Ben Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl champion, won't soon forget about the ring that got away.
The quarterback took his locker nameplate from Super Bowl XLV -- which his Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Green Bay Packers two months ago -- and placed it underneath the mirror in his bathroom to motivate himself.
"I want to see that every day. It hurts a lot," Roethlisberger told the *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette* in a story for Sunday's editions. "To see that every day is just motivation for me to work out, to bust my butt to not let it happen again because I want to be a champion. And, right now, I'm not a champion.
"The first loser, and that kills me," added Roethlisberger, who keeps the nameplates from his two Super Bowl victories in his game room. "Until I can get back to that point (winning a Super Bowl title), I want to remember the pain, and it's going to burn in me until we can get back and win one. If it never happens, I'll be killed, but I'm going to do my best to get back there."
Roethlisberger told the Post-Gazette his goal is to become the quarterback with the most Super Bowl rings. Right now, that distinction belongs to Steelers great Terry Bradshaw and fellow Hall of Famer Joe Montana, each with four.
"I want to get one more than anybody else," Roethlisberger said. "This would have been a great step, but now I feel I took a step back. This will haunt me until I can win another one. And it'll still probably haunt me a little bit. But until I win another one, it'll haunt me a lot."
Roethlisberger will be 29 next season, so he knows he doesn't have much time since NFL careers can be short. He hopes he's halfway through his career and will have three more shots at the Lombardi Trophy, like he did in his first eight NFL seasons.
Said Roethlisberger: "That's what I want to be known for -- winning games, winning Super Bowls."
