Dick Hoak’s Excellent Adventure
Dick Hoak never made it to the Super Bowl as a player but he carved out a unique place in Steelers history.
He is the longest-tenured coach in Steelers history, and it is hard to imagine anyone topping his 35 seasons of service, during which he won five Super Bowl rings before leaving on his own terms.
Hoak played for the Steelers from 1961 to 1970 and twice led them in rushing. After retiring he took a job as a coach and physical education teacher at Wheeling Central Catholic in West Virginia, never expecting it to be a short stop.
But Hoak got a call from Pitt head coach Carl DePasqua one day after his first season at Wheeling Central Catholic asking him about joining the Panthers’ staff. Hoak told DePasqua that he was interested and they agreed to set up a meeting.
A week later Hoak got another call while he was at school. This one was from Chuck Noll, who had coached Hoak for two seasons. Noll told him he would have an opening on his staff soon and Hoak again said he was interested.
He scheduled interviews with Pitt and the Steelers on the same day.
As fate would have it Hoak interviewed first with the Steelers, and after Noll agreed to give him a month to help Wheeling Catholic find a replacement, he accepted the job offer.
When he called DePasqua to cancel their interview, the former Steelers assistant coach told Hoak he would have been crazy not to accept Noll’s offer. Less than two years later, Pitt fired DePasqua and his staff after the Panthers went 1–10, leaving Hoak to ponder the itinerant lifestyle he and his family might have endured had timing and fortune not been with him.
“If Chuck never would have called I would have been bouncing all over the country,” Hoak said.
Instead, he never had to stray far from his native Jeannette, which is about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Franco Harris, shown with the “Italian Army” early in his career, is among a handful of standout running backs that Dick Hoak mentored during a coaching career that is the longest in Steelers’ history.
Hoak became a fixture on the Steelers’ staffs and coached for Noll from 1971 to 1991 and Bill Cowher from 1992 to 2006.
He coached a Who’s Who of Steelers running backs, from Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier to Jerome Bettis and Willie Parker.
“Dick Hoak was amazing to me. He allowed me to go out and flourish and do what I do with minimal interruption,” said Bettis, a 2015 inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “He coached the play, not the actual players. He never once said, ‘You’ve got to go here.’ He said, ‘This is how the play is supposed to run and you go out and do what God has blessed you to do.’ He said that’s the way he’s always taught and it’s been very effective.”
Hoak honed that approach as a young coach, and his acumen didn’t just earn him the respect of the Steelers’ running backs over the years.
“I’ve been with some coaches that have been around as long as him and they’re stuck in their ways a little bit and he was never like that,” former Steelers guard Alan Faneca said. “He was always coming up with new ideas, new schemes and had great ways to blend in some things he had seen a long time ago. I think he always used to say, ‘We used to do this 20 years ago and then everybody forgot about it and now we’re all doing it again.’”
Hoak’s reputation spread beyond the Steelers, and twice he turned down a chance to become the head coach of the United States Football League’s Pittsburgh Maulers. He also passed when Tony Dungy offered him a job of offensive coordinator after Dungy became head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1996.
His loyalty to the Rooneys and Steelers never allowed Hoak to seriously entertain other offers. He never forgot how Art Rooney twice gave him bonuses he never expected during the 1968 season, one in which Hoak made the Pro Bowl. Or how Art Rooney visited him every morning in 1970 when Hoak spent almost a week in the hospital after sustaining a concussion and dealing with complications from several broken blood vessels.
Hoak gave serious thought to riding out in retirement with Bettis after the Steelers won the 2005 Super Bowl. He returned for one more season to see if the Steelers could defend their title, something they didn’t get a chance to do after going 8–8 and missing the playoffs.
Hoak’s place in Steelers history is secure, and in a measure of how much he meant to the organization the team held a news conference to announce his retirement in early 2007—instead of merely issuing a press release, which is standard for most assistant coaches.
“You’re hired to be fired, but I made it the whole way without being fired,” said Hoak, who lives in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. “My whole career was a lot of fun.”
And one heck of a ride.
Remembering “Moe”
Maurice “Moe” Matthews was not known by most Steelers fans but his sudden passing on March, 22, 2015, at the age of 53, hit folks within the organization hard. Matthews was a fixture at the team’s practice facility and not just because he had been a chef in the cafeteria for years.
Morris served up as many laughs as he did food and he always seemed to have a smile and a quip for anyone that passed through the serving line. His popularity was such who former Steelers defensive backs coach Ray Horton set an unofficial record for most lopsided car sales ever.
Horton, before leaving for a job as defensive coordinator of the Cardinals in 2011, asked Matthews how much money he had in his pocket.
Matthews produced $20 and Horton tossed him the keys to a 1999 Mercedes-Benz SL. “Moe” smiled easily but especially so when you asked him about the red sports car he cared for like a baby.