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Homegrown Stars Who Had Success Elsewhere​ · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh welcome to another uh edition of uh Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: On uh this episode, we'll be talking about players who had success elsewhere.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: As usual, I'm your host, Steve Wirt, and I'm joined by uh Tim Hannon.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, everybody.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Tim, staying home is great, but sometimes you have to leave home to have a great adventure.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, with COVID, I guess we're not leaving home too much to have a great adventure.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: That applies normally, yes.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, plenty of people who have been born and raised in western Pennsylvania went on to have great success elsewhere.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh we're gonna look into those uh sports stars and personalities who went on to have most of their success elsewhere.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, kind of like the guidelines, just so people aren't like, well, what about this person or that person?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you had to be born somewhere in western Pennsylvania, play some sort of high school or college sports here, and then went on to have significant success elsewhere.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I said who's Dan Marino, you wouldn't say probably what would you say, Tim?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: I I would know who he is, yes.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, yeah, but you wouldn't say like, oh, he's the quarterback at Pitt way back when you would probably say who's yes, quarterback of the Dolphins, yes.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that'd probably be, yeah.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of our format and criteria, you know.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we'll also like we'll do a little background on each person, why they're famous, and just like the local news that we all know and love, you know, we're gonna Ken Rice this and focus in on the Pittsburgh connection, you know.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Pittsburgh connection, you know, like modern family, where somehow, like, you know, Sophia Vallerga is now an honorary Pittsburger just because she married Joe Montenegro or whatever Montello or whatever his name is.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So fun times, fun times for us.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we're gonna kind of got different groups of people.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: We got people from Western Pennsylvania that you might have forgotten were from here.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then we'll have uh I call them the Pitt guys, the University of Pittsburgh guys, and then Western Pennsylvania quarterbacks, since there's apparently there's something in the water here that you just if you want to become a quarterback, uh grow up in western Pennsylvania, I guess.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll start with uh people from Western Pennsylvania that you may have forgotten were from here.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the first is an I actually did not know this, I just happened to stumble upon this.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Was uh Stan Musual, Stan the Man.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I always thought he was from like Missouri or something, but apparently not.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was uh he was signed by the Cardinals in 1938.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why Stan the Man Musual is famous is not just because he has an awesome nickname, which he does.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he was a 24-time All-Star.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: 24 time.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's unreal.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's a three-time World Series champion, three-time NL NVP, seven-time NL batting champion, two-time NL RBI leader, and he's in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he played most of his career with well, actually, all of his career with the Cardinals, because you didn't have free agency way back when you just kind of stayed where you were drafted or signed or whatever.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um now for the Pittsburgh connection.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um Stan Mugel was born in Denora, and he went to Denora High School.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And actually at 15 years old, he played for a semi-pro Denora team called the Zinks.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was offered a scholarship to play for Pitt in basketball, but he turned him down, decided to go play baseball.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually played high school baseball with Buddy Griffith, Buddy Griffey, who was Ken Griffey Sr.'s uh father.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So Ken Griffey Jr.'s grandfather.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of uh fun Pittsburgh connections going on there with Stand the Man Musual.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So did you remember?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know he Tim, you probably you're pretty smart, you probably knew he was from Denora, huh?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I knew that.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know that I would have remembered that if I was putting together a list.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh i i and you know you talked about 24-time all-star.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: He that guy played forever and then he he lived forever.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: He died in his 90s, and it wasn't that long ago, if if I remember correctly.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he died in 2013.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: So January of 2013.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: He well, I mean, that's yeah, that's he was born in 1920, so he lived a pretty long life.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh is one of the more popular Cardinals players ever, I would you know, guess.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: But um moving on from uh baseball to basketball and people you didn't realize, and I didn't realize this guy was from here either, but um I knew there was a reason I always liked this guy.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Chuck Daly.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Chuck Daly was born in Cain, Pennsylvania, which I know where that is a pretty podunk town, kind of north of Penn Pittsburgh.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: What do you say, about an hour or so?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hour or two?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Tim goes to Cain all the time.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: He hangs out up to the phone.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm big at Cain in Cain, yeah.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: They love me up there.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean that's where your your hunting camp is, I'm sure.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: But um what he's famous for, he uh coached the Detroit Pistons to two NBA championships, and he came up with the Jordan rules, which I just love, which was basically just like be rough on Jordan to the point of almost fouling him every play and don't let him get the ball or be easy on him.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um he's also like very highly regarded.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: He coached the dream team in 1992, which was the first professionals to play in the Olympics, and so like I mean that was a big deal, and it probably took a lot of like coaching skill to to coach those guys because you would like you know, what'd you got?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Board Bird, Jordan, who is Patrick Ewing, yeah, Charles Barkley.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it was not it was not easy, I'm sure, to coach those guys, so but he I mean a whole uh an all-star team's always tough to get to come together, but so they you know he did a good job.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: They went to the gold and it was pretty easy because like they were really good and the rest of the teams hadn't caught up to much as they have now.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's also in the basketball hall of fame.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: He coached at Duke, he was not a head coach, but he was like an assistant coach at Duke, and he has a lifetime achievement award named after him.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, like I said, he's considered one of the top NBA coaches in league history.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the Pittsburgh connection was he coached at Punxitawney High School, and he coached at Penn on the University of Pennsylvania, and he took that team to a final four, and he actually had uh three three NCAA Final Four appearances.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I think he had one with Duke too and one somewhere else.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he was pretty successful in college and the pros.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And who knew that about Chuck Daly?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that that one I did not know.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I did not know that one, and I I was a huge fan of those bad boy era Detroit Pistons.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: That was my favorite team back in the day.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I love Chuck Daly and Isaiah Thomas and Joe Dumars and that whole team.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: So uh very cool.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I did not realize he was he was from these parts.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, and I think too, like probably coaching the Pistons, like with John, who else was with John Sally was on those teams, and who is the Bill Way and Beer?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that guy he would foul everybody.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like that that would definitely give you some practice dealing with like personalities, you know, definitely.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's definitely what he was the coach that that dream team definitely needed, so but um good for him.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um Brandon Saud, we're into hockey now.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Brandon Sawd was he was drafted by the Blackhawks in the second round, for 43rd overall.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: He has played for Chicago, Columbus, and Colorado.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh why he's famous, he has won two Stanley Cups for the Chicago Blackhawks, one in 2013 and one in 2015.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually scored a game-winning goal in game form of the Stanley Cup final in 2015, and he made an all-star game in 2016.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's uh he's a pretty solid hockey player.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, he's not like a superstar per se, but he he's a good, he's a good hockey player.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now for the Pittsburgh connection.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he grew up in Pine Richland.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: He played for the Pittsburgh Hornets, which is like a what did you say, like a little league for hockey, I guess, kind of.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um he's probably uh the best low Pittsburgh's best locally grown hockey player.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: He has 371 points so far.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's the uh most successful Pittsburgh uh born hockey player.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that I I mean there's Ryan Malone and RJ Umberger, but they they just didn't have the success that this guy's had.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: This guy's had like I don't think either of those guys made a Stanley Cup final.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or no, Ryan Malone, did Ryan Malone make one with the Penguins?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think he did.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the first one that was.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so once again, but he was like actually had success in Pittsburgh, so and Sawd hasn't been in Pittsburgh at all.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Although I remember every time he like there's a rumor about it, everybody wants to trade for him because he's like local guy.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, would you agree we were probably the most successful hockey player to come out of Pittsburgh?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think RJ Umberger, you could argue, but I don't know.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: RJ Umberger has more points.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think that's fair because he he was yeah, he was important to those Black Hawk teams.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I think if he doesn't play for championship teams, then maybe it's a little closer of an argument.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: But he not only played for them, but he was a pretty key piece on those teams when they were winning Stanley Cup.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I would absolutely say he's he's probably the best local hockey player.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there you go.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Tim's not one to disagree with the opinion.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's because my opinions are always right, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I can't disagree with that.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh moving to uh Rastlin.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Good God, somebody think of his children.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wish Jim Ross was from here.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I would have put him on the list.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that would have been cool.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody think of his family, stop the damn match.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: But uh Kurt Angle, um, uh he's background, he grew up in Mount Lebanon.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why he's famous.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: He uh won an Olympic gold in 1996 Atlanta with two fractured cervical vertebrae, and somebody probably should have stopped the damn match.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: But Kurt Angle's like a man, a boy, you know, where the rest of us are not men as much as he has.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he he had to beat a beat a guy from Iran, actually.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you I've watched the match, like the guy from Iran like tries to like cheat and raise up his hand, like have the ref raise up his hand, you know, at the end, because it went to like a decision on the judge's card, but then that's like no curtain one.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: So but it's pretty funny.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and he was somewhat famous for that.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if he would have stopped there, maybe he doesn't make the list, but probably what put him definitely over the top, and this is probably what most people remember her for, is he went on to become a pro wrestler with ECW WWE, blah blah blah blah blah blah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the rest of the wrestling iterations there.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're much more into pro wrestling than I am, Tim.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he's he is in the pro wrestling hall of fame, and uh, one of his obviously somebody you know, John Cena, who's a very famous wrestler, said of Engle's legacy within the WWE.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: He is without question the most gifted all-around performer we have ever had step into a ring.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: There will never be another like him.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So um that's kind of like in your era, you watched still watched wrestling when Kurt Engel was around, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and he was uh he he came in, he came into those like that early 2000s phase when wrestling was kind of having that renaissance when he he was paired up a lot with The Rock.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: The Rock was the the baby face and Kurt Angle was the heel.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: He he was really good at being a heel because his um his stick was that he was this very arrogant, uh like real wrestler.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm a real wrestler, I wrestled in the Olympics, and I'm above all these you know entertainment wrestlers.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I I have this you know high IQ and everything else.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like he was just very arrogant.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I went to a uh Monday Night Raw event in Pittsburgh back then, it was probably 2000, 2001, and he came out and everybody's caring for him, even though he's you know the the the heel, the bad guy, and he tried so hard to work the crowd.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's like on the microphone, he's like, I'm the only good thing that ever came out of this pathetic town, and everybody's like, Yeah, tell us, Kurt, you're right.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean he just no matter what that ended, yeah, he could have said anything, and everybody's like, yeah.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: So he was very uh, you know, his personality and it was funny because uh after the Olympics, I don't know if you remember this, Steve.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: He had a very brief stint where he did the sports on, I want to say like the WPTH, the local Fox affiliate here.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: He did the the sports on their 10 o'clock news cast, and he was terrible.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like he would have to read a teleprompter, he was totally wooden, he had like no inflection in his voice, and you're like, oh man, dude, like I it's cool that you won that gold medal, but entertainment, you know, is not your field.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think he just needed the right, you know, reading a teleprompter on a newscast was not the right fit for him.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: But being a performer in the WWE, he fit very well and and had a lot of success.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's great.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like he should have like started to say like crazy stuff like let's rip down Mayor Calageri, rename Mount Washington Mount Angle, like see how far he can go go with it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I I just I just remember like he just kind of like you could see it in his face too.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, oh my goodness.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he was and he was I think he was actually I mentioned he was paired up with the rock.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's who he was fighting that night.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so the rock was the good guy and he was the bad guy, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's how it worked out.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and and and the rock had a similar um path to that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: The the rock was a heel who everybody loved, and so they kind of had no choice but to make him make him the the the baby face because people just loved him.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and and Kurt Engel, he was he was good as the heel.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: People just loved to hate him, but in Pittsburgh it just didn't work because he was from here, and we like guys that are from here.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's incredible.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh getting to the Pittsburgh connection, and uh that that's funny that you said real wrestler because it's actually in my notes.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that because I don't follow wrestling like you know, you and uh so are other friends too.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, but as a real wrestler, he he finished third in the Pennsylvania State Wrestling Tournament.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know who finished ahead of them, but they must have been a heck of a really good wrestler.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um he went he went to Clarion University, and he's actually an NCAA real wrestling, he's a three-time All-American, and he's a two-time um NCAA national champion.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's a runner-up, the national champion in '91.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's probably three years in a row.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: He was in the final, you know, that's just amazing.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I guess Brock Lesnar is kind of the same kind of route, right?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: But Brock Lesnar, well, they don't do weight class and like fake wrestling, right?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: So they just all wrestle each other, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty much.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think has he ever wrestled Brock Lesnar, you think?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I don't I don't know.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I I quit watching it religiously um around that again, that 2000s era.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I am not up up to current on anything wrestling.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because that would actually be like a real wrestling match.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh boy, these two guys are like real wrestler.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Although Brock Lesnar is way bigger than than Angle.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if they would be allowed, like in you know, because you have to be a certain weight and all that.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's a fun debate.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who would win?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who would win in a wrestling match between Angle and Reznor?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh that's great.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, he seems like a really good guy all around, and you know, I know he struggled with some addiction issues and stuff, but I think he cleaned that up and um he's had a great career, you know.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: What what a what a fun ride it seems like he's had.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um moving back to uh sports where, well, maybe the outcome isn't fixed that we know of.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that would be uh LeVar Arrington.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he was born in Pittsburgh and uh he did go to Penn State.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um why he's famous.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: He um he leapt over an uh offensive line in college against like Illinois to stop a fourth and short play.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that kind of started like that's kind of like become like became his thing, like the LeVar Leap.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that kind of started his like his I think his um charitable organization is called the Leap or something like that, or leaping for charity.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's leaping lizards or something, I don't know, quote any.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I remember uh he blocked a game-winning field goal attempt by Pitt.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was in '96 by leaping.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was after game It was 99.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that game very clearly.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is that 99?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: But that was uh I remember earlier in the game he was covering Latif Grimm, who was a wide receiver, and uh he tipped the ball right to Grimm, and Grimm like blew by him because like Grimm's a wide receiver and LeVar Arrington's a linebacker.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I guess Jerry Sandusky was like distracted or something that day and couldn't figure out to not have him cover, you know, Latif Grimm.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um in 1999, Sports Illustrated had him as a Heisman candidate.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that's even better that he got burned by Latif Grimm while he was a Heisman candidate.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was drafted by the how do we want to handle it?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do we just want to call him the Washington football team?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: They're not gonna be able to get they were called the Redskins back then, so I mean well they're no Cleveland Guardians, that's for sure.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: But uh uh he was drafted by whatever team, whatever you want to call that team that resides in Washington in 2000 with the second pick, and I think that was second pick overall.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was so and he became he became a three-time pro baller, a two-time all he was a two-time All-American, and he was two-time all-team Big Ten.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh unfortunately, he had the work for Danny Snyder, who couldn't find a championship with a flashlight and a map.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: So uh uh the Pittsburgh connection, he played at North Hills and was very good high school player.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like the stories I've heard, like he was a very good running back.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: He had 4,000 rushing yards and 72 touchdowns in high schools.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was an excellent running back in high school.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: He was a Gatorade player of the year.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: He was also USA Today's Pennsylvania player of the year.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's your Pittsburgh connection.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: He was a very good high school player, and the the stories I've heard from about the about him in high school are quite legendary.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So he's one of the few uh Penn State players who I I just really, really liked.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I just liked him a lot at Penn State, and I was rooting for him in the NFL, and you you mentioned that draft.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that he was a second pick because Cleveland had the first pick.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I I just remember just please, please don't pick Arrington to go to the Browns.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: Please don't.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: I just did not want him to go to Cleveland.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and they picked ended up picking his teammate, Courtney Brown, who was a bust because, you know, Cleveland.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and so then he went to Washington at the number two pick.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and and and like you said, he had a he had a pretty good NFL career, but it was just super short.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a five-year career or something, because he he had injuries.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it was kind of a shame he never quite you know lived up to the potential.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: He could have been an all-time great player.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: He just career was cut way short by injury.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I always really liked Lavar.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he's does stuff on like media stuff, and he's he's not bad in the media.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's pretty well, you know, like he's not like Kurt Angle, like today on the sports news.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, he's he's actually pretty, pretty competent sports guy.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So good good for him.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I never liked him, and I know you just said he was a Penn State guy.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I always like Joe Jarovicius, who was on that team much better.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up playing for the Giants, I think.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then Seattle, you did play for Seattle in Super Bowl 40 against the Steelers.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you have that in your that in your uh hat, I guess.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um staying with football, and another guy that's uh actually that is very well decorated and accomplished.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um that would be Ty Law.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was born in Aliquippa, and um why he's famous is he had a great career in Michigan.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: He went to the University of Michigan and uh uh he was unfortunately he was a defensive player that got burned on the Cordell Stewart Hail Mary way back what was that, 91, 94 I don't know.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: 94.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: 94, was it ninety four?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 'cause that was right, that was Cordell senior year, yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um but he was also two time unanimous Big Ten.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was drafted in ninety five in the first round.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: He was the twenty third pick by the Patriots.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um he won he ended up winning three Super Bowls for New England.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: They were all under Belichick because I guess he was picked under Was that Parcell's then?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: 95?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was probably Parcells.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was either Parcells or Pete Carroll, one of those two guys.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he had an interception return for a touchdown in Super Bowl 36.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: That was the first points in the Super Bowl for New England.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he also has five Pro Bowls.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's a two-time NFL interceptions leader.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's in the NFL Hall of Fame as of 2019.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I did they have a class?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: They did not have a class last year, did they?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or did they just they did, but they put it off to this year.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one that's the one Cower and all of them are in.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he has 53 career interceptions in the NFL.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's 24th all time.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: So he had a really great football career, quite honestly.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Hail Mary, uh, not outstanding.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I remember uh Heinz Ward had like eight catches for 100 yards again in that infamous championship game the Steelers lost.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that was they they put Ty Law on Heinz Ward to specifically make Heinz Ward go away, but Heinz Ward still had a pretty effective game.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the game they when uh Belchek came up to Heinz Ward and said, Boy, if you ever get cut or you ever, you know, you ever don't want to play for Pittsburgh anymore, I'll take you in a heartbeat.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: So but anyway, um any uh Tyler.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean he do you think he gets too much hype because he in New England or just the appropriate amount of hype?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or he's I think he was good.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I I honestly do.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think he was I think he was very good.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and to your point about Super Bowl 36, I mean that that that play that he made intercepting that pass really shifted the momentum of that game because then the one had the lead and you know they could play that physical style football.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't trying to come from behind.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he's a good player and you know, Hall of Famer and five Pro Bowls, two great players.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um the Pittsburgh connection, um, Tony Dorset is actually Tylaw's uncle.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I did not know that.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he played football, he played football, basketball, and track in high school, and he was actually the M VP of Aliquippa's basketball team.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: So Aliquippa's one of those like legendary like towns in western Pennsylvania where they're you're just you're just gonna hear that a couple more times throughout this podcast.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: People from Aliquippa tend to do well in the NFL.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So now Tim will definitely recognize this next person.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be Jason Taylor.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he his background was he was uh born in Pittsburgh and he actually played football at Woodland Hills High School.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why he's famous, he was the uh NFL's defensive player of the year for 2006.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: He uh played, I'd say most of his career for Miami.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's I I I think he might have played for somebody else, but mainly for Miami.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2007.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's actually also in the NFL Hall of Fame in 2017.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: He has 139 sacks, which ranks him fourth all-time.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's also the all-time leader in fumble returns for a T D with six, and he's the all-time leader in interceptions by a defensive lineman with three, which is pretty impressive.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, defensive linemen normally don't get that many interceptions, but he was kind of like almost like a basketball player playing football.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the but this is the best part of the the his story, though.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: The Pittsburgh connection is that he played football at Woodland Hills and he had a he had a great college career at Akron, that's really easy.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: But he went to elementary school with one Tim Hannon.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: So as I remember about Jason Taylor, Jason Taylor in like third grade.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as I like to say, Jason Taylor went to elementary school with me.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um no, I I don't I don't remember what much.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: He was um uh in a grade he was a grade or two above me.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: We went to a small school, so like I I knew him and my mom knew his mom and that kind of stuff.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, you know, I I don't remember much at the time, you know, it was just a bunch of kids in in grade school, and it was really only years later that uh you know somebody kind of it was when he started playing in the NFL.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you went to school with that guy, and and uh I was like, oh, I wonder if he'll be any good.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then sure enough, he's a he's a Hall of Famer, so good for him.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Who knew you were like, you know, going to school with an NFL Hall of Famer?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: I can't say that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't go to school with any we did go we did go to school with uh what's her name?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Susie uh Suzy, the chick from the real world.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Meister, yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Susie Meister.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a good thing.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've we've had some brothers.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Look at that.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: You got two you got two famous people, yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Jason Taylor and Susie Meister.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So shout out to Susie if she's listening about it.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um so now that's the list of people we may have forgotten.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure Jason Taylor people didn't realize that him and I know Tylaw, probably everybody knew that, and LeVar Arrington for sure, but definitely like you know, I would say some of those other people definitely they didn't know.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um the University of Pittsburgh guys.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: These are all guys that played at Pitt that became much more famous after Pitt.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll start with probably the most famous person uh from Pitt currently, I would I would say, because I think if you said this name, most people would know it, Aaron Donald.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um he's born in Pittsburgh, and he was actually uh drafted by the St.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Louis Rams uh with the first round 13th pick.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, gee, why is he famous, you might ask?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he was the NFL's defensive rookie of the year 2014.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: He's the NFL defensive player.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: My goodness, really?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize I can't I wrote that it's just to kind of hit me too.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Three times 2017, 18, and 20.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: He's a six-time first team NFL All-Pro, and he's a seven-time pro bowler.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's almost like Mean Joe Green for the St.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Louis slash LA Rams.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty impressive.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Pittsburgh Connection.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he grew up in Penn Hills and he wasn't highly recruited.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I even read somewhere he said he was kind of lazy when he was a kid, so he didn't like to work out and do stuff.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: But um he did he did make first team class quad A in the state, so that's back then it was probably the highest level of call high school college football or of high school football in the state of Pennsylvania.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um his senior year at Pitt is really when he came together because I remember, I mean, he was really kind of a nondescript, just kind of one of those guys, and then the senior year, he just went absolutely off.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: He had a great year.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: He won the Bed Narrick Award, he won the Lombardi Award, and he run as an all-American, and he won the Outland Trophy, which I didn't realize they gave the Outland trophy to defensive linemen, but apparently they do.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: He in his senior year he had 28 tackles for a loss and 11 sacks.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we we'll have many different links throughout this.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: We'll put them up on our website, but um he there's some if you can watch the Georgia Tech game highlights, Georgia Tech runs that option, and he just absolutely defeated the option, they couldn't run it.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't block Aaron Donald, they just wow.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: He he's he's a very good defensive player.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it it all kind of happened his senior year.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure what went on or what happened, but maybe it just took him that long to develop, and you know, the light bulb went off, and he hasn't looked back since, so good for him.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I wish, you know, you think, you know, I don't know, maybe the Steelers weren't drafting high enough, then you know, he you know, I wish they could have drafted him because he would be great on that defense.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Him and Cam Hayward, that'd be pretty awesome.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I I I I remember how good he was that last year at Pitt, and he I he just was so good.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, you know, he definitely deserved to be a number one um first-round draft pick, but I you know, you thought, okay, he's really good.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know that I've ever would have pegged him being literally one of the greatest defensive players in in the history of the NFL.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you talked about three times, Steve.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: You you know who else has won that award three times?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Lawrence Taylor and JJ Watt.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's the list.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I I believe it's like if he I think Paul Amalu only won it once.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's crazy.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Here's guys who won it twice.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: Joe Green, Mike Singletary, Bruce Smith, Ricky White, Ray Lewis.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: They only won it twice.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: So if he wins it, if he wins, and he's he's not anywhere close to the end of his career.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: If he wins it another time, he'll be the only guy in league history to win that award four times.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: I I I mean, he's he's an all-time great already.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I just I don't know.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just he was very good at Pitt.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: I just never would have guessed that.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was just because that's what makes him such a perfect candidate for this list, because I think if you say Aaron Donald, people probably remember that he played at Pitt, you know, because he's had such a great NFL career.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: I I was cleaning out my uh foul cabinet at my house uh a little while ago, and one of the things I had in there was I had uh a little handout that they gave us.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: I went I went to the pits.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um they they used to have like a recruiting event in the winter.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was from the winter of 2010, and they'd have that Dave Wanstead was a coach, and he would get on the stage and he would sort of like talk about all the recruits coming in that year, and they gave you a little handout with a little you know description of all the guys.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I I was looking at this thing and I saw Aaron Donald was on that list, you know, uh listed as being from Verona and played at Penn Hills, and I'd scribbled next to it, because I guess I was taking notes when when Coach Wanstead was talking, uh, that you know he was similar to Mick Williams.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: I guess that was once I must have said at the time.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: He's kind of in the mold of Mick Williams, who had just graduated that year and played at Pitt.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and Mick Williams was a pretty good player at Pitt, but boy.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Donald turned out to be a little bit better than Mick Williams.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Aaron Donald might be one of the best defensive players outside of Hugh Green, or like I can't think of like, you know, nothing.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you have a guy later on this.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have a guy later on this list that was pretty good too.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, uh just what he did in the NFL.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: I again I would have never yeah, I I root for pit guys, and I'm I'm a Homer pitch fan, but I would have never guessed he would literally become one of the greatest, like he could be top ten all-time in league history as far as defensive players.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I mean that's not a good one.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: He really is as good as mean Joe Green.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he he really is.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's already as good as mean Joe Green.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: He is.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um, okay, moving, keeping it going with the pit guys here.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the next guy I kind of slipped up and mentioned his name, uh, Darrell Revis, and uh another guy born in Aliquippa, some in the water there, not sure what's going on.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um he uh his background was he was a uh big-time high school star at Aliquipa.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: He went to Pitt and left after his junior year.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh why he's famous, he was drafted by the New York Football Jets, no, there's it's just the New York Jets in 2007.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: He was a 14th round first he was a first round pick, the 14th pick.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the Jets, they for some reason they're in love with Pitt players, which probably explains why the Jets have sucked for a long time.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, Pitt has a few good players, but geez, come on, you know.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's funny, while negotiating his contract with the Jets, they would fly his mother in to help with the contract negotiations.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: He played for the Jets for like five years.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Revis, he's really good, but like sometimes like guys that play in New York, and there's another guy further on down this list that this definitely more applies to than him.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think sometimes their reputations get inflated.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I I don't know.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um he played for Tampa for like one forgettable year.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even who was that Lovey Smith or I don't even remember who was the coach in Tampa that year.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: But in 2014, they they traded him to the Patriots, and that's when he won Super Bowl 49 with them.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um he had a second stint with the Jets, it was kind of forgettable.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: He made a Pro Bowl in 2015.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's funny, like Woody Johnson accused the uh the Patriots of um what's it called, tampering, but they then Woody Johnson got fined for tampering.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, the Robert Kraft can do whatever he wants, tampered as much he wants, but Woody Johnson not so much, I guess.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um he he ends up with uh 29 interceptions, he's made seven Pro Bowls and had one Super Bowl championship.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's he was uh two-time, first time, first team all big east.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the New York media named him Revis Island, that stinking New York media.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, but Revis Island, because he he was so dominant against wide receivers.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um just quote, like to put Aaron Donald, this even puts Aaron Donald more in perspective because he has those three defensive players of the year, like Darrell Revis never won a defensive player of the year, and uh that one year it was very close, and uh Rex Ryan, who was the coach of the Jets of the Year, said that um he had the most impact corner has ever had in the National Football League.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's my opinion.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, that wasn't how everybody felt.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: A number that I think would be interesting to be eight.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's not the number of amount touchdown passes that Green Bay's, that was Charles Woodson, who was the defensive player of the year, gave up against Arizona.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: That is the number of touchdown passes we gave up all season, and the biggest reason for that is Darrell Revis.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that was Rex Ryan kind of arguing why Darrell Revis and he couldn't even make defensive player of the year once, never mind, three times, so that's kind of crazy.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, on to the old, good old Pittsburgh connection.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he grew up in Aliquippa.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in the class 2A PA state championship game, he scored five TDs in one game, so he's like kind of the original Al Bundy.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: He could say, I scored five touchdowns in one game for good old quips for the good old quips there.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, three were rushing, one was a punt return and a blocked field goal return for a touchdown.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, of course, Al Quimpo went on to win a state title in that game, and he went to Pitt and he started as a freshman.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he was not just starting, he was really good as a freshman.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: That freshman year, he had a game against Boston College where he tackled a guy on fourth and goal to come up short and preserve Pitt's lead at that point.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: So in his junior year, we'll definitely have to link to this.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: He had a he had a spectacular punt return for a touchdown against West Virginia.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you watch it carefully, you see Pat McAfee, who's like kind of become like an internet, you know, he does a lot of podcasting.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: He you see him miss a tackle on there, but that's an amazing, amazing punt return.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he he was he was another guy that was so good at pit.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember his his junior year, the last year at Pitt was was 2006, which was a um a very mediocre pit team.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: And and I would I had season tickets that year, and I would sit at the game.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: I remember the game against Virginia specifically.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my brother and I were sitting there, it was a it was a boring, kind of low-scoring game.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: And whenever Virginia had the ball, we wouldn't watch the ball.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: We would just watch Rivas, and we'd watch him cover whoever the Virginia receiver was on the on the uh left side of the field.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the whole first half, Virginia never once throws in that direction, just never once.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, in the third quarter, they're just like, you know what?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: Forget this.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: How good can this guy really be?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: So they finally throw to that side of the field.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I'm watching Revis the whole time.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: And Revis jumps in front and gets a pick pick six.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I was like, man, this guy is just unbelievably talented.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and when he got drafted, um I I'm 99% sure of this, I'd have to look it up.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I I believe the Jets traded up to get him.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I believe it was a pick or two ahead of where the Steelers were drafting that year.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the Steelers ended up with Lawrence Timmins, who was a who was a really good player, but they needed a cornerback at the time, and there was a good chance they could have drafted him.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that always stung.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: I I just you know, and again, it wasn't that they they just didn't have an IF pick, it was that the Jets traded up in front of them.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: That would have been, yeah.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but I guarantee you he doesn't he plays in Pittsburgh, he doesn't have the hype that he has now, and he's definitely gonna be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, right?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when did he last play?
• 38:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: 2017, 2016.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm surprised he's not in already.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because how long do you have to wait?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Four years, five years?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure, but he definitely belongs in the uh it's gonna be the next year or two, I would guarantee you he's gonna be in the hall of fame.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, he he's an all-time great and uh yeah, very, very good.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I just looked it up, yes.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: The the Jets traded the Carolina had the 14th pick, Stewart's had the 15th pick, and the Jets traded off to get Carolina's pick at number 14 and took Revis right before Timmins.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I I don't know that the Stewarters would have taken him, but there was a lot of scuttle butt that the Steelers were interested in, and the Jets literally traded up and stole him away, so that that always stung.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh skipping in the theme of people from Alequippa, uh the next next guy from Pitt is uh Mike Ditka.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I now there's another one of those guys.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you said Mike Ditka, people probably would say coach of the Chicago Bears, not a Pitt player.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he fits perfectly into this conversation.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was born in Carnegie and he grew up in Aliquippa.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh why he's famous, he was drafted by the Bears in the first round, fifth overall.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: He played on, I didn't write he played on the 1963 Chicago Bears Championship team.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: I did not know that.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he did I did know this.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: He caught a TD pass in a Super Bowl win for the Cowboys in Super Bowl six.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: He uh coached the Bears to a 15-1 record in one Super Bowl 20 in that famous blowout over the New England Patriots with you know that great Super Bowl shuffle defense of the 85 Bears.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um he also that year had a fist fight with Buddy Ryan in the locker room, or yeah, it was in the shower of halftime of the Miami game, which was the early loss of the game to another pit guy.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you might say, Oh, what's the Pittsburgh connection?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he went to Pitt, and at Pitt, this is like 1960s, so they did not throw the ball a lot.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: He led Pitt in receptions, and he was an all-American at Pitt as a two-way end.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: So he played both defense and offense in like the early 60s.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he is uh like he he's also in both the college and pro football hall of fame.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's I mean, that's pretty impressive.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's but that's like two, like we just started the pit guys, and that's probably like th like Darrell Reeves and what's his name are probably both gonna be a Hall of Fame, and so there's another guy that isn't a Hall of Fame.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: So Pitt's gonna have more people going to the Hall of Fame pretty soon here.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: At least the pro one.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that that's crazy.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he of course famously traded all the Saints draft picks for Ricky Williams when he was between the scenes.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not a good moment for and then some of his interviews, like I remember the one time like next, they were like they're like, What do you think your defense?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's thanks.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Next question.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like I remember him doing like one of his post-game interviews like that.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he could be a little prickly at times, but yo, he's from uh Pittsburgh, Alequopa Guy, so he's gonna be a little prickly.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: But uh Yeah, and to your point, uh Pitts Pitt's something like fourth or fifth on the list all time of um colleges with Hall of Fame NFL players.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're third.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're third.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're right behind Notre Dame and USC.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: They're third.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and they they're gonna they're only gonna get more.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're only gonna get more.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well well, they'll have three more, they'll have three more guaranteed.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: They'll have Fitzgerald, Donald, and Rivas.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Shady McCoy probably is not gonna make it.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but but definitely they'll have three more here coming up soon.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which kind of like makes you scratch your head.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't they have more national championships?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a subject for another podcast.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know why they don't have more national championships.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: We already did a whole podcast about the the tragic losses that they always seem to to find.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um sticking with our pit guys, uh next, one of my favorite, like just football players and just people in general is um Curtis Martin.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um the background uh he grew up in Pittsburgh.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: He lived in Point Breeze for his high school years.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: He went to Autornace.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: He went to Alternates, he had a great career and he played for some pretty bad put teams.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: He literally is only the only good player they had.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um he had a great junior year with a thousand seventy-five yards and twenty touchdowns.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um he had that great game against Texas.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Were you at that?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was at that Texas game.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: Were you at the Texas game where he had two hundred and fifty one yards rushing?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was not.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, he got hurt the next yeah, yeah, he got hurt the next week and he didn't play the rest of that was his senior or junior year.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Johnny Majors tried to talk him into staying, but he just went against that and went.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was drafted by the third round by Bill Parcellus.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: He had a hundred yards rushing in a game against Cleveland, and I remember after the game, Bill Parcell called him a one-game wonder.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think Bill Parcells is probably the best thing that ever happened to Curtis Martin and why Curtis Martin's in the NFL Hall of Fame because he needed that guy to kind of like you know bring him down to earth and you know keep him working hard.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's he pro and I think he said that in like you know interviews that like he's really grateful to Bill Parcells.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: He won offensive rookie of the year that season and made the Pro Bowl.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: In 1997, um he did go to the Jets and had an outstanding career retiring in 2007.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: He only played in one Super Bowl and the Patriots lost that one to Green Bay.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um he did finish his career with 14,100 one yards rushing.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: He had also 90 touchdowns, and that was it, those are the I think the yards rushing was the fifth highest total in NFL history when he retired.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's a five-time pro bowler.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: He um led the league in rushing in 2004, um, which is impressive because what he had been in the league almost 10 years.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: So he had he had just had like a steady, good career.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um he had a great junior year at Pitt, that thousand seventy-five yards and twenty touchdowns.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, Martin famously wrote a letter to Coach Majors later saying they should have listened to him.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a cool video with all kinds of great Curtis Martin highlights we'll we'll have to post too.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um here we go, Tim.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: Here I ranked I ranked the most successful pit guys.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um Aaron Donald, Mike, and this is in order like from I think the best to the to not to the you know, this is like pick it among your kids.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna go wrong with any of these guys.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Donald, Mike Ditka, Darrell Reeves, Curtis Martin.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I didn't pick Tony Dorset, who's probably better in both college and the pros than some of these guys, but that's just because he I think he won the Heisman, so I think he was already famous.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like people probably know that he played at Pitt more than a lot of these other guys would remember that.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: And there's also another person left off.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Any argument with any of those uh people, higher, lower?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: There is one person I left off, but that's for cover him in the next section.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, I uh all four of those guys were great.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and Cardis Martin, to your point, uh, you know, you and I, we talked about this in a previous episode, I think, but you and I sat in so many through so many games at Pit Stadium in the mid-90s where it was like opposing team uh 42 pit seven in the third quarter, right?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like literally, and I'm not I'm not exaggerating, go look at the scores from some of those years.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I am not exaggerating when I say that.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the only reason that we stuck around to to the third quarter or the fourth quarter was just to watch Curtis Martin run the ball.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because he was he was so good on such a terrible, awful team.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so yeah, I I love Curtis Martin.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and him winning the rushing title in his 30s, he he also that year, Steve, had a partially torn MCL.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: He he for most of the season, and he won the rushing title.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: So you're right.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: He was the the way he was able to do that uh all through his career for a running back running backs, usually have their you know really good four or five seasons at the beginning of their career, and then you know, they break down and and he just had unbelievable staying power.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he he kind of did it like five yards at a time, too, because I think he lost.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: He was always kind of like he was kind of like one of those tweener bats, like he was big enough to take on the defensive axe, but he was shifty enough to get away from the from the defensive linemen and linebackers.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he could he always seemed like that's why maybe it was that Parcell's influence, he'd always get like four yards, four yards, four yards, you know.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not a lot of explosive plays, especially later in his career, but he did four or five yards like every time, and you get that, you're gonna get first downs, and that's the name of the game in football.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: You get in first downs.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um, the guy obviously you're gonna say, Hey Steve, you know, of all the pit guys, there's this one guy they really had that was really good.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, why is Dan Marino not on the list?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's because he's in the next session.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Ha, eat that.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so now we move into the uh the the most maybe the most celebrated part of our list, and this will be Western Pennsylvania quarterbacks.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll just start right off with Dan Marino since I kind of you know went that.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um his background, he was born in Pittsburgh, he went to Central Catholic.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, why was he famous?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he was drafted by the Dolphins in 1983, he was a uh 27th pick.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was behind like Todd Blackledge, which kind of stung, but even that O'Brien guy who they the Jets picked ahead of him didn't have a bad NFL career.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: It just there was just some stuff going on.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: I guess there was a lot of rumors and stuff about what he was doing.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: He was you know, maybe having some substance abuse problems, but whatever.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't think you go to Miami in the 80s and have all that success and do a bunch of drugs.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I I don't know.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just crazy.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was uh only rookie to ever lead a conference in passing his rookie year.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: He threw 80 he threw 48 touchdowns in one season, and that was finally broken by uh Peyton Manning years later, and then I guess Tom Brady broke that a couple years after that.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um he had uh here you go, Tim.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a memory for you.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: He had 420 yards passing and four touchdowns in the AFC Championship game in 1984.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: What do we call it?
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: The Harvey the Toast Clayton game.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, uh yeah, he torched the Steelers pretty good in that game.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was a five-time NFL passing leader, a nine-time Pro Bowler, a three-time NFL touchdown leader.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: He retired with 61,361 yards, 420 touchdowns to 252 interceptions.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Those 420 touchdowns still rank him sixth all time, and he did these awesome isotoner glove commercials, which you'll just have to watch.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he did some pop commercials with uh another quarterback that'll be on our list, and he was pretty cool in ace Ventura pet detective.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: But that's kind of yeah.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Pittsburgh connection, obviously he grew up in he was born in Pittsburgh, grew up in South Oakland.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: He literally was living in the shadow of like you know, the cathedral, so he stayed home and went to Pitt.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he had a great career at Pitt.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: He is probably the biggest highlight is he led them to a last-minute win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um Pitt had three straight 11-1 seasons under Merino.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for his career, it's kind of he threw 79 touchdowns and threw 69 interceptions, so that's a lot more interceptions than you would probably want.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he really threw um, I guess 23 touchdowns a year his senior, his junior senior year.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's kind of like is he do you think he's still the top five NFL quarterback, Stim?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you do the list now, like with all the other guys that come along.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard because he didn't he never won anything.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he never won anything a pit either.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like he he just it's amazing that he never won a championship at either place when he was so talented.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't I wouldn't argue with putting him in the top five.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: He was super, super good, but I think that's just a strike against him that he never won anything.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that team he played in San Francisco with against another quarterback, Ben Arles later, um, is yeah, that that San Francisco team was really good.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Miami really wasn't.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they they were good, but they just weren't on the same level as that San Francisco 49ers team in what was that, 1984, 83?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: But but in that era, in that era, the AFC team always got killed in the Super Bowl, but you had other guys that that made the Super Bowl multiple times, like Elway and Kelly, and Marino, that was it.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: His second year he made the Super Bowl, and then he played 15 more years and he never made it back.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: And they were always good.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: The Dolphins were always a playoff team or close to it, and they just never, just never, I don't know.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: So so again, it's a strike against them, and you could go into the ins and outs of you know who was around him and all that kind of stuff, but uh, but ultimately the quarterback's the most important position, and I just again it's just a strike against him that he never won anything.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like Elway was the greatest Broncos team ever, you know.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they had a lot of pretty not mediocre defenses on that team.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um move sticking with Western Pennsylvania quarterbacks, uh, the next guy is Joe Namus.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the background was he um he played college football for Bear Bryant in Alabama.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: He won the next 1964 national championship there.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was recruited to Alabama by the legendary uh mustachioed Howard Schnellenberger.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever seen that guy, he has a heck of a mustache.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was drafted by the Jets first overall in the NFL St.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Louis football cardinals, which is weird.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, he was drafted by an AF AFL and an NFL team.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's going on there.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the Jets gave him more money and he decided, well, I'm gonna go play for the AFL Jets after and and the Jets let him play in the Orange Bowl because he wanted to play in the Orange Bowl for Alabama.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: So why is Joe Namath famous?
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, probably the main reason I probably have stopped right here with this, with these two lines, was he led to the Jets to an upset of the Baltimore Colts 16 to 7 in Super Bowl three, and he made a guarantee about it.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of like and he played New York.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's probably the three reasons why Joe Namath is so famous.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because let's get into the stats, and this is like I've heard this a lot about Joe Namath, and you know, maybe it's fair, maybe it's unfair.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: The guy won a Super Bowl when he wasn't supposed to and had a pretty decent career.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what do you want?
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he had a lot of injuries, too.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he has 137 touchdowns and 220 interceptions in the NFL, so that's very Terry Bradshaw-esque.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: He has 27,663 yards passing, but they didn't throw the ball as much, even though the AFL did throw the ball more than the NFL.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you can throw all that in there.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: He did lead the AFL in passing in 1966 and 1967.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um legendary uh Alabama coach Bear Bryant did call him the greatest athlete I've ever coached.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, Bear Bryant thought he was really good.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, off the Super Bowl win, that's really he became like this pop cultural icon, and the New York media really hyped him.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think if he played anywhere else, he would have been like Dan Fouts or Dan Pastorini, you know, because he probably like had a kind of career like those guys had.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um for some reason he was considered a hippie because of his sideburns.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's a great Simpsons clip of of like, you know, Abe like his wife like falls in love with like with uh Joe Namath because of those darn sideburns.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um he also did this awesome pantyhose commercial, which is just odd for the 70s or 60s, whenever that was.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1965.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: He starred in a bunch of movies, including the and not limited to.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: I did not list all his roles here.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: These are just the ones I thought were interesting or and or funny.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: He was in the Brady Bunch, the Love Boat, Alf, the A-Team, Married with Children, and The Simpsons twice.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's not that uh that reference.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um those clips like with Joe Namath on the love on the love boat, and then uh him uh I have a clip too of Joe Namath throwing a touchdown pass to Bobby Brady when he was in the nice.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: So he he definitely parlayed Super Bowl three into like a nice little uh pop culture thing.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, this is not including the I want to kiss you, but I mean that's just Joe, you know.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: How many times do you think that worked for Joe over the years, just like being in wherever and like you know, saying that to, you know, and they totally fell for it.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I I never so when I was a kid, I used to despise Joe Namath because he he just I thought he was so worshipped and he, you know, and it was so overrated.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_02: I thought he was so overrated.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: When the NFL had their 75th season in '94, I think, they did like an all-time team and they picked four quarterbacks, and he was one of the four quarterbacks.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, really?
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's one of the greatest, four greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_02: Are you kidding me?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: 1994?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know about that.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I think the narrative has definitely changed since then.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like you you said you hear a lot about the interception to touchdown ratio.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_02: I the narrative has has for sure softened because I think what happened is you know, he he had the perfect cross-section of being in New York, being, you know, part of that count counterculture kind of phenomenon that was happening in the 60s, right?
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: He was he was part of that.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: He was anti-establishment, and people, people, especially young people of that generation really latched onto it.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then they all became you know sports writers or whatever later.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so that got a lot of mileage off of that.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think once that kind of wore off for people and they could actually look at his career instead of you know a guy that they worshipped as being like, yeah, down with the establishment, uh, you know, then it was then it was more a little more clear that you know his career was, like you said, very like Dan Phelps, like definitely a good player, probably a Hall of Famer, but definitely not top four in NFL history or anything close to that.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he did he did win that Super Bowl, you know, that was big because the the AFL was a nothing league.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's no way they were going to compete with the NFL.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and so that was a milestone moment in league history because it really um you know you know made it where that those AFL teams were taken seriously for years to come.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: So so not it wasn't it wasn't nothing.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: That was an important moment, but I I just always thought his his fame and and why he was so good was overflown for those reasons.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to disagree with you on the AFL being in nothing nothing league since the AFC, which the was derived from the AFL, won what, seven of the next ten Super Bowls or something insane.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying I'm not saying it was nothing.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: I realized four I realized four of them were by some team in Pittsburgh, but you know, Kansas City did win one and the Jets won one and Miami won two, England won one.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, and the ra yeah, so I I'm saying that was the perception.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying that was the perception at the time was that the AFL was a nothing league and they had no business competing you know with the NFL and they stayed this little AFL NFL game every year, but it was a waste of time because the the whoever won the NFL championship game, that was the real the real best team in football.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and then the Jets came in and and and really dominated the course in that game.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: So um again, can't take anything away for that, but yeah, Joe Joe Namus overrated.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then he he was also an announcer when I was a kid, and he was always on like the you know, like the the the F team, like the the whatever, like you know, they always have like eight pairs of announcers, and he was always like the guy at the bottom.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so back then, because the steel work stuff he's the iron eagle, yeah, yes, yeah, exactly.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so he would always announce Steel War games, and he, you know, he'd he'd he was terrible.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: He'd forget he wouldn't know anybody's name, he would call guys by their number.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: And even when I was a kid, I was like, wow, this guy doesn't even doesn't even know the names, and he just co-stared.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: Literally, I'm not kidding.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's what he would do.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, so yeah, I just I was never a journalist fan, but again, uh the Super Bowl III, it was a big moment.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: Way over, way overrated still, but you know, can't take it away from him.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as for the Pittsburgh connection, he did grow up in Beaver Falls and he was a great basketball and baseball player.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: He won a Whippy Hill championship at Beaver Falls in football.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: His team went 9-0.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: That was in class two, whoever that was in the 60s or 50s, I guess they would have been the 50s even.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he had offered to play baseball for the Pirates, but um good old Broadway Joe.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of his teammates in Alabama actually gave him that nickname when he was on the cover Sports Illustrated.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: So um staying with uh the Western Pennsylvania quarterbacks here.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Next guy, Jim Kelly.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: He was uh born in Pittsburgh, raised in East Brady.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, why is he famous?
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: He was a 1983 first-round draft pick, 14th, so he was ahead of Dan Marino in that infamous draft.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was one of the six quarterbacks taken in that draft.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Todd Blackledge and Tony Eason were taken before him, and Dan Marino.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god, wow.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Who screwed that draft up?
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: The Patriots and the Jets, apparently.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, that was Kansas City.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: Todd Blackledge.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh Blackledge.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, Tony.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: O'Brien, O'Brien, I get like O'Brien had a respectable NFL.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: He's not Dan Marino or even Jim Kelly, but he did have a respectable NFL career.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Tony actually and Tony Eason were a joke, okay?
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Tony Eason.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: If they were a fourth or fifth round pick, you're like, okay, well, you took a flyer, they didn't work out.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: In the first round, come on.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: Tony Eason did take the Patriots to a Super Bowl.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he promptly went like 0 for 10 and got pulled in the second quarter, but that's all right.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: He did get them to a Super Bowl.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: So he's got that on a Grogan.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't they have Grogan?
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: They end up playing Grogan the rest of the game, didn't he?
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or was that Steve?
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: It was like 100 years old at the time, but that was the 85 Bears.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you could have put uh you know, you could have put Tom Brady in his prime in in that game, and it would have still been a pretty uphill climb.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so he's another guy.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of pulled a uh Joe Namath.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: He he played for the USFL and Donald Trump for Houston for two years because he didn't want to play in Buffalo.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: I guess he played you know enough enough cold weather.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um he actually played in um he was uh he went to Miami, the University of Miami, because he didn't want to play in the cold either.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's another, we'll get into that later.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into a more of his pro stat.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: Five-time pro ball bowler.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: He had 237 touchdowns and 175 interceptions, was pretty decent.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, 35,000 passing yards.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, NFL passing year passing leader in 1990, a passing TD leader in 91.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: He has four consecutive Super Bowl appearances, and they developed the no-huddle offense or the K gun around him.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: And in 2002, he's in the NFL Hall of Fame.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is unbelievable.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, how many guys is that now?
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: Are we up to three?
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: All all these guys, yeah.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: All three of these guys are in the Hall of Fame.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's unreal.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is unreal, Tim.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's just unreal.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the Pittsburgh connection was he was born in Pittsburgh, he's raised in East Brady.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: I remember my sister would go to some camp up in Rheimersburg, and we'd have to drive through East Brady and they have like a big sign on the edge of town and be like, Jim Kelly.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that was back in like the 90s.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: He'd be like, Jim Kelly, quarterback for the Bills.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they were they're really proud of him.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he played at East Brady High School, they threw 44 touchdowns.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: He he threw 44 touchdowns and one in one interception.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: He threw one interception in high school.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's sick.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: He turned down an offer to play at Penn State for Joe Paterno because uh Paterno wanted him to play linebacker, and Jim was like, no, I'm playing quarterback and I want to go somewhere.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's warm.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, Howard Schnellenberger sneaks into western Pennsylvania and steals a quarterback right out from Pitt and Penn State's noses.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that kind of sucks because uh boy, they could uh well no, that was the same time as Merino, so Pitt couldn't have used them.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess Jim Kelly had to go somewhere else.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um he led Miami to two upsets of Penn State, so that really came back to bite the old uh Joe Paternos there.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: So um a real really good player, generally good guy.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just um they got unfortunate.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: They they lost four.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't think anybody's ever gonna go to four Super Bowls in a row.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't think that's ever gonna happen.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean good good for him.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he he's a good cornerback, he really is.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: He really is, Tim.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: I what do you would any uh memories of uh Jim Kelly there?
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: I I was a big Kim Kelly fan.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I rooted for Buffalo in all four of those games.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I really liked that team, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reid and all those guys.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I just it was a good team, and I it was a shame they did not win one.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I really hope but like I mean I don't think you know just go I always get sucked in.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: My dad always got sucked in by the Saints.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: I always get sucked in by Buffalo.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: I like even this last year when they lost to who they lose is Kansas City.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was like in the championship game, yeah.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I really like that quarterback that Alan he's developed nicely.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: He reminds me of Terry Bradshaw.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that team has a legit shot at the Super Bowl, but um yeah, it'd be nice, like and they haven't won a championship since nineteen sixty six, I think, or nineteen sixty eight.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: I it one of the I mean, yeah, I I think it's sixty six the AFL championship.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, if anybody probably deserves one there, it's it's the long suffering fans of Buffalo and who who is the uh Tim Russser in.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: He was always the guy on Meet the Prey.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: He was always a huge Buffalo fan.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: Got disappointed four years in a row.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: So but uh you know, he was Jim Kelly, great player.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, that's tic-tac.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is that three in a row?
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: Are we up to three?
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're gonna keep the streak going here with the next guy.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Johnny Unitis.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you heard of him.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_01: Probably.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um his background, he tried out for Notre Dame, but coach Frank Leahy said he was too skinny and would get killed out there.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: He actually went to Louisville and he kind of had an up and down career there.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: He was heard a senior year and didn't play very much.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the Steelers did draft him in the ninth round.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just for perspective, there's only seven rounds now.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was, of course, infamously cut by Steelers coach Walt Keysling.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not who were the do you know who the quarterbacks they kept in instead of him?
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: Does it even matter?
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: It really doesn't.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they didn't want the water boy.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't want to develop rookies.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that was really the that was really the thing.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: They just they wanted to go with veteran players.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: So they cut one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that there's a story by Dan Rooney about after they cut him, like driving down West Liberty Avenue and they ran in to Johnny and Idis, like, you know, in a car, and they're like, and his dad, like the chief, was real nice, like, oh, I hope it works out for you, you know, because the chief's a really nice guy and he's not like a jerk, you know.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Keisling was in the back seat, I guess, in the car with Dan, the chief, and he's just like sinking down, you're like, uh-oh, like, don't see me, don't see me, you know.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_01: But wow, that had to be uncomfortable.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so he goes for a year after getting cut.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: He actually worked construction in Pittsburgh, and he played for a semi-pro football team for six dollars a game, which I imagine that was the 50s.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that was a lot of money back then.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_01: My grandfather used to tell me he made fifty dollars a week, so I don't know.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a lot of money back then?
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for his first pass as a starter was an interception that got returned for a touchdown by the Bears.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: He'd always say that was his first touchdown, even though he started a game.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't start playing the game before that.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: But um let's go on to the why is uh Johnny United's famous.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Johnny United is famous because he started a a streak of 47 games with a touchdown, and it's still the fourth in league history behind Peyton Manning with 51 and Tom Brady with 52 and Drew Brees with 54.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a long time ago.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: In the NFL 1958 championship game, this is more like what he's famous for.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is considered the game that kind of put NFL football on the map.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: He drove the Colts down the field against the Giants to tie the game, and then he led the game-winning TD in overtime for the championship game.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's still one of the greatest games in NFL history.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely uh thrust the NFL into the limelight.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he won the NFL championship the next year.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: He did win, he did end up getting a Super Bowl ring with the Colts.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: He won Super Bowl five.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: He was hurt that game, like I think him and um I think Morrill.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: Morrill was still on that Super Bowl five team, right?
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they were still going back and forth.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was the leftovers from Super Bowl three that that finally got a Super Bowl win.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um he finished his career with 40,000 passing yards and 290 touchdowns.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just for comparison, Drew Brees has 80,000 passing yards and 571 touchdowns.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Brady has 79, and 581.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_01: So they have a lot more, but they passed the ball more than.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you figure they didn't pass the ball.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: The pass interference rules were different, the field stunk.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you know, training went wasn't what it is now.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: But Johnny Unitis was disjusted in really good.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what makes him like just I think this almost like I should almost put this in the Pittsburgh connection because this is such a Pittsburgh guy thing to do.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is so Pittsburgh.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, just to finish up, United was a Super Bowl champion, NFL champion twice, three time NFL MVP, and he led the league in passing four times.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's just a really good quarterback.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um when the Colts moved to Indy when the um who's the current or uh goofball owners of that goofball of that franchise?
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Ursey's uh yeah, it was Ursay's father.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was Ursey's father who moved the team because Rosenblum had moved on to own the Rams, I think, by that point.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I he he asked he asked the Colts to uh he asked actually in the NFL Hall of Fame to only display his memory because I guess he had already been inducted in the Hall of Fame by because when the Colts moved in what '83, the early eighties, um only as playing for Baltimore in the Hall of Fame, just like nope, they wouldn't do it.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's like, I never played for Indianapolis.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when Indianapolis would have reunions, he wouldn't go.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like they like, why would the Ursays do that?
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, let's celebrate Super Bowl V, which was in Baltimore.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I don't know who can understand what the Ursays do or don't do.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the Pittsburgh connection, um, he he grew up in Mount Washington and he wanted to play a pit.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Johnny United really wanted to play a pit, but he could never pass the entrance exam.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he that's why he had to go to Louisville.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um the Steelers did draft him in the ninth round.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um he would he had that cut, he was cut by them.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know what?
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_01: He just was uh general, like he had to play for Pittsburgh, that's the whole Pittsburgh connection.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Play in those years in those uh pro semi pro teams for all that little bit of money before he actually went to he went to the Colts, the Baltimore Colts, and caught on with them.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So um pretty impressive, like Rags the Rich.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a Kurt Warner kind of story for him before Kurt Warner.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Actually they're making Kurt Warner movie.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you heard that too.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I saw the trailer, yeah.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um he died um a couple years ago, Johnny Unitis, but he's still one of the still probably one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hard to argue with that one.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Any any anything you remember?
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I remember your dad telling me he saw Unidas play like in like with San Diego, like when the Steelers defense was good and they were like trying not to hurt Johnny Unitis, like like normally, like I guess the the defensive players like Joe Green and them would just totally plow quarterbacks.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was like they're kind of gently placing him on the ground.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they were they were kind of picking him up too, like trying to help him get up.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_02: That was at the very end of his career and uh in the 70s when the the Stewart said the good defense and the Chargers were kind of a joke of a franchise.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_02: He he talks about that HBO did a documentary on him on him when he was still living, and he talked about that season just he was so out of place, and um he walked into a room and uh all the guys were smoking weed, and they asked him to, you know, hey, come join us, and he's like, uh, I think I'm in the wrong room, guys.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like he was just super out of place in that culture so you know in Southern California in the 70s.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, so it's it's it was kind of a a little bit of a sad end to his career, but I mean it didn't really overshadow uh all the stuff he did.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: So uh going on to our next, what is this, our fifth hall of famer?
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Are we a fifth hall of fame quarterback here, Tim?
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and this is our last but not least here.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I've saved the best for last here.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_01: That would be one Joe Montana.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And when I started researching this, I did not realize how good Joe Montana was.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I I always knew he was really good, but it's pretty hard to argue that Joe Montana isn't really good.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be impressed, here.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_01: So he went to Notre Dame in 1974 and he won a championship with the Fighting Irish in 1977.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: He, of course, played in the infamous chicken soup game where he had a comeback win against Houston while playing sick with the flu.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I guess he ate some chicken soup at halftime and they said, Oh, it's a miracle cure.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in 1979, he was drafted by the 49ers in the third round with the 82nd pick.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so why is this Montana guy so famous?
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's not Tony Montana, he's Joe Montana.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in the NFC championship game, he threw a pass to Dwight Clark, the catch.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of started the 49ers dynasty in the in the 80s.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: He had a great comeback to Dallas Defenders said, You just defeated America's team.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Montana was like, Well, you and the rest of America and watch us play the Super Bowl.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, get him, Joe.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's just the kind of guy Joe is.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's kind of well, he's more laid back and cool.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_01: He just has like a real steady demeanor.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So he's like a good guy.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're down like a couple points, you kind of want like that calm guy that's kind of confident.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he led a comeback in uh Super Bowl 23 against Cincinnati and Dick LeBeau's defense.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_01: He completed eight for nine passes on that final drive of that game, the game-winning TD to John Taylor, the one receiver 49ers.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the best part is before leading that comeback in the Super Bowl, he was like, Oh, look, there's John Candy sitting in the stand, uh sitting in the stands.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_01: He was just like, like, just like, oh yeah, just checking on the stand, like, oh yeah, you're not worried about the Super Bowl or you know, being down a couple points at the end of the game.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, Joe's got it under control.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um he just that's why they they he had the nickname Joan Cool.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_01: He was always so calm under pressure.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is this is this is where it gets a little wild here.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, are you ready for some Joe Montana stats?
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I only picked no, I did pick some like career stats, but his playoff and postseason stats are unreal.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: So he had four Super Bowl wins and no losses.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's only one other person can say that, and that's Terry Bradshaw.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he threw 11 touchdowns and no interceptions.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Terry Bradshaw can't say that one, and he threw for over a thousand one hundred-two yards.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I no interceptions in I think that's just the I don't know if I think that might just be the Super Bowl.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Not even Tom Brady can say that.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um for his career, he had 273 touchdowns and 40,000 passing yards, which you know, I know those other guys are up over 80,000 passing yards, but different game, different rules.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, definitely one of the top four quarterbacks of all time.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think he gets a little overshadowed.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I it's hard to believe.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought Joe Montana would kind of like, you know, it was always like the argument.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I don't know, like let's say that for the day.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'll save it for the end.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have some highlights of Joe Montana eclips, and I also have a great interview with him and Rich Eisen where he tells the John Candy story probably better than I did.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the Pittsburgh connection was he he grew up in Mongahala.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_01: He played at Ring Gold, which is down in the Finleville area in Washington County, and uh I guess he had a great game against Manesson.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_01: He threw three touchdowns and 233 yards passing.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Ring Gold Stadium is uh named after him.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_01: He also has some bridges.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_01: If you ever go on PA 43, uh that highway, uh there's some bridges on there that are named after him.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously the people you know in Ringold and stuff.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um he's is he the greatest quarterback of all time, Tim still?
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I don't know.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I I think you can make the argument.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I think Brady, I mean, it's it's really hard to say Brady's not after seven Super Bowls, including one at you know at last year when he's 45.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it's uh it's hard to not say Brady, but I mean if you're if you're gonna do a top three, there's no doubt he's in the top three.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, it again that's another guy I was a big fan of when he played, and his contemporaries were you know the the Marino, Warren Moon, Boomer's Eisen, uh you know, the the the great really great quarterbacks then, but yeah, Lway, you know, but but guys that didn't again if you if you were down in in the final minutes of a of a clutch game, Montana was your guy.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And and the John Candy story, I mean that's that's referenced to this day.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Ben Ben Rothesberger talked about that whenever you know he was in that moment in the Super Bowl and he said, I wish I had a John Candy story, but I don't.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, and and that was Joe Montana.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_02: He was he was the greatest.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was fun watching him play.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad I got to watch him play.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and you know, it it's a shame his career was really cut short because of the injury that that he suffered in that uh playoff game against the Giants, uh, or else you know they were on their way to a third Super Bowl in that game.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um, boy, he could have done more.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_02: He really could have done more and and maybe would have had similar numbers to what Brady has.
• 1:18:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so now that leads us to uh that's just the greatest.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Who is the greatest Western Pennsylvania quarterback of all time here, Tim?
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_01: We got and I I I listed this as this is how I went with it.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I win Montana, Unitus, Merino, Kelly, and then Namath.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Any any arguments on that there?
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, I would have I would have done it honestly in the exact same order.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they would have put Namath at seventh if I could have.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if anybody we put like Bill Stahl ahead of him or Tyler Palco.
• 1:19:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'll put Tyler Palco at sixth and Namath at seventh.
• 1:19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Rod Rutherford.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Tyler Palco started for the KB City Chiefs, so you know, there's that.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Carrie Collins.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think Carrie Collins is born in Western Pennsylvania, was he?
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where Kerry Collins is from.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that'd be the only guy I could really even think of.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_01: He played for Fenn State, but I don't I don't know.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he's he's from Scranton, so he doesn't count.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, that's a Thunder Mifflin, I guess.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I think that's a good order.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think that makes sense.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, uh again, if you're talking about that top three of all time, if if you would say Unitis Montana Brady, I wouldn't argue with that.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're really going across eras.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you could you could definitely make the argument that United and Montana are are two of the top three of all time.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then Merino, I think, was a little better than Kelly.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Both of those guys, you know, had the again had that slate against them of not winning a Super Bowl, and then Namath just as I reset I thought was overrated.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how do you leave out like Bradshaw though?
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the guy won four Super Bowls.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know he threw a lot of interceptions, but I I don't know.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't put him in the middle of the bigger one.
• 1:20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And even Ben, I I don't know.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_01: If I had two minutes to go in a Super Bowl, and I've said this before, if if I'm not allowed to take Ben, who I would be my first pick, and you say, okay, you're not allowed to take Ben, you've got to take somebody else.
• 1:21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I still, and this is gonna totally I'm off the board with this pick because I've always said this about this guy.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Give me Eli Manning.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_01: I take Eli Manning over Peyton Manning.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not even putting Peyton Manning in your topping top five there.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_01: So like give me Eli with two minutes to go at the end of the game because Eli, he just he has like that that like Joe Montana like kind of attitude.
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like he might have thrown five interceptions.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of has like Bradshaw has that too.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like that five, like, ah, whatever.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just go out here and just ding ding ding ding ding.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, look at that.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I found flexible purse in the end zone.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, look at that.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I found David Tyree on a miracle path.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he did it twice, Mario Manningham in that other Super Bowl.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm a big Eli Manning.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I know he threw way too many interceptions, but if I gotta have it, I'll I'll live and die with Eli.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's all right in my book.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Agree.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, it it it it's if and I'm saying top three, it's really hard to pick a top three because you have Peyton Manning, you have uh you know, Drew Brees, you have you have a ton of quarterbacks.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_02: You have Otto Graham who who won a bunch of championships back in the day, Sammy Baugh.
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it the list just goes on and on and on of all time.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Bart Starr.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're probably forgetting about Bart Star.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Roger Staubach.
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um Barthes.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think Bart Starr won five if you include the NFL championships, don't you?
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think so, yeah.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_01: They won two Super Bowls and three NFL championships.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I mean again, you could just go up and down the list.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's tons of guys you could you could make the argument for um, but I just think you know, United.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I would I would if I had to pick a top three, it'd be United, Montana, and Brady, and I would put them in the order of reverse of what I just said.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_02: I would say Brady, Montana.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Unitas is my top three.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going Montana, and then I don't know.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let me see.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Montana, and then I uh I guess I gotta go Brady because of the seven, and he's had such good success in the post.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And who was your third?
• 1:23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Unitus.
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do we normally pick Unitis?
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I don't know.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's hard, it's hard to go across the areas.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I would pick Elway.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I would pick Elway over Unidas.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just I don't know.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I I never saw Unitus play.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I never saw Unitus play.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen Elway play.
• 1:23:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I I and I've seen all the guys that I'm talking about play, I think, right?
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean I don't know.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's who I would go with.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's fair.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no right or wrong answers here.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you you probably win, you're gonna have a good chance of winning a Super Bowl with any of those quarterbacks.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna be too disappointed.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's it.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's the list.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you disagree with us, well, then you're just wrong.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_01: But if you if you want to voice your opinion, you you're welcome.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome too on our uh Twitter page.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have a Twitter, um, Pittsburgh Sports Memories, weebly.com is our website.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're welcome to check us out there.
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh leave a comment, let us know how we're doing.
• 1:24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hey, we even yeah, if you want to hear a future topic, you know, hey, why don't you guys talk about this for an hour?
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, we'll we'll we'll do it.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But um thanks a lot for tuning in.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, everybody.