Bill Cowher opens up about having COVID-19, Hall of Fame postponement

Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher was supposed to be celebrating his induction into the Hall of Fame in Canton next month.

That’s been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, something that has impacted the 63-year-old Cowher and his wife.

It was back in March that Cowher and his wife, Veronica, left their Manhattan residence for Hawaii to hang out with their daughter. Upon arriving back in New York City via Newark Airport, the two noticed that something was wrong.

The first sign was a loss of smell.

“I said, ‘What a bad bunch of lilies. I’m never going back to that florist again,’” Cowher said, via Ed Bouchette of The Athletic. “And my wife made this stir fry, and I said, ‘Did you forget to put the ginger in there?’ She said, ‘I put a bunch of ginger in there.’ I said, ‘I can’t taste it.’”

It was just a sign of things to come for the two. Cowher ended up dealing with a fever while his wife had a dry cough. All of these were key symptoms of COVID.

While the couple figured they had the virus, they didn’t find out for certain until testing positive for antibodies in April.

Upon their return to New York, the Cowhers went on with life as normal.

“I think I got it in New York and all the traveling, people coming into Newark airport at the same time,’’ said Cowher. “That’s when the virus came from Europe and there was no shutdown. We were out in New York that weekend as well in a few restaurants. Who knows? There were people in Honolulu coming from China and in Newark they were coming from Europe.”

It certainly is a cautionary tale, one that has seemingly ended with some happy news. The couple spent some time at their second home in North Carolina and are now under quarantine in New York due to the travel restrictions Governor Andrew Cuomo has put in place.

In February, Cowher was selected to be a member of the 2020 Pro Football Hall of Fame class. That ceremony has been postponed until next year due to the ongoing pandemic. For Cowher, he’s seemingly happy the annual event is not taking place in August.

“I’m really kind of relieved,” Cowher said of the postponement. “As much as you want to be reflective and talk about the people who were so instrumental in your life, now is not the time, not just with COVID-19 but with the social justice issues. These are very transparent times and it’s so fluid. The Hall of Fame needs to be reflective. I think right now it’s just hard to really think about anything celebratory when the country is in the state it is.”

Talk about putting everything in perspective.