Coach Tomlin's off-field focus on preventing sex trafficking

PITTSBURGH — Everyone has an opinion about Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, but he simply doesn't worry about it.

"We just got to do what we feel is right and conduct ourselves in a way that we think is the right way," Tomlin told Channel 11's Chase Williams in a one-on-one interview.

While he goes to battle with the opponent on the opposite sideline every week, Tomlin's biggest fight has nothing to do with football. In an unlikely scenario, Tomlin crossed paths with Tim Ballard, founder of a group called Operation Underground Railroad, a team of former CIA operatives, Navy SEALs and special ops personnel that exists solely to rescue children from sex trafficking.

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Over 30 million children are affected worldwide by sex trafficking, a subject Tomlin wrote about in a forward to a new book called “Slave Stealers.”

"Once you hear their story, once you hear the magnitude of the problem, once you hear what specifically they’re doing to combat it, you want to help in some way," Tomlin said.

He calls it a matter of destiny, joining forces with OUR and using his platform as the head coach of one of the most storied franchises in all of sports to help shine light on a problem that worsens by the day.

"Americans, we're the number one consumers worldwide," Tomlin said. "We are the demand, and that's why we need to fight. We are perceived internationally as the customer because the customer looks like us, because the customer in many cases is us, and that’s a sobering thought."

He says the team can play a special role.

"We have a lot of husbands and fathers on our football team," Tomlin said. "It touches you on a personal level."

Tomlin teamed up with Ballard and his team of extraction experts and took off to Haiti this summer. It was a 72-hour mission that hit Tomlin hard. Channel 11 asked how that time changed him.

"I think I’m probably still figuring all that out," he said. "I know some of the things that I saw there I can’t unsee, and I’m glad I saw it. No matter how unpleasant it is, I think it’s fuel for me as I move forward in this cause."

Tomlin added there are so many issues that divide us as a people, but that we can all get behind this issue of child trafficking.

Cox Media Group