A Look at the Pre-1970s Steelers

The Steelers might not have won consistently before Chuck Noll arrived and the Rooney sons, particularly Dan and Art Jr., established prominent voices within the organization. But fans, especially younger ones, would be mistaken to think that the Steelers’ history starts in the 1970s, when they launched a dynasty and propelled themselves to national popularity.

The Steelers had their share of great players before ones like Mean Joe and Franco and Bradshaw.

For decades, Ernie Stautner, a tougher-than-leather defensive tackle, was the only Steelers player to have his number officially retired. And Stautner is one of a handful of Steelers players from the pre-1970s who is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

That list includes Bobby Layne, a transcendent quarterback who played hard on and off the field. The Steelers have a fascinating history with quarterbacks (more on that later in this chapter) and Layne is part of that.

The Steelers traded for the Texas gunslinger in 1958 after he had helped the Detroit Lions win two NFL championships. He played five seasons for the Steelers and made two Pro Bowls but never led them to the playoffs.

He took a liking to the young running back out of Penn State and Dick Hoak can’t explain why to this day. The two ran in different circles, with Hoak commuting to work and returning each night to his wife, while Layne lived in a hotel—and lived the single life with bachelors and players who did not bring their families to Pittsburgh for the season because they couldn’t afford it.

Hoak would establish himself as one of the Steelers’ better players in the ’60s—he is still sixth on the team’s all-time rushing list—and he found out one night that Layne didn’t just want him close by on the field.

The Steelers were playing an exhibition game on the road and Hoak encountered a group of teammates playing cards and drinking when he wandered into the hotel lobby. Layne spotted Hoak and asked him to sit beside him for good luck. Hoak obliged until it got to be around 2:00 am and he left the group and went to bed.

“The next morning we had an early meeting and I was tired and [Layne] walked in there and it looked like he had [gotten] 12 hours of sleep,” Hoak recalled with a laugh. “It was like he was never even out the night before. That’s what he could do.”

Layne, who died in 1986 at the age of 59, had said his biggest regret in football was not delivering a championship to Art Rooney. The final season he played for the Steelers before retiring did leave a significant legacy.

The Steelers won a franchise-best nine games in 1962, against five losses. Their success coincided with a decision by Dan Rooney to put the Steelers’ logo on just the right side of the team helmets. When longtime equipment manager Jack Hart asked Rooney after the season if he wanted stickers put on both sides of the helmet, Rooney said no because of the Steelers’ success that season.

The Steelers have maintained that tradition, giving their helmets a unique look, and they built on their success in 1963. They entered the final week of that season with a 7–3–3 record and needing a win over the Giants at Yankee Stadium to advance to the NFL Championship Game against the Bears.

The Steelers knew they could play with anyone that season, including George Halas’ mighty Bears. The Steelers had tied the Bears 17–17 earlier in the season in a game they probably should have won. Hoak scored what would have been a key touchdown on a pass reception after dragging several Bears tacklers into the end zone.

But officials ruled that Hoak’s forward progress had been stopped; the Bears kicked a late field goal to escape Forbes Field with a tie.

“It was a bad call,” Hoak said. “If we had won that game we probably would have won a championship too.”

The Steelers lost to the Giants—a team they had earlier beaten 31–0—missing a trip to the championship by a game. The Steelers proceeded to go in reverse after 1963 and won just 18 games over the next five seasons.

But that period led to the coaching change that transformed the organization.

Charles Henry Noll, though only 38 years old when the Steelers hired him, wasted little time taking charge of the team.

Shortly after he arrived in Pittsburgh, he called Andy Russell over to his office. Russell had just made his first Pro Bowl and he figured Noll wanted to congratulate him. His first meeting with his new coach turned into a dousing with a cold bucket of water.

“He said, ‘Russell, I’ve been watching the game films and I don’t like the way you play. You’re too out of control. You’re too aggressive,’” Russell recalled. “I was like, ‘Whoa!’ Nobody ever told me I was too aggressive.”

His teammates received similar treatment when Noll made his first speech at training camp that year. He told the Steelers that they had been losing because they weren’t any good. He also told the players in the room that he planned to get rid of most of them.

“I think,” Russell said, “that five of us from that room made it to the [first] Super Bowl.”

A new era had begun.

Black and Gold in the Heartland

The Steelers share their practice facility and Heinz Field with Pitt. They share a uniform scheme with a school hundreds of miles away from the 412 area code and their connection to the University of Iowa dates back to the late 1970s.

The Hawkeyes had gone almost two decades without a winning season when Hayden Fry took over as head coach for the 1979 season. Fry put his psychology degree to use as soon as he arrived in Iowa City and he quickly turned his attention to the Steelers as he tried to change the culture of a once-proud program.

“Hayden’s deal was [the Steelers’] jersey signified winning and that’s what we want to get to,” longtime Iowa football equipment manager Greg Morris said.

Morris worked as a student athletic trainer in Fry’s first season at Iowa but he still remembers vividly how the colorful coach wanted to replicate the Steelers’ uniform—and how cooperative the Steelers were after receiving the request.

The Steelers, Morris said, sent a full uniform complete with a No. 12 jersey, which had been made famous by quarterback Terry Bradshaw. Iowa copied the uniforms, from the helmet and jersey sleeve stripes all the way down to the socks.

That wouldn’t happen today with all of the licensing issues that would be in play. But Iowa ran with the black and gold motif with the Steelers’ blessings, and in 1981, Fry’s third season, they returned to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1958.

Fry, who also famously had the walls in the visiting locker room painted pink to curb aggression, led Iowa to three Rose Bowls and 11 other bowl appearances in 20 seasons and was named Big Ten Coach of the Year three times. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.