In the world of sports media, it’s certainly easy to become jaded. We start to look at games and players as opportunities to be the quickest from point A to point B, to be the ones who break the news of off the field drama.
We happily cheer when players like Johnny Manziel are drafted, and proceeds to be a story for everything but football. We get exactly what we were hoping for.
We report about the latest player to be arrested for criminal behavior, and sadly, look at it like another blip on the radar. It seems that more often than not, we look for the negative things in sports, the salacious details and the drama.
We then race to be the first to report it on Twitter.
Somewhere along the way, we seem to forget that we started out as fans.
When I heard last night of the passing of Chuck Noll, the only coach in NFL history to win four Super Bowl championships at the age of 82, I reflected on the importance of Noll not as a part of the media, but as a fan.
For after all, without the efforts of the Hall of Fame coach, I may not have become the bright eyed dreamer who more than anything loved the Pittsburgh Steelers.
I know I am not alone.
You see, I could reel off in detail, the incredible story of Noll’s coaching career for you, but there’s plenty of other media that are doing that as we speak. It’s quite a story, a young protégé who first played for the legendary Paul Brown in Cleveland and then became a young, rising assistant under Sid Gillman and Don Shula, cutting his teeth working under two of the greats in the annals of coaching.
I could literally write pages related to the career that Noll had in Pittsburgh. Four Super Bowl titles in six years looks to be an accomplishment that will never be repeated. Noll was the field general for a team to this day, is widely regarded as the greatest dynasty in NFL history.
His story deserves to be told, and anyone who loves sports should learn it. There are much more accomplished journalists who will tell that admirably.
Many who read this lived the story. You were blessed to be there to take it all in as fans, when it was about the games, not about distractions, something the Noll loathed. It was about the game.
Though there are a lot of people who were responsible for the unparalleled success of the Steelers in the 70’s, it was Noll that was most responsible. He changed the culture of the Steelers, a moribund franchise that did nothing but lose throughout its largely pitiful existence.
It started in 1969, which happened to be the year my parents would move here from Boston. They bought season tickets that year, and when they missed the opening game, a win against the Detroit Lions at the old Pitt Stadium, little did they realize that would be the only win in a season that would end with a 1-13 record.
Two more losing seasons would follow. Can you imagine Noll surviving in today’s “what have you done for me lately” culture where coaches are fired in the blink of an eye? Social Media would have been ablaze, experts would have called for Noll’s ouster on a 24 hour a day news cycle.
Yet, Steelers owner Art Rooney stayed the course.
It was arguably the smartest move of Mr. Rooney’s professional life.
In no small part, Mr. Rooney’s decision to allow Noll to build his team from scratch and teach it how to be a winner would not only allow the Steelers to become one of the great sports franchises in any sport, but made the city of Pittsburgh a proud football town. He in many ways, crafted Pittsburgh to become the “City of Champions.”
Noll never sought the limelight. Throughout the Steelers remarkable run during his tenure, Noll preferred to allow his team’s play to do the talking. In fact, you would have gotten the idea that Noll would have preferred a lengthy stay in a dentist’s chair than do have to talk to the media about the team he made into a winner.
Noll was humble. He rarely took credit for the Steelers’ success. Noll avoided the spotlight and gave the credit to his players, something that seems be rare in today’s sports landscape.
You wonder if coaches like Jim Harbaugh or Rex Ryan could learn a thing or two from Noll.
That’s probably what I most remember and respect about Noll. It was always about the team, it was about the process first. Winning was simply a byproduct of teaching and following that process. There were no shortcuts in Noll’s eyes. You were taught how to play the game properly and you did it the right way, no exceptions.
I will forever be grateful that my parents decided to stick with the Steelers after that 1-13 season. Three years later they would sit in the 200 level of Three Rivers Stadium and watch Franco Harris rumble down the sideline in the play lovingly known as the Immaculate Reception.
It was the start of something truly special, something that continues today.
At my age of 40, I missed most of Noll’s glory years. One of my earliest memories was Super Bowl XIV. I was six at the time and even then you got the impression the winning would never end. It was a divine right indeed.
Sadly, the winning more or less did end and many of my early years of being a Steelers’ die hard were more Walter Abercrombie than Harris. More Harvey Clayton than Mel Blount. More Mark Malone than Terry Bradshaw.
Yet, some of my fondest memories still revolved around Noll and his ability to find a way to win in spite of growing criticism that he was no longer capable of leading the Steelers to Super Bowl championships. The Steelers improbable run to the 1984 AFC Championship had me believing anything was possible, until of course, Dan Marino showed up.
In 1989, I will never forget the Steelers opening up their season with a 51-0 loss to the Cleveland Browns. After the loss, calls for Noll’s firing became louder than ever, yet the Steelers would close out that season winning five of the last six to earn a wild card bid to play the Houston Oilers.
Anyone who remembers the Steelers and Oilers rivalry of that time remembers that Noll and Oilers’ head coach Jerry Glanville were not exactly cordial. Glanville represented everything that Noll despised, and the game seemed to have significance that went beyond simply winning or losing.
So when the Steelers, a heavy road underdog, went into the Astrodome and knocked off the Oilers in overtime on a 50 yard field goal by Gary Anderson, it was the final great moment of Noll’s remarkable career.
Watching that kick go through the uprights is one of my favorite memories as a Steelers’ fan. Though I know the always humble Noll would have never admitted it, I bet it was one of his favorite memories too.
After two more seasons, Noll would finally decide to “move on with his life’s work,” a saying he was known to use when it was time to tell a player his NFL dream was over. He had spent much of the decade trying to find that winning formula that had made his teams so formidable in the 70’s.
Alas, there were only so many Joe Greene’s, Jack Lambert’s and John Stallworth’s to be found.
Noll left the game much like he entered it. There was no fanfare or notoriety sought. He left the game humble and reserved as ever. Once he was done with coaching Noll rarely made appearances, and somehow over the years, his contributions almost seemed to be glossed over by the next generation of Steelers’ fans.
That’s not to say he was forgotten. Just that it seems that some of the younger generations forget how important this man truly was. Long before the tailgating, long before visiting stadiums became second homes to Steelers’ fans, it was Noll who took a punchline of a franchise and built them into what we know them to be today.
Long before “Cowher Power.” Long before “Sixburgh.”
I could not help but shed a few tears considering how ironic it was yesterday that the re-runs of “America’s Game” were being shown on the NFL Network last night. Noll’s remarkable teams were on exhibit for the world to watch and embrace. It was an irony that could not be ignored. It was poetic justice as its finest.
One can only hope, I certainly do at least, that maybe Noll was with family watching those remarkable stories of his teams last night when he passed away peacefully after a truly remarkable life lived.
It would seem to be the perfect and fitting end for a living legend.
Photo Credit: Pittsburgh Steelers
