Ben Roethlisberger and pre-season disaster go together like peanut butter and chocolate. It seems like only yesterday that Pittsburgh Steelers fans were rushing to defend the honor of their young, Super Bowl-winning quarterback after a near-career-ending motorcycle accident.

Though he wasn't wearing a motorcycle helmet during the 2006 crash, fans considered it a youthful indiscretion he wasn't likely to repeat. "Write a clause in his next contract that he isn't allowed to ride motorcycles with or without a helmet as long as he's with the franchise," they said after the disappointing season that followed. "Problem solved."

By the time Mr. Roethlisberger helped win a second Lombardi Trophy, Steelers fans understood that sticking with No. 7 often meant forgoing elegance in favor of winning ugly if necessary. Though his judgment was often questionable, we respected his knack for putting together the right combination of plays to win even when the Steelers didn't deserve a victory.

When a Nevada resort hostess accused Big Ben of sexually assaulting her, there was a moment of hesitation -- and real terror across Steeler Nation -- though the quarterback's legal team vigorously denied the accusation.

The woman sued him for big bucks in the absence of a police report to back up her story, which drew hostile public opinion, legal scrutiny and press skepticism. Still, no one was in a hurry to vouch for Big Ben's character anymore. Even if he wasn't technically guilty of one of the worst things a person could do to another, there was the suggestion he could give any bar-lounging creep on the South Side a run for his money on a Saturday night.

Last Friday when the news filtered back to Pittsburgh from Milledgeville, Ga., that a 20-year-old student at Georgia College & State University had accused Big Ben of sexually assaulting her in a nightclub bathroom, no one was in the mood to rule anything out -- not this time.

Unlike the first accuser, who lost credibility quickly, this young woman went to the police and then to a hospital to get checked out. If there's a profit motive, it hasn't shown itself yet.

The police say that Mr. Roethlisberger is cooperating with investigators and hasn't been charged. They plan to interview him, with his lawyer present, this week. Still, whether formally charged or not, this is a public relations disaster for Big Ben and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Internet gossip site TMZ seemed to be ahead of the pack. Photos of the Steelers quarterback posing with fans at different clubs in Milledgeville the night before were scrutinized. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a smiling devil's face on it, almost as if he expected to find himself in a hell of a mess before the evening was over.

Previous sex scandals involving celebrities and elite athletes have taught us that their appetites tend to match their sense of entitlement.

Tiger Woods took that standard to operatic heights, of course. As the biggest athlete in history in terms of endorsement earnings, there was something appropriate about the Promethean scale of Tiger's fall from grace.

For all of his popularity here in Pittsburgh, Mr. Roethlisberger is a distinctly local deity. He seems to share our banalities and penchant for screwing up a good deal. Like so many people we know with far less money or opportunity, he has a habit of turning up at places that aren't good for his reputation.

As we've gotten to know him, the pedestal has gotten lower and our exasperation with him has grown with each failure of judgment. At 28, Big Ben seems to be interested in partying like a frat boy during the off season instead of enjoying his millions in dignified obscurity like the overwhelming majority of his teammates.

Perhaps this latest accusation is a wake-up call to a city busy reinventing itself on so many levels, suggesting that it move beyond the era of elite athletes as role models and fantasy buddies. Too much psychic energy goes into celebrating them as if they were a higher species of humanity. They really aren't, folks.

Most of them would agree that they aren't particularly complicated compared to the rest of us. They're motivated by the same terrible human passions that bedevil their legion of fans -- if not more so.

However this latest Big Ben mess shakes out, most of us are tired of feigning surprise when athletes at his level are implicated in crimes we used to assume were somehow beneath them. Big Ben deserves the presumption of innocence, but we're way past giving any celebrity the benefit of the doubt.

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