Perception of Cowher Radically Altered

Perception of Cowher undergoes a radical transformation in wake of Super Bowl victory

Saturday, April 01, 2006
By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


After 14 years as a head coach, Bill Cowher has become an overnight sensation. It's as if the first dirty dozen or so were a work in progress that was hailed in whole when he raised the Lombardi Trophy in Detroit.

From breakfast to meetings to lunch to golf to pool to dinner, Cowher shook countless hands and signed autographs at the annual NFL meetings. A year ago, he had a lounge chair by himself at the pool, occasionally accepting condolences for yet another loss in an AFC championship game.

Life may not be dramatically different for Cowher, but the perception of him certainly is. It's as if all those regular-season wins were validated by one Super Bowl victory.

"Now it happens, and you continue to get congratulations. I guess that's what keeps your mind on it," Cowher said of a crowning achievement that is nearly two months old. "I [want to] get back to being normal. ... But there's a lot more attention. I've had to adjust to that. It's been great, though. It's a lot better than ...'Oh, you guys still had a heck of a year.' "

How many more he will have in Pittsburgh he will not say, other than 2006 will be one of them. He and his wife, Kaye, bought a $2.5 million house in Raleigh, N.C., to go with a summer home they have at the beach in Bald Head Island, N.C. They have said the new home will not change anything, but there are reports their youngest daughter, Lindsay, will move to Raleigh and enroll in a private high school for her sophomore season and that Kaye will join her.

One source said the purchase of the home took most in the Steelers' organization by surprise and that, just as the public wonders about the motivation behind it, so, too, do the people up and down the hallways at their South Side offices.

Cowher said: "It really means nothing. It's irrelevant."

Perhaps it will become clearer as discussions take place on a contract extension for him. Art Rooney, the club's president, said those talks will begin soon. Cowher has two seasons left on his current deal, and the usual procedure would be to extend that by two or three years. But what if Cowher does not want an extension? He will say only that he takes things one year at a time.

"In this business, it's really important that you stay focused on the next year," Cowher said the past week during the NFL meetings that were held here.

Cowher, however, revealed he has adopted a different coaching strategy recently, going against a cliche in his business that you should never coach not to lose. Cowher said that is precisely what he did last season. It's something Terry Bradshaw has said drove him in Super Bowls because he was so afraid to lose.

"I guess the last few years I probably have refused to think about winning," Cowher said. "I probably was more afraid of losing because I've been so close."

In private moments, Cowher has talked about the frustration of losing so many close games in AFC championships, such as those to San Diego and Denver in the 1990s.

He spoke openly in the two weeks before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl about the pain of losing Super Bowl XXX to Dallas.

That pain is now gone. Cowher, who turns 49 years old May 8, has an opportunity to post numbers among the NFL's greatest coaches. He already ranks 14th in regular-season victories with a record of 141-82-1.

"Let's be honest," Cowher said. "Every year you sit back and reflect, and you think, 'How many times are you going to be asked the question: If you don't win the Super Bowl, will your career have been successful?' I've been very consistent in saying no, there'd be a void that would always be there."

He no longer gets those questions. Pats on the back have replaced them.

"A lot of coaches feel good for him," said his mentor, San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer, who, for all his regular-season greatness, still is searching to make his first Super Bowl visit. "He and I were talking the other day, and I said it's harder now to win a championship in the NFL. It's hard, you have to get the stars aligned correctly."

Joe Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls in Washington, outlined the difficulty Cowher's Steelers will face next season.

"No. 1, the season goes a lot longer, and then when you get away to take a break, you probably have given up six weeks on everyone else," Gibbs said.

"And the way everyone looks at you. You are not going to have to tell the team anything if you are playing Pittsburgh, just you are playing Pittsburgh. So I think that is a real problem. And getting everyone settled down after a Super Bowl was one of the hardest things I had to deal with. There is a little bit of turmoil after a Super Bowl year that kind of hurts you."

It would surprise no one if Cowher coached the Steelers another 10 years or if he quit after the next one or two, moved to Raleigh and contemplated his future and possible return with another team. Many others have done it before him, including Schottenheimer and Dick Vermeil, the only two who coached him as a player in the NFL, along with Bill Parcells, Jimmy Johnson and even the great Vince Lombardi.

For now, though, his Steelers are stocked with enough talent to make a repeat run, and the prospect of winning two consecutive Super Bowls drives him.

"Whether we won it or lost it, to me it's about starting back over again and the challenges that go with that," Cowher said. "As long as we recognize it's not going to pick right back up where we left off, there's lot of hard work, sacrifice and a big commitment."

The commitment is there for 2006, perhaps even for 2007. Beyond that is anyone's guess.

(Ed Bouchette can be reached at ebouchette@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3878. )