Pittsburgh can be a dreary place in the winter. A Rust-Belt survivor, where the short winter days are lined with grey skies and little hope of seeing the sun in her full glory until March. A pall takes over the city, shrouding it in gloom. A tradition of work ethic and moral fiber, beginning in the steel mills during “better times” and reflected in the colors that shine brightly in the fall and winter, offering hope during the gloomiest days of winter – our Black and Gold.
2009 seemed like one of the bleakist, snowiest, coldest winters on record. And, the Steelers didn’t make the playoffs. As if Mother Nature and the football gods conspired against us for a perfect storm. The playoffs are a birthright, damn it! We can have a lousy winter or we can go a season without the Steelers in the playoffs but please don’t make us suffer both. Forgive us, for we know not any other way.
The 2011 AFC championship series was at home against the Jets. Have we been here before? There have been 45 Super Bowls. The next one makes 46. The Steelers will playing their 25th one-and-done tournament since 1972. Eight times they have made it to the Show. Are you kidding me? The Steelers will have played in one-third of all the AFC attempts to play in the Super Bowl. They’ve been victorious half of their Championship Series and they have won a ridiculous, six of eight Super Bowls. That is a two-generation commitment to excellence. It Started with the Chief.
He was a man of integrity, if not a bit of a rascal. He loved to gamble on the ponies. The story goes, that he used his winnings to stake himself the professional football team in Pittsburgh. I’m not sure that the Steelers weren’t just a hobby at first; something to tinker with here and there for forty years.
For forty years the Steelers were perennial losers. Tough, hard-nosed, reflecting the work ethic of the post depression populace of iron-workers and miners. These were people who understood what it meant to be proud of a hard day’s work. The smokestacks spewed a shroud that added to the sullen, steel-gray skies. Then there were truisms; people will always need steel; the Steelers will always be losers and winters in this industrial city will always be colder than a witch’s tit. Then in 1969 the mold broke.
I can’t remember the winter, specifically, nor do I remember when Mr. Rooney hired Chuck Noll. Fate or destiny? A man has control over only one of these. Then again, maybe it was just the odds. Forty years of futility cannot be destiny, can it? Fate?
With the hiring of Noll the mold was broken and it created a snowball effect that has lasted to this day, making winters in Pittsburgh a little more bearable. Along the way it picked up Joe Geene, Terry Bradshaw, Jack Lambert, Franco Harris, Rocky Bleier,Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, the list seems endless.
Rocky Bleier was a clue that the Chief made a deal on the right side of right. Wounded in Viet Nam, Rocky was a long shot to make the team. The Chief wasn’t going let something like a war injury become the reason Rocky didn’t make the team. Make the team? Rocky worked hard to show the Chief a commitment to excellence. Bleier went on to become half of the first duo (Franco and Rocky) of running backs to gain over 1000 yards. ( those Dolphins had to manufacture their two 1,000-yard-in-a-season by looking over tapes and adding a few yards to the other runner. I refuse to utter their names) Rooney did it the right way, the Steelers did it the right way and Rocky and Franco did it the right way.
The winter of 1976 seemed particularly cold and the Steelers made an early exit from the playoffs as misbefitting as it was. That season started @ 1-4. The two-time Super Bowl champs were looking to be Super Bowl Chumps. We were about to embark on a lesson in commitment to excellence,
To get to the playoffs the Steelers would surely have to win the last nine games of the season. Excuses be damned! Over the last 9 games the Steelers pitched 5 shutouts! Five! Five games where the opponents didn’t score even a field goal. Over that 9 game period they gave up only 36 points, A commitment to excellence that will never be duplicated. A defense that will be remembered forever.
This was a ride to destiny baby, and Pittsburgh was onboard. The reflection of ourselves, of our hardworking, no nonsense, smashmouth attitude, personified by the likes of Joe Green, Jack Lambert and the golly-gee kid with a knack for winning named Bradshaw. We were a mix of strength and good-old-boy charm. And things were changing. The oil was embargoed and the smoke wafting from the steel mills was becoming breatheable…actually the steel industry was picking up and moving making the air breatheable . Alas, the 1976 season ended with Bleier and Franco sitting on the sidelines. Ah, our beautiful Destiny, left us before we even had time to enjoy the gifts she rained upon us in the winter. The Steelers lost to the hated Raiders but we knew the Commitment was going to continue.
But wait…the story continues. The Steelers win Super Bowls 9, 10, 13 & 14. The Steelers represented our city in four Super Bowls in six years. That’s pretty impressive. But time moves on. Dynasties fall and Destiny can be blamed. What are we if we are not destined to fail over the long-haul. The Arabs control the oil, Japan is making steel and cars cheaper than we can make them. Some people even whisper, in this union town, that the Japanese make these things better. I’m reminded of the old BASF. We don’t make the products you use…we make them better. Maybe we can survive as a country without the unions. Maybe football needs a union for the players. It’s cold and dreary in Pittsburgh in the winter. We need to cling to some glimmer of hope. The Steelers don’t make Pittsburgh – they make Pittsburgh a better place to live in the winter. The Japanese will never have a better football team.
Every now and then we’d see glimpses of toughness like a young Barry Foster or Mike Merriweather, Greg Lloyd and Kevin Greene. Frequently we got to sit and cheer at the Hall of Fame when the old heroes were honored among their peers. We smiled at each other as we left Pittsburgh in droves. Taking with us the feeling of having survived some tough times together. We understood change, we understood evolution. It was going on here in Pittsburgh and all over the country.
Here we are in 2012 and the Steelers are again in the hunt for another Lombardi trophy. There are many things we have come to expect in Pittsburgh. The Steelers are the Darth Vader of the NFL. Powerful, imposing, ominous, black (and gold). We revel in being the bullies on the block. The Steelers have frequently had the reputation of having the meanest, dirtiest players in the league. Remember Joe Green’s punch to Paul Howard’s midsection? Remember Jack Lambert punishing Cliff Harris for taunting lowly Roy Gerela and explaining, “no one intimidates us, we are the intimidators!” Greg Lloyd, Kevin Greene, Joey Porter, James Harrison (he became a hero when he body slammed an overzealous fan) Hine Ward. Wait? are you kidding me, a wide receiver is considered a dirty, mean player? Only in Pittsburgh.
A commitment to excellence – since 1969 the Steelers have given Pittsburgh 30 seasons with a winning record; twenty-five seasons in the playoffs, twenty-one division championships; fifteen AFC championship games, eight AFC championships and six Super bowls.
Regardless of the outcome of the game in Denver, whether we read about the football Gospel according to Tebow or they are just another bump in the storied Steelers’ playoff road, the truisms of the past are changing. The Steelers are expected to win, People still need steel, it is just made somewhere else and nowadays and when political correctness is in vogue, when I talk about the cold winters, I have to say as it is cold as a medium’s mammaries.
Go Steelers!