Pittsburgh in the 2000s: City of Champions Part II

By: ALAN ROBINSON
The Associated Press
December 29, 2009 11:59 AM

There hasn't been a decade like it in western Pennsylvania sports in, well, decades.

There was so much new construction during the first decade of the new century: Heinz Field. PNC Park. The Petersen Events Center. The nearly completed Consol Energy Center. Every sports team in town, it seemed, got a new address, a new home, a new start.

There was new talent, too, like Troy Polamalu and Ben Roethlisberger, DeJuan Blair and Sam Young. LeSean McCoy and Dion Lewis. Bill Cowher gave way to Mike Tomlin. Mario Lemieux came out of retirement, then retired again to make way for Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

Still, much about the decade made it seem like the old days: The Steelers went to two Super Bowls and won them both. The Penguins went to two Stanley Cup finals, and won one. Pitt reached No. 1 in the poll _ only in basketball, not in football. The Pirates? As good as their new ballpark was, they were as bad on the field as they were during the final seven seasons of the 1990s.

Nope, nothing new there.

And how about this tagline from the past: the City of Champions.

The final year of the decade brought out the best in Pittsburgh like no time since the final year of the 1970s, when Pittsburgh first gained its we-are-the-champions nickname. During a parade-filled five months in 2009, the Steelers won the Super Bowl and the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, the first time any city, large or small, has been the home of both champions in the same year. And Pitt briefly ascended to No. 1 in college basketball.

That Pittsburgh is the smallest big city with three major pro sports teams, plus two major college teams with Top 10 rankings, made the year all the more memorable. Especially for fans who went from 1979 until 2005 without seeing any team but the Penguins (1992-93) win a league championship.

Worst to first, indeed. Consider this: in 1999, the Pirates (78-83), Steelers (6-10), Pitt football (5-6) and Pitt basketball (14-16) all were losers; the Penguins (38-30-14) were winners, but were bumped by Toronto in the playoffs.

In 2009, the Steelers won 15 of 19 and a second Super Bowl in four seasons. The Penguins went 45-28-9 before winning the Stanley Cup. Pitt basketball finished 31-5 and missed by a 3-pointer of going to the Final Four. Pitt football won nine of its first 10 to return to the Top 10 before losing last-minute heartbreakers to West Virginia (19-16) and Cincinnati (45-44) to miss out on the Sugar Bowl. Robert Morris went to the NCAA basketball tournament, and Duquesne basketball - which enjoyed the biggest revival of all during the decade - went to the NIT.

Oh, the Pirates? They lost 99 games during a 17th consecutive losing season, the longest run in history for any major American pro sports team.

The first decade of the 2000s was a 10-year washout for a franchise that, from 2000-09, had the majors' second worst record (681-936); only Kansas City's 672-948 was worst. By comparison, the Pirates ranked 14th in victories during the 1990s, despite having winning records only in 1990, 1991 and 1992.

There were big changes in Pittsburgh sports not long after the new century began.

The Steelers and Pirates each played their final seasons in Three Rivers Stadium in 2000 as PNC Park and Heinz Field rose nearby. Three Rivers came tumbling down in early 2001, after a 30-year run in which the Steelers won four Super Bowls and the Pirates won two World Series.

Franco Harris caught the Immaculate Reception there. Roberto Clemente got his 3,000th and final hit there. The Steel Curtain and the Lumber Company called it home. Now, all that remains of Three Rivers are an historical marker and one of the entrance stanchions.

Three Rivers "was the catalyst that brought everything together," former Steelers coach Chuck Noll said.

The Pirates welcomed the 2001 move to PNC Park, an improved version of Forbes Field that features unmatched views of Pittsburgh's skyline and, yes, a much-welcomed return to grass. The ballpark has been called baseball's best, but the on-field product couldn't be much worse.

No Pirates team of the decade lost fewer than 87 games and seven lost 93 or more, including the inaugural season 100-loss team. The managers changed (Gene Lamont, Lloyd McClendon, Jim Tracy, John Russell) and so did the players (all too frequently) and owners (Kevin McClatchy, Bob Nutting).

The decade was so dreary amid an assortment of patched-together rosters with tiny payrolls and scant hope of winning, the Pirates had only three 20-game winners - that is, three pitchers who won as many as 20 games in nine seasons combined at PNC Park.

No wonder, after being traded last summer, former Pirates pitcher Sean Burnett best summed up the situation: "They're the laughingstock of baseball."

The highlight game of the 2000s at PNC Park didn't feature the home team; the AL beat the NL 3-2 in a tense and well-played 2006 All-Star game that is considered one of the best in the midsummer game's history.

Unlike the Pirates, the Steelers upgraded themselves in a hurry upon moving into their new home in 2001. With more money to spend on contracts, the Steelers went from 9-7 in 2000 to 13-3 in 2001 and looked to be headed to the Super Bowl until being upset at home by New England in the AFC championship game.

Three years later, after drafting a quarterback on the first round for the first time in 24 years, the Ben Roethlisberger-led Steelers went 15-1 before losing in the AFC title game, again to New England. They came back a season later to capture their first Super Bowl in 26 years, winning road playoff games in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Denver before beating Seattle 21-10 as 90 percent of the Super Bowl crowd in Detroit waved Terrible Towels.

Advertisement Remarkably, a team that lost so many AFC title games at home (1994, 1997, 2001, 2004) ended its big-game jinx by going on the road.

"We will always be remembered for the way we did it," former Steelers linebacker Joey Porter said.

Cowher, who replaced Noll in 1992, resigned a year later and gave way to a surprise hire, Mike Tomlin, who had spent only one season as an NFL coordinator. But Tomlin made an immediate impact, leading the Steelers to a 10-6 record in 2007 and their second Super Bowl win in four seasons during the 2008 season.

The decisive drive of that 27-23 win over Arizona ended with Roethlisberger's perfectly placed 6-yard TD pass with 35 seconds remaining to Santonio Holmes, whose tiptoe catch is one of the best in Super Bowl history. The game was, too, with a wild play to end the first half, too - James Harrison's huffing-and-puffing, 100-yard interception return touchdown.

"Two championships in four years - that's crazy, that's great," wide receiver Hines Ward said.

The Steelers' .540 winning percentage during the decade was eclipsed only by their .692 during the championship-filled 1970s.

No Pittsburgh team had more ups and downs in the decade than the Penguins.

Already a contender with a team led by multi-time scoring champion Jaromir Jagr, the Penguins got the surprise of a lifetime when Hall of Famer Lemieux, who had bought the team in federal bankruptcy court only the year before, ended a 3 1/2-year retirement on Dec. 27, 2000.

Lemieux set up a goal during his first minute on the ice, and went on to total 76 points in only 43 games. Lemieux's comeback carried the Penguins to the Eastern Conference finals, but New Jersey's neutral zone trap shut down both Lemieux and Jagr and Pittsburgh lost in five.

Injuries and other physical problems limited Lemieux to no more than 26 games during three of the next four seasons - though he ended with 91 points in 2002-03 - and he retired in January 2006 following a heart scare. He played long enough during that 2005-06 season to welcome rookie Sidney Crosby, hockey's most prized prospect in a generation.

Luckily, the Penguins went bad at exactly the right time. Their 2001-04 seasons were three of the worst in franchise history, yet they allowed the Penguins to draft Crosby, Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury and Jordan Staal. The new kids didn't need much time to get good, leading the Penguins back to the playoffs in 2007, the finals in 2008 and to the Stanley Cup itself in 2009.

No NHL team since 1971 had won a finals Game 7 on the road, yet the Penguins did that by beating Detroit 2-1 as the 21-year-old Crosby, who was injured for nearly all of the third period, became the youngest captain to win a Stanley Cup.

"It might be something out of a storybook, but I don't care," said Talbot, who scored both goals in Game 7. "We won the Cup."

Now, the Penguins enter a new decade eagerly awaiting the opening of their new arena, which will replace the NHL's oldest, 48-year-old Mellon Arena.

Pitt basketball also was a huge success story. The Panthers took off under coach Ben Howland in 2001-02, the season before they opened their own new arena, and went 29-6 that season and 28-5 a year later. Howland then left for UCLA, but assistant Jamie Dixon took over to lead six consecutive 20-win seasons: 31-5, 20-9, 25-8, 29-8, 27-10 and 31-5 as the Panthers became one of the elite schools in the sport.

Led by twin stars Young and Blair, Pitt hit No. 1 in the AP poll for the first time last season, but its last-second 78-76 loss to Villanova in an NCAA regional final kept the Panthers from their first Final Four since 1941.

Pitt football also changed stadiums as the school tore down once-proud Pitt Stadium to make way for basketball's Petersen Events Center and a football move downtown to Heinz Field. Pitt also changed coaches as Walt Harris left and Dave Wannstedt took over in 2005. The Panthers also replaced one of the nation's best running backs in McCoy, who led a stunning upset of then-No. 2 West Virginia in 2007, with Lewis, a little-recruited player who became a second-team All-American as a freshman this season.

Duquesne was one of the nation's worst major college basketball teams when coach Ron Everhart arrived shortly after a 3-24 season in 2005-06. The rebuilding program was rocked by the shootings of five players in September 2006 - forward Sam Ashaolu's career was ended by his head injuries - yet the Dukes have improved each season since. Their 21 victories last season were the most at the school in 38 seasons.

Athlete of the decade Tiger Woods played in one Pittsburgh-area tournament, tying for second behind the unknown Angel Cabrera in the 2006 U.S. Open at Oakmont. The Pittsburgh region's first regular PGA tour event, the 84 Lumber Classic, arrived in 2003 but lasted only four years until an economic downturn led the title sponsor to pull out.