about Mike Webster before Mike Webster was concerned about Mike Webster, " said Miki Yaras-Davis, NFL Players Association benefits director.

To be fair, Webster wasn't easy to find for a time, particularly in the mid-1990s, when he lived in his truck, in hotels or with friends. He had no forwarding address. Then again, Steelers officials were able to locate him.

When Steelers then-president Dan Rooney heard about Webster sleeping in the Downtown Amtrak station, he sent aide Joe Gordon to fetch him and put him up at the Hilton Pittsburgh, a stay that lasted three months. Rooney worked behind the scenes to lobby the Retirement Board to grant Webster disability, which it did, by a 6-0 vote, in 1999.

When Webster died in 2002 after a heart attack, Rooney wrote a $5,000 check to start covering funeral expenses. The family was invited to the next game after Webster's death, Sept. 29, 2002, against Cleveland and were honored at halftime.

As Garrett Webster pointed out, his father wasn't aware of some of the Steelers' beneficence. When he was aware, his pride showed. He rebuffed most attempts at financial help from former Steelers.

Said Sunny Jani, a McKees Rocks businessman who befriended the Webster men and became the administrator of the estate: "I wanted to call Mr. Rooney a hundred times, and Mike said no."