Chuck Noll the only head coach to win four Super Bowl’s turns 81 today.

A Dozen Notes On Chuck Noll

1. Chuck Noll is THE key figure in the history of the Pittsburgh Steeler franchise. The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the most successful teams in NFL history but it wasn’t that way when Chuck Noll became their head coach in 1969. At that time the Steelers had never made the playoffs in their 40 year history. Chuck Noll changed the culture of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the in last 40 years they have been to eight Super Bowls-winning six. During Chuck Noll’s time as Steeler head coach they won all four Super Bowls that they played in. What the Pittsburgh Steelers have done in the past 40 seasons-Chuck Noll is responsible for a lot of that success.

2. Chuck Noll was a guard and linebacker for the Cleveland Browns from 1953-59. Chuck Noll was drafted in the 20th round out of the University of Dayton. As a guard he was a messanger guard- in and out of the line up every other play. He brought in the next play from coach Paul Brown. Noll would remember that as a coach. He was one of the last coaches who let his own quarterback call the plays. Noll retired at age 27 and went into coaching.

3.  From 1960-65 Noll was an assistant coach for the San Diego Chargers. First as a defensive line coach and then as defensive coordinator/defensive back coach. He coached under one of the most innovative coaches in the history of pro football Sid Gillman. From 1966-68 he coached under his former Browns teammate Don Shula with the Baltimore Colts as defensive coordinator/defensive backfield coach.

4. The Steelers fired coach Bill Austin after the 1968 season {he is the last head coach that they have fired, Noll and Bill Cowher both retired after highly successful careers and Mike Tomlin is the current head coach} Don Shula highly recommended Noll to Steelers owner Art Rooney and his son Dan who was now running the team. Art Rooney Sr. the teams founder was a great guy, 25 years after his death he is still an icon in Pittsburgh sports but in all honesty he was more of a sportsman than an all around football guy. He generally hired his buddies to be his head coaches. When Dan took over things began to change. Dan Rooney get the credit for hiring Chuck Noll…aka The Emperor Chaz.

5. Noll took over a nightmare of a team. The Steelers had little talent and it would take some time to build. The Steelers won their first game with Noll as the head coach in 1969 and then lost the remaining 13 games that season to go 1-13. But the groundwork had been laid for future greatness before that season. In Chuck Noll’s first draft the Steelers selected out of North Texas State with the fourth pick in the draft one Charles Edward Greene aka Mean Joe Greene. When the Steelers drafted Greene the headlines in the local paper the next day was JOE WHO? Mean Joe Greene would become the greatest defensive tackle in NFL history and the greatest player in Steelers history. They would build the great Steeler defense around Greene. Even though the Steelers were awful that year Dan Rooney knew he had picked a winner in Chuck Noll. He saw that Noll knew what he was doing, that he just had a lack of talent. That 1-13 season earned the Steelers the #1 pick in the 1970 draft and they turned down numerous trade offers and took quarterback Terry Bradshaw from Louisiana Tech. Owner Art Rooney had given up a number of great quarterbacks in the past-among them Johnny Unitas who the Steelers had cut. Rooney said that wasn’t going to happen again. Bradshaw would lead the Steelers to 4 Super Bowl championships.

6. In 1970 the Steelers improved to 5-9 and in 1971 they went 6-8 things were starting to improve. In Noll’s first three seasons they were 12-30. I wonder how many teams in today’s NFL would keep a coach who was 12-30 in their first three seasons? 1972 would be the big breakout year. They would win their first division title in team history going 11-3. They would win their first playoff game in franchise history when they beat the Oakland Raiders on the most famous play in NFL history- Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception. The next week if it wasn’t for a Larry Seiple fake punt in which he ran for 37 yards the Steelers probably would have beaten the undefeated Miami Dolphins and went to the Super Bowl but the Dolphins ended up winning 21-17 but Steeler fans were not discouraged the team had finally arrived.

7. 1973 was a set back they went 10-4 and finished second in the AFC Central but made the playoffs as a wildcard team. They would get crushed by Oakland in the first round of the playoffs 33-14. I remember a week after that playoff loss making a speech at school. I was in the 7th grade. One of my teachers had us give a 5 minute speech in front of the class on whatever we wanted to talk about. I chose to talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers. At the end of my talk I predicted that in the next season the Steelers were going to win the Super Bowl. My teacher [who would be the greatest teacher I ever had} after I was finished said that he hoped that I was right in my prediction but he thought the Steelers were far from being a Super Bowl caliber team.

8. This is becoming more about the Pittsburgh Steelers than about Chuck Noll. He was the kind of man who would want it that way. He never wanted attention. When people came to him to do commercials in Pittsburgh he would say “Go get a player” He always considered himself a teacher. I think the greatest accomplishment of Chuck Noll’s career is this- from 1974-1979 seasons they Steelers would win four Super Bowls. The great accomplishment was they won all those Super Bowls with the same core of great players. Today you win a Super Bowl and players seem to lose focus. The 1970’s Steeler teams stayed focused and I think Chuck Noll deserves a lot of the credit. I would think if say a Mike Ditka were coaching that team they would have won once. One of my favourite Noll stories is after one of those Steeler Super Bowl titles they were having a team party and Noll and a couple of his assistant coaches were sitting at a table. They weren’t celebrating they were working on a play to use the next season. Noll always had the attitude that the past was the past. Once one season was over he started looking forward to the next challange.

9. After winning the 1980 Super Bowl vs the Los Angeles Rams the Steelers dynasty was over. In the 1980’s they would make the playoffs 4 times but the team that won those four Super Bowls was an aging team by the last title. The drafts in the late 70’s and early 80’s were nowhere near as successful. In the 1980’s the Steelers would never be truely horrible- even in down years Chuck Noll [like a Don Shula} got more out of his team than anyone else would have. In his last 12 seasons the Steelers had 4 losing seasons the worst being a 5-11 year. In 1991 they went 7-9 and at the age of 59 Chuck Noll knew it was time to go. When Chuck Noll retired he left the public eye. He didn’t get a job on television he just got on with his life. One of the great Chuck Noll lines was sometimes its time for a player to “Get on with his life’s work” Chuck Noll retired with a regular season record of 193-148-1 record. In the playoffs his Steelers went 16-8. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993.

10. Chuck Noll has been retired now for 22 years. He would be seen now and then around Pittsburgh at events. In recent years he has reportedly not been in the best of health. He hasn’t made any public appearances in the past 5ive years. Chuck Noll in my opinion is on the Mount Rushmore of greatest coaches in NFL history. He is probably the most underrated and underappreciated head coaching in NFL history and that is his own doing. He didn’t care to be recognized. Chuck Noll was also a pioneer in a few ways. He had briefly one of the first African-American starting quarterbacks in Joe Gilliam. He had the first African-American assistant to be a Coordinator in Tony Dungy. One of the best compliments a person could have came from the great book on the 1973 Steelers by Roy Blount Jr- in the book Blount said of Noll “He isn’t a guy you would invite to go hang out and have a good time with you at the local bar but if something happened to you and your wife he would be the guy you’d want raising your children.

11.  Terry Bradshaw and Chuck Noll. Terry Bradshaw has always been needy. I think he still is. Noll was his head coach. For years even after he retired Bradshaw failed to recognize how having Chuck Noll as his head coach was important to his success. Bradshaw once made a comment that he was closer to opposing coaches Bum Phillips and Sam Ratigliano than he was with Noll. Chuck Noll sometimes blew a gasket with Bradshaw. It took Bradshaw 5ive seasons to develop into a good then great NFL quarterback. Maybe it seemed like Noll lacked patience with Bradshaw but to me it looks like he had incredible patience. Bradshaw wanted a buddy as his head coach. Chuck Noll was his coach not his buddy. Last I checked Chuck Noll went to 4 Super Bowls and his Steelers won all 4. Bum Phillips and Sam Ratigliano went combined to no Super Bowls. I think Terry Bradshaw now realizes he was damn lucky to have Chuck Noll as his head coach. Noll wasn’t one to pal around with his players. He wasn’t their pal. He was their coach. {The one player that Noll was always close to was his greatest player- Mean Joe Greene}

12. Michael MacCambridge who wrote the excellent history on Pro Football “America’s Game” is reportedly writing a book now on Chuck Noll. I am looking forward to reading that book. To finish on Noll- his press conferences a couple days after the games were great. Chuck Noll basically said nothing. He was a master at not really answering the questions from the press. If he didn’t have to do it I am sure he would have never spoken to the press. I used to get a kick out of listening to them.

“The key to a winning season is focusing on one opponent at a time. Winning one week at a time, Never look back and never look ahead”- Chuck Noll

“The thrill isn’t in the winning, it’s in the doing.”- Chuck Noll

“A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.”-Chuck Noll