Bill Priatko played just one season for the Steelers but that didn’t stop the team from inviting him to represent the 1950s when they held an 80th-anniversary celebration in 2012.
He is the only one in a photo taken by the Steelers whose numbers are gold instead of white, and Priatko goes back far enough that he played for the Steelers in 1957 and was roommates during Cleveland Browns training camp two years later with a rookie defensive back named Dick LeBeau.
Priatko and LeBeau remain close friends to this day, and he has also maintained a correspondence and friendship with Bart Starr throughout the years from his short stint with the Green Bay Packers.
There probably isn’t a friendlier or more well-meaning person than Priatko. He is the type of person who knows everybody and doesn’t have a bad word to say about anybody.
It is little wonder than that he developed a friendship with Steelers founder Art Rooney and one with the Rooney family that endures.
What tugs at Priatko’s emotions is when he talks about the Rooneys’ connection with his son, Dan.
Dan Priatko played football for Army and graduated from West Point in 1984. He completed training as an Army Ranger and that is what ultimately saved his life.
Dan Priatko and his sister, Debbie, were driving home from West Point after a visit when they hit an ice storm near Hazelton, Pennsylvania. Dan lost control of the car and the driver’s side rammed right into a cement abutment.
Dan wasn’t expected to make it—his sister escaped with minor injuries—and then spent seven months in a coma. He survived the crash because he was in such great physical condition but it left him paralyzed on one side of his body and he is largely confined to a wheelchair.
The Rooneys stayed in touch with him through the years and Art Rooney Jr. still writes to Dan at least once a week. He didn’t forget to send a letter either when he and his wife were vacationing once in Russia. Dan Rooney has also supported the family and he wrote a letter of recommendation that helped get David Priatko, Dan’s younger brother, into West Point.
“It means so much to Dan,” Bill Priatko said. “He has so much respect for the Rooney family because of the way they are with him. The Rooneys are special. They really are.”
That goes back to Art Rooney.
The Steelers founder always instilled in his players the importance of not just working in Pittsburgh but also getting involved outside of football. That helps explain why so many players, particularly from the 1970s, became invested in the community and stayed in Pittsburgh after they retired.
“He would ask us to join various charitable efforts that the Steelers were taking on, like the Salvation Army,” former Steelers linebacker Andy Russell said of Art Rooney, “and it was making a statement to us that it it’s good to give back to the community, that you can’t just take the money and run.”
Nobody embraced that sentiment more than cornerback Mel Blount.
The Pro Football Hall of Famer has maintained a strong presence in the Pittsburgh area—the guy wearing the cowboy hat who still looks like he could lock down NFL wide receivers, that’s Blount—and he runs a group home in Western Pennsylvania for young men.
Blount’s eponymous organization offers shelter, structure, and hope to abused or neglected boys. And its success has added to the legacy of Blount, who was such a physically dominant player that the NFL changed the rules regarding contact between defensive backs and receivers in the late 1970s.
The Mel Blount Youth Home is a non-profit organization and one of its main fundraisers also qualifies as a Steelers bucket list item. Blount serves up himself annually for a roast that is a black-tie affair and a ton of laughs.
A former Steelers teammate always serves as a master of ceremonies for the Mel Blount Roast and there is nothing like listening to stories from the 1970s while helping a great cause. It is a measure of respect that Blount commands for his off-the-field work that former quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who has had a complicated relationship with the city of Pittsburgh, returned in 2016 to lead the roast as master of ceremonies.
Charlie Batch is among this era of Steelers players who have given back to the community and, like Blount, he does more than just raise money and awareness for charitable causes. Batch grew up in Homestead, about a 10-minute drive from the Steelers’ practice facility, and he signed with his hometown team in 2002 after four seasons in Detroit. Batch gave the Steelers one of the most reliable backup quarterbacks in the NFL and also grew his foundation.
The Best of the Batch Foundation now promotes education in a six-county area, and Batch tries to reel in kids like he did defenders during a 15-year NFL career with a good play-action fake.
“We’re an educational foundation and we focus on reading/computer literacy,” said Batch, who played for the Steelers from 2002 to 2012 and won some critical games for them. “What we do is trick their mind and use sports in some cases to draw the kids in. It’s a lot easier to say, ‘Hey, come play basketball.’ We’ll get 360 kids to come play basketball and then it’s ‘Oh, by the way, you need to read a book and attend four mandatory study halls.’ It’s a lot easier to do it that way than, ‘Hey, meet me at the Carnegie Library, we’re going to read a book.’ I’d be lucky to get 20 kids.”
The Batch Foundation also offers a lifeline for troubled kids who have been kicked out of school.
It operates an alternative school program at the foundation’s Munhall facility and Batch and his colleagues work with teachers, principals, and even judges to help wayward kids get on track. Troubled kids can attend the school for up to six months while working with the foundation to get back into their regular schools and the response has been positive.
“We get calls from probation officers, judges saying, ‘This kid needs help. Can you help map out a plan for him?’” Batch said. “The No. 1 goal is to build that trust immediately and say, ‘Hey, look, we’re here to help you,’ and at that point we continue to move forward.”
Part of that help is rewarding those who make it through the program.
In 2015, Batch’s foundation awarded just over $100,000 in scholarship money to kids who had become academic success stories and gone to college.
Most of the Steelers’ established players have started their own foundations and are involved in all manner of giving back, from quarterback Ben Roethlisberger buying canines for police and fire departments all over the country to cornerback William Gay lending a powerful voice and support to a cause that is deeply personal to him.
Gay lost his mother when he was a young boy after her boyfriend shot her and himself in the tragic culmination of an abusive relationship. He has since become one of sports’ foremost advocates in combatting domestic violence, and Gay does more than just speak out in public service announcements.
He visits Pittsburgh shelters, sharing his story and providing hope while simply listening to battered women with the understanding of what they have endured.
Tunch Ilkin is another Steeler who goes above and beyond to help those who might feel like they have been forgotten by society.
Ilkin is the Steelers’ color analyst for radio broadcasts and co-hosts a daily radio show with former teammate Craig Wolfley. He is also a devout Christian who ministers to those at the Light of Life Ministries, a homeless shelter on Pittsburgh’s North Shore.
Ilkin, a sixth-round draft pick from Indiana State in 1980, developed into one of the Steelers’ most indispensable offensive linemen in the 1980s and made a pair of Pro Bowls at the end of the decade.
His time with the Steelers, Ilkin said, shaped him even more as a person than a player because of veterans who defined glory as more than just what happened on a football field.
Their presence and a close friendship with Wolfley led Ilkin to convert to Christianity during his playing career. And in addition to his work at the Light of Life Ministries he is also the director of men’s ministries at the South Hills Bible Chapel.
Ilkin never hesitates to share his journey as an example of what faith can do for a person.
“I was about as far from God as you can imagine,” he said. “I was a druggie, a thief, a liar, and yet I met a bunch of guys on the Pittsburgh Steelers like Jon Kolb and Mike Webster and Donnie Shell and John Stallworth, guys who loved Jesus and loved each other. As I was processing all of this stuff that I was learning about God’s love and his mercy and his grace and his plan, Wolf, who grew up in a Christian home, was right there helping me understand what I saw in these guys that was so attractive. I wanted to know about this God that loved me and these guys had a sense of purpose that was beyond football, Super Bowls, and Pro Bowls.”
The sense of purpose that Ilkin developed led him to stay in Pittsburgh after his playing days were over. Like many retired players before him, Ilkin raised a family in the Pittsburgh area and now he can’t imagine calling anywhere else home.
“I love the people, I love the neighborhoods, I love the non-profits that are making an impact here,” Ilkin said. “You could name a hundred of them. What a privilege it is to be involved in what’s happening here in Pittsburgh.”