“Mean Joe” Crushes It with Coca-Cola

The Steelers owned the 1970s, but it wasn’t until the end of the decade that Joe Greene became a national figure.

And “Mean Joe” went Hollywood to spread what players, agents, and those in the marketing game today refer to as their “brand.”

Well, sort of.

Mount Vernon, New York, and a small municipal stadium were the actual sites where one of the most feared defensive players of his era, a young boy, a grass-stained white Steelers jersey, and a bottle of Coke came together to produce one of the most famous TV commercials of all time.

In the commercial, a limping Greene stopped in a dimly lit tunnel when young Tommy Okon, acing his role of a timid boy approaching his hero, offered his bottle of Coke to “Mean Joe.” Greene chugged the soft drink, tossed his jersey to the kid, and then flashed a smile.

The commercial, which first aired in 1979, remains the standard for advertising executives, though its simplicity belied what actually went into making it.

Greene said two full days were needed to shoot the commercial—it was supposed to take half a day—and that he drank 18 bottles of Coke because there were so many takes.

“Boy, that was terrible,” Greene said in a video interview with Coca-Cola.

The end result turned out to be sweeter than anyone could have foreseen and the commercial humanized Greene. Fans who had been hesitant to approach Greene off the field were much more willing to ask for an autograph, he said, after the commercial morphed into an advertising phenomenon.

Greene said Coca-Cola considered Roger Staubach, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Tony Dorsett, and Jack Lambert for the commercial. And it came down to the two Steelers defensive stars for the role that went to Greene.

“Lambert didn’t have any teeth,” Greene said with a grin. “He wouldn’t have looked good on TV.”

The experience forged an unlikely bond between Greene and Okon, who was nine years old when he starred in the commercial that he is still asked about to this day.

The irony is that Okon, in a total coincidence when he was cast for the role, had significant ties to Pittsburgh. Both of his parents had grown up in Western Pennsylvania, and his father attended Pitt while his mother went to Carnegie Mellon University before they married and relocated to New York City to work in TV.

“Any kid who was a football fan in the ’70s you knew the Steelers, you knew the Steel Curtain, and you knew the name Mean Joe Greene,” Okon recalled. “It was a different world, no ESPN and all that, so I didn’t know what he looked like. I just knew the name.”

Greene left his intimidating aura in Pittsburgh for the commercial shoot and Okon said he couldn’t have worked with a nicer person. Apparently Greene felt the same way. That Christmas he sent Okon an autographed Steelers jersey, and their story didn’t end there.

A couple of years later Okon went to visit his brother, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, and took Greene up on his invitation to call if he was ever in Pittsburgh.

Greene invited the Okon brothers to Three Rivers Stadium and after greeting them said he would catch up with them after a “friend” showed them around. The younger Okon felt a twinge of disappointment, thinking an intern would give them a tour of the stadium.

Their guide turned out to be none other than Steelers owner Art Rooney.

“I’m a kid, I don’t know owners at this point, I don’t know what an iconic guy this is,” Okon said. “So Art Rooney gives us a tour and I remember my brother grabbing me and going, ‘You don’t know what a big deal this is but you’ll be talking about this for the rest of your life.’ Sure enough I’m talking about it for the rest of my life.”

Okon grew out of acting shortly after he started attending high school. Today he owns Castle Rock Marble and Granite, which is about half a mile from where he shot the Coca-Cola commercial.

Okon and Greene stay in touch and they reunited in January 2016, when they took part in a special for the 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl.

The funny thing looking back, Okon said, is he might have never starred in the commercial had Coca-Cola cast a Cowboys player in Greene’s role. Okon and his parents, after all, rooted for the Steelers but they were diehard New York Giants fans.

“We joked if it was Staubach [in the commercial] I don’t know if they would have let me do it,” Okon said. “That’s how much we hated the Cowboys.”

EXTRA POINTS

Like Father, Like Son

Tom Okon caught a jersey from “Mean” Joe Greene. Three decades later, one of his sons caught passes from another Steelers legend.

The Steelers brought Okon and Greene together in 2009 for a 30th anniversary celebration of their famed Coca-Cola commercial, recognizing them for winning the Clio Award, one of advertising’s highest honors. Okon reunited with Greene before the game at Heinz Field and introduced him to his wife and four children. Okon and his young son, Scott, were playing catch on the field when the past connected with the present.

“Who kind of steps in front of the pass intentionally but Hines Ward,” Okon recalled. “He goes to throw it to him and kind of lobs it to him underhand and I say, ‘No, he can catch; you can let one go.’ So he had a quick little [game of] catch with my son, not knowing who we are, just a father and son on the field.”