Sunday, October 28, 2007
By Robert Dvorchak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Peter Diana/Post-GazetteRunning back Jerome Bettis holds the Vince Lombardi Trophy aloft after the Steelers won Super Bowl XL last year.
It reads like a script for NFL Films -- the epic saga of a football team born in the Great Depression wearing the crest of Pittsburgh on its black and gold jerseys, ultimately becoming the city's trademark as it celebrates its diamond anniversary. For Steve Sabol, the keeper of the archives, the plot comes right out of history.
"The Steelers have had 16 different coaches in 75 years but only one game plan -- plant your knuckles in the dirt and go after the other guy," he said. "Men who take pride in their power. That's the Steelers. Even when they were losing, they were the epitome of what is so appealing about pro football. Nobody wanted to play them. Teams would win the games but wake up the next morning covered in welts. They had guys who could have come straight out of a Wes Craven movie."
It should be noted that this modern-day minstrel, whose father founded NFL Films 45 years ago, refers to his new offices in New Jersey as Hollywood on the Delaware, and that his Web site carries a Sports Illustrated description of his operation as "the most effective propaganda organ in the history of corporate America."
But who else but a storyteller with a sound track could sum up the suffering, soul-searching and swagger the Steelers inspire in their obsessed fan base?
"They embrace a tradition that goes back to the NFL's Jurassic Period with the same ownership in the same family," Mr. Sabol said. "Their struggle was epic, but the struggle is part of what makes them great. They're revered as an organization. They're everything that's great about pro football, including the eccentricities."
For their part, the Steelers have been like a cottage industry for NFL Films.
Other than Minnesota's Jim Marshall running the wrong way with a fumble, one of the biggest bloopers of all time is receiver Buddy Dial disappearing in a cloud of smoke from a toy cannon fired prematurely by a male cheerleading group known as the Ingots just as he crosses the goal line. The low-light reel is also enhanced by Jim (Cannonball) Butler getting hit on the rump by a snap from center as he sprints to get into punt formation, and by Dave Smith, in front of a Monday night audience, raising the ball over his head and losing it in anticipation of a spike.
On the other hand, Franco Harris' Immaculate Reception is the NFL's most replayed moment. And the highlights of the Super Bowl champions provided the action when NFL Films picked its greatest team of all time.
Third generation
In Green Bay, fans take their football so seriously that they own stock in the Packers. In Pittsburgh, public money has financed stadiums, but there is a unique emotional investment in the Steelers.
"In many ways, we always felt the team belonged to the people of Pittsburgh, and we held it in trust for them," writes Dan Rooney, 75, in an autobiography that dovetails with the 75th season.
He followed his father, Art Rooney Sr., in the Hall of Fame in 2000, joining Tim and Wellington Mara, of the New York Giants, as the only father/son owner combos enshrined.
It was his administrative decision to keep Bill Cowher over Tom Donahoe, a close friend who was director of football operations. It was he who informed Roger Goodell that he would succeed Paul Tagliabue as NFL commissioner.
And in 2003, he formally turned over the team presidency to Arthur J. Rooney II, his oldest son and the third generation of the family to run the team.
New home, same feel
At the end of the 2000 season, the Steelers did not so much leave Three Rivers Stadium as they packed up its memories and carried them 65 feet away to a new home for the new millennium. With tears and cheers, the transition had all the elements of an Irish wake.In the final game at Three Rivers, the Redskins won the coin toss, and honorary captain Jack Lambert fired up Levon Kirkland and his teammates by yelping, "All right, defense. Let's kill. Let's go."
What followed was a 24-3 win, and tapping into the sentiment on a rainy afternoon, Franco Harris re-enacted the Immaculate Reception as the final ceremony. In 31 seasons, Three Rivers was home to 18 playoff teams and five AFC champions. The only losing record at home came in 1999.
The shell of the new stadium was already up when the old bowl was imploded. When it was noted the new home wasn't glitzy, Andy Beamon, of the Mascaro Construction Co., said: "We're not going to have dances over here. This is for smack-'em-in-the-mouth Steelers football."
Heinz Field was supposed to open with a game against the rival Cleveland Browns, but the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks shut down sporting events across the country. It was christened with a win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 7, the day the bombs first started falling in Afghanistan.
Bradshaw revisited
After a public mea culpa, Terry Bradshaw was named the honorary captain for a Monday night game against the Indianapolis Colts on Oct. 21, 2002, his first appearance in 19 years at a Steelers game. He put behind him the times he was booed, the time the fans cheered after he separated his shoulder and the time he skipped The Chief's funeral.At halftime, the Rooneys presented him with a No. 12 jersey monogrammed with the initials of Arthur Joseph Rooney. The ovations lingered through the night.
"I woke up one morning, and I made a point to mend all my fences to come home," said Mr. Bradshaw. "I had to grow up. I was, you know, stupid. I was wrong."
Later that year, when he was voted into the Pittsburgh Hall of Fame as part of the Dapper Dan Dinner, he heard words of approval from his presenter and former coach.
"Terry is a very special person," said Chuck Noll. "He was a great leader and was able to take us to four Super Bowl championships. He's deserving of this honor."
That same year was the last in the Pittsburgh career of Kordell Stewart. He had once been reduced to tears when he was benched, and he was once doused with beer by a distraught fan.
His biggest transgression, it seems, was that he wasn't Terry Bradshaw. But neither was any other Steelers quarterback.
One for the ages
No matter how many playoff appearances the Steelers made, failures in big games spattered Bill Cowher's coaching record. There was a loss in a home AFC title game and a loss in the Super Bowl under Neil O'Donnell, two AFC title game losses at home under Mr. Stewart, and a defeat in the home AFC title game in Ben Roethlisberger's rookie year. The Steelers had set a franchise record with 15 wins, one more than the 1978 team, but that last loss to the New England Patriots resulted in perhaps the coldest walk home ever.
Then came the unprecedented run in 2005.
Four wins to end the season got the Steelers into the playoffs, and three playoff wins on the road got Jerome Bettis to the Super Bowl in his hometown of Detroit, but not without the greatest defensive play in franchise history by a quarterback, otherwise known as The Tackle.
Following an inexplicable fumble by The Bus in the waning moments of a game in Indianapolis, Big Ben tripped up Nick Harper -- the cornerback whose wife had stabbed him the night before with a steak knife -- as he was about to sprint the length of the field for a touchdown.
In Detroit, Ford Field had the look and feel of a home game because so many fans made the five-hour turnpike pilgrimage and somehow scored tickets.
Super Bowl XL didn't win any points for artistic presentation, but the Steelers prevailed by making three big plays -- a 75-yard touchdown run by Willie Parker, a 43-yard touchdown pass from Antwaan Randle El following a reverse, and an interception by Ike Taylor.
As confetti rained down in the indoor stadium, the Steelers finally had a reason to make room in their trophy case. They joined the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys as teams with five Lombardi Trophies, and a new generation of fans exulted in a championship that was one for the new ages. Hines Ward, who began the season as a holdout, earned a spot next to Lynn Swann in the record books by being named most valuable player.
To their credit, not a single Seattle player made an excuse after the game.
"The bottom line is that their team didn't make the mistakes we made," said defensive end Bryce Fisher. "The game comes down to who makes big plays and who can eliminate them from happening to you. We didn't do either."
But back home in Seattle, coach Mike Holmgren fermented the sour grapes by saying it was tough enough to beat the Steelers without having to beat the referees too. Twenty months later, prior to a 21-0 loss at Heinz Field, he conceded: "Pittsburgh won. It's time to move on."
And how did linebacker James Farrior respond when some critic says every close call went against the Seahawks, that the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl also had the lowest quarterback rating or that The Bus may have retired with a ring but he wasn't a factor in the game?
"I show them my ring," he said.
Commitment for life
Page one news was made earlier this year when a Scarborough Sports Marketing survey showed the Steelers, by far, have the NFL's largest base of female fans. That came as no surprise to the women followers who proudly call themselves Steelerellas, or to Margaret O'Donnell Carr, the only woman among 20 other winners to submit the winning entry when the team became the Steelers in 1940.
Mrs. Carr, 91, won a pair of season tickets back then for clipping out a newspaper coupon and sending in her entry. In her Brighton Heights residence, she has a framed photograph of her and other winners signed by The Chief.
"I may not be the fan I used to be, but I still follow them," said Mrs. Carr, who still drives and travels around the country to visit her five sons and 12 grandchildren. (One son, Army Lt. Dennis Carr, was a Green Beret killed in Vietnam saving a comrade in 1963).
She remembers watching games in Forbes Field when it was so cold her brother ate peanuts, shells and all, and she attended the four Super Bowl games of the 1970s, including the one in Pasadena when Lynn Swann showed up at a party with ex-teammate O.J. Simpson.
"We had lots of good times. I still have them," Mrs. Carr said.
As an example of how the Steelers span generations, she said her son Joseph, who lives near Tampa, Fla., recently visited and bought a bunch of Steelers gear for his kids.
"He didn't want them to grow up as Tampa Bay fans," she smiled.
Greatest of the great
Q. How many Steelers fans does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Five. One to screw in the bulb, and four to talk about how great the teams were from the '70s.
It's impossible to settle how teams from different eras would fare against each other, and the Super Steelers need no validation for what they accomplished. But then came the computer.
In 1989, NFL Films conceived of a fantasy tournament called The Dream Bowl, the culmination of an eight-week series on ESPN of the greatest teams of all-time. Statistics were entered, and input was added by a panel of players, coaches and experts.
The result? The 1978 Steelers came out on top over the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins in a simulated game.
"Don Shula got so upset that he called and asked how a computer could beat them when no team ever did," said Mr. Sabol. "A number of Dolphins players were so ticked off they refused to do interviews with NFL Films for 10 years."
Then in a sequel, the Steelers beat the 1989 49ers in Dream Bowl II. And in something called the Match-up of the Millennium, the Steelers of the '70s prevailed over the 49ers of the '80s.
"We're not supposed to take sides," Mr. Sabol said. "But in their heyday, with their defense, they were, to me, the best. They're still the best. The fan in me always comes out. To heck with it. I still consider them the best."
And for whatever it's worth, Steve Olson, of SportSims LLC, in Defiance, Ohio, recently pitted all of the Super Bowl champions against each other in a computer game. The 1978 Steelers topped the 1985 Bears.
Steeler Nation
When the Steelers visited the White House after their Super Bowl XL win, according to Jerome Bettis, the spot where the coach was supposed to stand was spelled "Cower," which put the veteran coach alongside Chuck "Knoll" in the ranks of the underappreciated.After the quarterback's motorcycle accident and an emergency appendectomy, the jut went out of The Jaw in the last year of Cowher Power. In 15 season, his teams were 161-99-1 in all games with 10 playoff berths and eight division titles. Seven of his assistants got head coaching jobs.
At his farewell news conference in January, Mr. Cowher addressed the fans: "You can take the people out of Pittsburgh, but you can't take the Pittsburgh out of its people. I'm one of you. Yinz know what I mean."
Later that month, Mike Tomlin became the 16th coach of a franchise that prizes stability and continuity. A win in his first game gave the Steelers their first edge in an all-time series with the Browns that began in 1950. Now there's a T-shirt out that says "Terrible Tomlin," and only in Pittsburgh could that be high praise.
Jon Kolb, an introspective offensive lineman with four Super Bowl rings, once tried to define what the Pittsburgh Steelers are.
Does the identity come from the players? No, from Mose Kelsch to Bullet Bill Dudley and Ray (The Old Ranger) Mansfield, who died facing the setting sun while hiking the Grand Canyon, they all move on eventually. The coach? Nope, coaches change too. The stadium? It matters not where the Steelers play but that they play. Even the signature industry they're named after is essentially gone.
"I decided that the Pittsburgh Steelers are the people who fill the stadium and cheer this team," Mr. Kolb said. "That's the one constant. That doesn't change."
So there it is. All this time, that polyglot assemblage linked together throughout the globe as The Nation thought it was watching the Stillers. It turns out, the fans have been looking inside themselves.
They were born at night, but it wasn't last night.
Na zdravie.
First published on October 28, 2007 at 12:00 am
Robert Dvorchak can be reached at bdvorchak@post-gazette.com
No comments:
Post a Comment