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REWIND: The Steelers Go All In For a Championship · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm Tim Hannon, and with me as always, it's Steve Wirt.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, we're going to talk about when the Steelers went all in for a championship.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've seen NFL teams over the years try to mortgage the future to win a championship.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, that has mixed results.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think you saw Daniel Snyder do that with some of those Washington teams in the 2000s.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't really win anything.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: More recently, the Los Angeles Rams have traded a bunch of their draft picks in an effort to win a Super Bowl now.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: That story's still being written for them.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: The Steelers, though, they're never one of those teams, for better or worse.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're always focused on the draft.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: They rarely make a big splash in free agency, despite fans clamoring for them to do so.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: They play the long game, and they've been pretty successful at doing that.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: However, there was once a time when the Steelers did sell out their future to try to win in the present, and that's what we are going to talk about in this episode.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get in the Wayback Machine and go all the way back to the magical year of 1957.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's no 1955, that's for sure.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we just missed Marty and and George punching out Biff by two years.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So in the in 1957, the Steelers are a terrible franchise.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: They've been around 24 years at this point.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: They only had four winning seasons, and one of those was this the Steagles year, the year that they combined with the Eagles during World War II.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So really only three winning seasons, like on their own.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Their best season was in 1947 when they finished in a first place tie with the Eagles, but then lost to them in a playoff game.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then the years after that, Pittsburgh went 35-48-1.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So Stewart's just kind of the dregs of the NFL at this point.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, in Detroit, the Lions had hired a guy named Buddy Parker to coach their team in 1951.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: They had also traded for a quarterback by the name of Bobby Lane.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Lane, here's a fun fact that I don't think I knew until doing this podcast.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Lane was actually drafted by the Steelers in 1948, but he didn't want to play for the Steelers because they were the only NFL team who still ran a single-wing offense, which was super outdated even in 1948.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually bounces around to a couple of different teams before he ultimately ends up in Detroit.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Parker and Lane quickly make the Lions into an elite team.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: In 1952, they beat the Cleveland Browns in the NFL Championship game.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: In 1953, they repeat by beating the Browns again.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 1954, the NFL Championship game is again Lions versus Browns, but this time Cleveland wins.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Steve, I don't know about you, can you imagine an era where the Lions, where Lions versus Browns is basically the Super Bowl every single year.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like Bizarro land, but uh okay.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: These teams are really historically good NFL teams, which is kind of crazy.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, how much they've fallen, both of them have fallen off since this era.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's ironic because they are the Lions and Browns are actually the only two pre-merger franchises to have never appeared in a Super Bowl.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the Jaguars and Texans have also never appeared in a Super Bowl, but they've been around a lot less uh uh amount of time than those two.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: But during this era, the you know they're playing in the championship game every year.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: They used up all their championship credits before the Super Bowl.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently so.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let's talk more about Parker and Lane.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Parker is a brilliant football coach.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: He basically, with Lane, invents the two-minute drill.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard it's hard to imagine that that wasn't a thing at one point, but it wasn't.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I teams probably tried to maybe move a little faster, but they they basically ran the same offense inside of two minutes that they ran the rest of the half.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if the clock ran out, the clock ran out.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Parker devises an offense where you know you run up the line of scrimmage quickly, you spike the ball to stop the clock, you run out of bounds, uh, you know huddle, all that stuff that you see today that's commonplace.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: He he's he's the one that actually brings that into football.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he's a pretty innovative guy.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Parker and Lane and the Lions are riding high.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And in August of 1957, the Lions are in training camp, and the team holds a Meet the Lions banquet for the fans.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a big dinner.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, hundreds of fans attend.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big, you know, meet the team and a thank you to the fans kind of event that they put on for for all the people that are buying tickets.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And Parker gets up to the podium to speak.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so what's he gonna say, right?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's the head coach.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna say something like, Oh, you know, the the guys are working hard, and I think we're gonna have a great season, and and thank you guys so much for all your support.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't do it without the fans, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just uh boilerplate coach speak.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you expect him to say, right?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not what he says.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says, and I'm gonna quote this verbatim.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Parker says, Quote, I can't handle this team anymore.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's the worst team I've ever seen in training camp.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: They have no life, no go, just a completely dead team.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm leaving Detroit football and I'm leaving tonight.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he drops a microphone and he walks off the stage.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And he quits as coach of the Lions.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that that actually happens and everyone is stunned.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's just like, I'm out.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: See, good luck.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: Good luck with your 1958 season, or 1957 season, my bad.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: In August, like doesn't the season start in September?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's and and this is, I mean, the you know, again, like I'm imagine, you know, I don't know, Bill Belichick or Andy Reid or or somebody doing that at a at a fan banquet.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, after winning after winning championships, just being like, yep, bye.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh Parker can't do it without Tom Brady.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Parker never really elaborates beyond that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um he never really gives like a more in-depth reason.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there were rumors that of some conflict with the ownership, but I mean that's it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and this actually isn't the first time Parker had kind of abruptly quit.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: He had also had a surprise resignation when he coached the Cardinals in 1949, but he'd only been there one year, the team wasn't very good.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, now he's quitting a dynasty.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and another ironic part of this is the Lions would actually go on to win the NFL championship again that year in 1957 without Parker.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe the team wasn't as bad as Parker thought it was, because they actually still win a championship.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: This guy is uh yeah, definitely an overreactor, maybe just a little bit.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're gonna we're gonna see a lot more of that from Buddy Parker, and that kind of defines his him him as a person.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, it sounds about right from what I remember, Buddy Parker.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So back in Pittsburgh, Walt Keisling is the head coach of the Steelers, but his health is failing.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And when training camp opens in 1957, as all this is happening in Detroit, Keysling's in the hospital where he had been a lot of the time.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And after Parker's after Parker quits the Lions, there's a lot of rumors that start to scroll that the Steelers will replace Keysling with Parker.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you would think that that would you know create friction, but apparently Keisling is all for it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: He actually tells Art Rooney to go after Parker, who's a good friend of his.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I I don't that was pretty unselfish for Kiesling to say, hey, you know, I I don't think I can really handle this anymore.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have a chance to to get a championship-winning coach, I think you should go get him.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what the Steelers do.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And literally weeks after he he very abruptly quits the Lions, Parker is hired to be the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um Keisling actually stayed on as an advisor, uh, but Parker is the new coach.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Art Rooney pays him a ton of money too, about twice what he was making in Detroit.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the Steelers shell out to get him.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a big deal.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, literally in training camp, the Steelers are able to score this championship-winning coach.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so again, go back to, you know, uh say Bill Bell, like again, it'd be like Bill Belichick quits the Patriots in August, and then the Jaguars hire him two weeks later, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um that that would be a huge uh storyline going into the season, and it would create a lot of excitement with the fan base that got the coach, and it did here in Pittsburgh.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So Parker's a new coach, he demands free reign in bringing in players, which the Steelers agree to because you know he's kind of got the status of where he can do that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing that is very clear about Parker right from the get-go is he does not like rookies, and he makes it clear that he's not coming to Pittsburgh to play uh the long game of rebuilding or or building a team in five years.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: He's all about winning now.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And R.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Rooney, yeah, I mean, he's okay with that because he sees this as an opportunity to finally put a contender out on the field after 24 seasons of really not a lot of winning at all.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So right off the bat, Parker trades two first-round picks to San Francisco for quarterback Earl Morrill, and he makes several other trades as well.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Trading two first-round picks for Earl Morrell was a surprise because the Steelers had actually used the number five overall draft pick earlier that year to select a quarterback from Purdue named Len Dawson.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And on the roster, they also had another young, promising quarterback named Jack Kemp.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: But again, you know, Parker didn't really want to work with rookies or raw talent.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to win now.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and Earl Morrow was still pretty young, but he was a little more experience than the than Len Dawson or Jack Kemp.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Len Dawson's in the Hall of Fame, if I remember correctly.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Jack Kemp played for Buffalo for years, besides being a United States senator.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And vice presidential candidate.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, correct.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, and we'll we'll we'll definitely talk later about some of the uh some of the rookies that the Steelers did not hang on to and what happened to them, but those two guys definitely had a lot of success.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but again, in 1957, they're they're young, they're unproven, and and the Steelers are all about are all about winning now.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So in 1957, the Steelers go six and six, which which really isn't bad given their usual track record.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, six and six was a good season for them at that in that era.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And also, when you think about it, I mean Parker is hired literally in the preseason, so it's not like he had a lot of time to really uh put together his personnel or you know, install his game plan right.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So six and six is not a bad start for for a new coach hired that soon.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are some cracks in the armor.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Parker, uh one one thing that will be uh kind of a huge problem for him the whole time in Pittsburgh is that he has a major, major drinking problem.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's no secret, and he often drinks to medicate stress, and that makes him even more impulsive than he already was.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Parker is also not a big fan of minorities.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Art Rooney Jr.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: called him, quote, abusive towards blacks in a way that was shockingly racist.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's not good, especially heading into the 1960s when African American players are going to become much more prominent.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Earl Morrill is going into his third season.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: He had been okay for the Steelers in 1957, but in the first month of the 58 season, Parker trades Morrell and two draft picks to the Lions for his old quarterback, Bobby Lane.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, remember that the Steelers have given up two first-round picks to get Earl Morrill.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So to turn around and trade him and more picks after just one season for a guy, Bobby Lane, who was 31 years old, that's a that's a risky move.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um trying to find an equivalency to today, Steve.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, be like when the Steelers traded that number one pick for Minka Fitzpatrick.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine if a year later they traded Minka Fitzpatrick and more picks for, say, like Patrick Peterson, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like someone that someone who was really great at one point, but maybe is on the backside of their career.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that would have made a few people question that move.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but that's they that's what Parker does, and and he gets to be.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: everybody I mean in nineteen fifty seven all the people on Twitter were really up in arms about that.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if you do the math, you figure he traded four first round picks in Earl Morr or Moral for Bobby Lane.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean Bobby Lane is in the Hall of Fame, but that's that's crazy.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a lot to get Bobby Lane.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And like you said, Bobby Lane was getting older too, so wow, that's that's crazy.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's a lot to get him at this stage of his career.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, there are there are plenty of quarterbacks who have won titles later in their career, had really strong seasons later in their career.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he and Parker had won two championships together, so I don't know.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: It seemed like a reasonable gamble.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lane, on his way out of Detroit, supposedly curses the Lions, and he says, quote, this team will not win for another 50 years.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'll uh we'll talk at the end of the episode about how that turned out.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Spoilers, not well for Detroit.
• 14:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lane Lane is like his head coach is also a lover of the alcohol.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would say he's he's a little bit more of a functional drunk than Parker.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he parties a lot at night, but he's always on time for practice the next day.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually expects the same from his teammates.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: One of his offensive linemen said that Lane would tell them, you can drink all night, but you you need you you'll block the next day and there won't be any excuses.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of Bobby Lane's MO of like you can party, but you better show up on time for practice and you better play your heart out.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of Bobby Lane.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds reasonable.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Ken Stabler did stuff like that too.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, re-reasonable, yes.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sustainable, that's debatable.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um Lane's first season in Pittsburgh starts out rocky.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So so remember, they made this trade after the season started.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they were already 0-2, and then they lose uh two out of Lane's first three starts as he's kind of getting settled into the role uh in Pittsburgh.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: But then Lane and the offense go on a tear and they do not lose a game for the rest of the season.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And during this stretch where they just win the rest of their games, they average about 30 points per game, which I mean that'd be a lot today.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if an offense averaged 30 points a game today, that would be a high powered offense.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: But in 1957, when you didn't have all the rules favoring the offense and they're and all the the the the you know the high-tech passing schemes that you have, I mean that's that's a pretty that's a pretty powerful offense.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, it's it's a little too like it's too little too late.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: They had dug themselves too big of a hole with that one and four start because back then there was only 12 games in a season.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when you start at 1-4, it's really hard to overcome that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they finished one game behind the Giants in the East Conference, and that's 1958, Steve.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if they win one of those early games, then they would have beaten out the Giants, and they they would have been them playing against the Colts, and Johnny United is in the greatest game ever played.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: But Pat Summerall wouldn't have been there, so I don't know.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: I wow, thank God it wasn't them.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Amici in for the touchdown.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's a game, yeah, that that went to overtime.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:01
  unknown: Oh my.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Steelers were very close to being the team that represented the Eastern Conference in that game.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, uh, but you know, still a still a pretty good season with the new quarterback.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Parker seizes on the success of that year.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: He continues to shipway draft picks for players who can help him win now.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: He acquires Hall of Fame running back John Henry Johnson, who has a ton of success in Pittsburgh.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: He actually becomes their first thousand-yard rusher and he makes the Pro Bowl three times.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: He acquires Pro Bowl defensive lineman Big Daddy Lipscomb, who had just helped lead the Colts to back-to-back titles.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and in 1959, Steve, their first pick in the draft, guess what round it comes in?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, until the eighth round.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: The eighth round.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: They do not pick until the eighth round.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: And like there were like 12 or 15 rounds back then, too.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: There was like the draft was way longer than it is now.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I can only imagine how how that worked out for uh wow.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: They just literally had no draft picks.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we don't don't need no stinking rookies.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: We got all these great veterans.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: And there was no free agency.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: How is he signing these people without free agency?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's weird.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Trades.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's all trades.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's that's what happened to all the draft picks.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: They all get traded away.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, Buddy Bar, who let this guy run the team?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it uh our Rooney did, and again, that those first two years are pretty successful, you know, six and six, and then one game away from from playing in the NFL championship game.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um how old was Dan and his brother when this was going on?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like we'll get to that.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: I guess they were still in their like 20.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: They maybe they hadn't graduated from Duquesne yet, because like like I wow.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: I can see I can see where this headed.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well we'll we'll get to that.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Dan and his brother will come into play very, very soon.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so that team that Parker's building, a lot of talent.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Those guys we mentioned, John Henry Johnson and Big Daddy Lipscomb and Bobby Lane.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's also a very physical and tough team.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Jim Brown, the great Cleveland running back, said that when you played against the Steelers, your body was sore for days.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: So he's building a team that's tough and talented.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: The Steelers keep adding veterans, they have all this momentum coming out of that 58 season, but then they stumble.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the next three years, they finish kind of like right above or right below 500.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're never really good enough to mount any kind of serious challenge for the conference title like they did in 58.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Lane is also at this point starting to feel his age.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: He starts getting hurt, he misses a big chunk of the 1961 season with a shoulder injury.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And Parker himself is starting to make some enemies with his behavior.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he he is very, very abusive towards the players.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the the one of the big times where he really um caused problems was usually on a plane ride home after a loss because the whole team would kind of be together and in one place, and Parker would typically be drunk by the time the plane took off.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he would walk up and down the aisle of the plane, cussing out his players.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And R.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Runy Jr.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: recorded some of this in his book.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there was a defensive lineman, John Nisby.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Parker said to him, quote, Nisby, you're not black, you're yellow.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: He tells uh linebacker Ray Campbell, who had played for Marquette in college before they dropped their football program.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You're so bad that you put the school you went to out of business.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he tells running back Ray Matthews, yeah.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he tells running back Ray Matthews, who was playing cards, you better be a card player because you sure as hell aren't a football player.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that one, Art Rooney said, Art Rooney Jr.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: said, Matthews actually responded, and you're the guy who was supposed to make us winners, but we haven't won anything yet.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Which Parker reportedly says nothing in response to because, you know, when you kind of hit back against a bully, sometimes they don't have anything to say.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: So so he just he gets drunk and he just rips into his players constantly.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: He he also is very petty.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: He padlocked the door of the trainer's room because the players were going there to get rubdowns, and Parker thought that was coddling the players, and he even has the trainer fired for doing that.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was once so up so upset about a preseason loss.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is pre-season lost against San Francisco that he orders all of the injured players that they have to report back to training camp on their day off.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why he blamed the injured players, but he did.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it was their fault that they lost.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but but when he does that, John Henry Johnson was one of those injured players, but he sneaks out that night to go out with a young lady.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when Parker finds out about this, he hangs a sign on the door of Johnson's room that says Too sort of play, but not too sort of fornicate to fornicate.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Only he didn't use the word fornicate.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: He used another.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Where it just starts with this.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Ah.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: Frugal.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Forgetful.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Forceful.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Hold on, I'm running out of words of my thesaurus here.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, buddy Parker.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So so yeah, not not exactly a not exactly a player's coach.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I would say the exact opposite of that.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And can you imagine?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I know it's a different time, and I know you I know, you know, these are all guys coming out of like the World War II era, and you had drill sergeants in the army and and you know, probably other disciplinarians in places like schools and things like that.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's one thing to run a tight ship, it's another thing to just outright be verbally abusive towards these guys and treat them like they're garbage.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can't imagine.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't seem like there's any it doesn't seem like there's any like point to it all.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's like why, like you said, why make the injured players practice?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't understand like that logic at all.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like, you know, there like if you're gonna discipline, like, there should be like some logic to it and consistency so people know, okay, if I do A, B's gonna happen, so don't do A, you know?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's the whole point of making a rule, isn't it?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: But that he's just I think he's just so liquored up, he's just shooting from the hip most times.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think that I think you're spot on.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think the consistent theme with him is alcohol.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was impulsive to begin with.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Again, like he quit a dynasty at a fan banquet.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: So he's impulsive to begin with, but when he drinks, like it's that impulsivity is amplified.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: So despite all of this, I mean Parker is still a gifted coach and a good evaluator of talent.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's one year where they're playing at Cleveland, it's one of the years that Cleveland wins the NFL championship, and they actually blow out Cleveland at Cleveland because Parker devises this very unorthodox defensive scheme that the Browns have no answer for.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Parker, along with two other guys, also comes up with the idea for Blesto.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Steve, I think you talked about that in one of our previous episodes.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: It stood for That was uh Jack Jack Butler, yeah, the former safety, I think, ended up running that.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: He did for many years.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: That was that stood for Bears Lions Eagles Steelers Talent Organization, and it was the first ever scouting combine.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was a partnership between those four teams, and it really was the invention of things like pro days and combines, which they didn't have before that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and then even, you know, we talked about how he traded away all those draft picks, but he still manages to draft some really good players with the picks he had left.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Guys like Dick Hoke, Roy Jefferson, and Andy Russell, those are all star players for the Steelers who were drafted by Parker.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he also convinces Art Rooney to move from Forbes Field, which was terrible for football, to Pit Stadium.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that actually increases the ticket revenue for the team.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and really, above all, I mean, despite kind of a couple of down seasons after the first two good ones, Parker is still winning more than he's losing.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: So in 1962, that's really a banner year for Parker and the Steelers.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one of the one of the big things that happens that year is Steelers put a logo on one side of their helmet.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Steel Mark logo, which had three stars.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're actually called hypocycloids, which represent the three materials which go into making steel, which are coal, iron ore, and scrap.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that logo is still on their helmet 60 years later on one side.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that happened under Parker.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the Steelers in 1962 actually have a great season.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: They win nine games for the first time ever in franchise history.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, that's only good enough for second place because the Giants win 12 games that year.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And back then, there's no wild card, there's no, you know, it was just the two conference champions with square off in the NFL championship game.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that was unfortunate because it was just one of those years where they were good, but there was one team who was better.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Was that the year they lost to the Giants at the I remember we I think we covered that another?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: They lost, they had to play the Giants to play the Giants again or something.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's we'll get to that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the next year.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're close.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: You were close.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the Steelers finish in second, but they kind of make a postseason because in the 1960s the NFL played this game called the playoff bowl.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Which which was where the runner-ups in each conference would play each other at the end of the season.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: The game literally did not count for anything in the standings.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and some people around the league really hated it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Vince Lombardi called it the poop bowl, except he didn't use the word poop, he used another uh synonym for poop.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh don't guess, Steve, please.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and Vince Lombardi said it was, quote, a loser's bowl for losers.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what Vince Lombardi thought of this idea of having the two second police place teams play each other.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Here's an idea, like along the poop bowl concept.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, like I don't there's there's not a big first round draft, but like that year, like you know, Trevor Lawrence or like you know, there's like a big quarterback coming out.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, or just every year, like have like the bottom two teams in the league have to play each other and the winner gets the first round pick and the loser gets the second round pick or second pick or something.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if the players would like it or care, or I don't know, but it it'd be interesting.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: I it maybe just be really bad football since it'd be the two worst teams in football playing each other.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'd watch it.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'd watch I'd watch Detroit play Jacksonville to to get them their morning pick.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: It would be an interesting idea.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I like it.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: You could even make it a tournament, have like the the bottom four teams have like a playoff.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's the it's the anti-playoffs.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Winner gets the first draft pick.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: It would eliminate tanking, that's for sure, right?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: He waits, he throws the pass, and it's in his kick!
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: Good ball out of the 40.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: 35 30.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Steelers vs.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ravens is the best rivalry in all of Pro Sports.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And now that series has been chronicled in Pittsburgh versus Baltimore, the unofficial history, an all-new book from the Pittsburgh Sports Memories podcast.
• 28:51
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• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: There were legendary plays like Troy Polomalu's Picksticks and the Immaculate Extension, and there were crazy incidents like Joey Porter chasing Ray Lewis into the parking lot, or the Ravens putting a bounty on Heinz Ward.
• 29:10
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• 29:14
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• 29:19
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• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks for supporting the podcast.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Steelers then so they're s they're they're gonna play actually Parker's old team, the Detroit Lions, in the nineteen sixty two losers bowl.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Bobby Lane, who had been injured for the final three weeks of the regular season, uh, he didn't start this game, but Parker puts him in the second half with the Steelers trailing, and he actually leads them back and has time for one final drive, but he only gets the Steelers to midfield and he throws an interception.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's significant because it ends up being Bobby Lane's final ever pass in the NFL.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: He announced his retirement shortly afterwards.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he he later states that the biggest disappointment in his football career was having never won a championship for Art Rooney.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, say what you will about the Chief.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: People really liked playing for him.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's maybe that's why a lot of guys stuck around through the insanity that was Buddy Parker, because you kind of had the you know, the anti, like it's a weird relationship.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Buddy Parker's like crazy, and Art Rooney's like the nice, you know, guy.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's what a weird relationship.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean he had like Rooney, like we covered that too in the Steeler Dark Ages, like he had a weird relationship with some of his coaches.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's it's almost like a Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner kind of thing.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's very odd.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a that's a good comparison.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is an odd relationship.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, how can how can somebody so respected hire somebody that is so not respected?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: I it it's interesting.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean you could also say that you know Parker was winning, and and coaches who win.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we just saw we're we're talking about the Jaguars, we just saw Urban Meyer get fired after you know many, many incidents of uh uh uh just bad bad things happening, but that guy won a lot in college, he won a lot in the other places he went, so people hire him, and he, you know, I winning kind of erases a lot of that, maybe even back then.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the Steelers in 1962, they don't they don't win anything.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they go to that playoff bowl, but you know, they're they're on the up and up.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um they have a successful season at 62.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: However, Parker kind of continues to become more and more unhinged.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: He had this thing about unlucky numbers, he had a huge fear of the number 13.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: He refused to stay in any hotel room that began or ended in a 13.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that was hard enough, but then he also refused to stay in any hotel room where the numbers added up to 13.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: So like if if they put him in room like I don't know, 6'4, 3, that then he wouldn't stay there.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they they said that was a nightmare for the the Steelers scheduling secretaries.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say let's say the Steelers have 10 points on the board and they get down to like a fourth and goal.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Is he go like automatically going for a touchdown now?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Very good question.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what an easy guy to game plan for.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well done.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: We know they're going to go.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Parker, so it you know, we talked about how Parker quit the Lions.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: He actually quits the Steelers multiple times.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Art Rooney said he quit at least 20 times.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: At least 20 times, and he had to be talked off the ledge all of those times.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um he just kind of got upset about something, and then Huffy's just like, I quit.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then Art Rooney would talk to him a few hours later or the next day or whatever, uh, or he'd sober up or whatever, whatever happened, he'd be back as a steel or coach.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the media in Pittsburgh even reported this a few times, and then they had to retract the story, and eventually they just stopped reporting it because it made them look bad.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you have the the paper come out and it's a big headline, oh, Parker resigns, and then you know, he's at practice the next day, and you look like you're you're you know you're the media person making stuff up.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's true, he actually did quit and then he would just come back, and it was kind of normal.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Parker was once so upset by a preseason loss against the Bears that he kicked one of his players off the plane and told him to go join Chicago instead.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: So the two planes are on the runway after this preseason game, and he sends the other guy over to the Chicago plane, and George Hallis actually walked the guy back to the Steeler plane.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, uh, here's your player back.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and everybody on the Steelers decided to hide the guy in the in the little airplane laboratory until it took off so that Parker wouldn't notice.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, what a different couldn't do that now.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's there's also a um a hotel incident in Dallas.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the Steelers are playing uh in Dallas, and the night before the game, all the black players go to a black so a black-only nightclub, and Parker's in the hotel drinking, and he's getting more and more angered as the hours go by and all these players aren't back at the hotel yet.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, I don't know if he had like set a curfew and they were out past the curfew, or he was just angry because, as we talked about, he did not like African Americans and maybe he was just mad that they were out having a good time.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but he's he's drinking and he's getting really angry about this.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually makes the team trainer tape up his hands like a boxer.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when the trainer asks why, Parker says it's so that he can punch out John Henry Johnson and Big Daddy Lipscomb, who Parker had decided to blame.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna end well for Buddy Parker.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean that Big Daddy Lipscomb was like 6'7.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he would have gotten killed.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but Parker decided those were the guys that he was gonna blame for this.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they said he was running up and down the halls of the hotel, punching his fists into the air and screaming, I'm gonna beat the hell out of those black SOBs.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is in a hotel.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is an NFL coach.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is an NFL coach.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this is horrible.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: The trainer, uh, the the trainer who who he made tape his hands up, that guy's actually a licensed medical doctor, and he quits the team after that.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he tells Art Rooney that Parker's a very backwards person and he suspects that he has bipolar disorder.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a chicken or the egg argument.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, is he bipolar or is he bipolar because he's drinking?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I yeah, yeah, no well.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe, maybe just again probably take off my my non I am not a therapist and I don't play one on TV.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's my very unprofessional opinion.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, whatever issues he may have had, the the again, the drinking just you know ratcheted that up times 20.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: So finally, Art Rooney has to step in, uh, and he says to Parker, quote, we're still friends and I still want you as the coach, but I'm putting in some roles and you will follow them.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: So he he kind of tries to lay down the law with Parker.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of the roles is no drinking before or during team flights.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: The first offense was a$10,000 fine, and the second offense was you're fired.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and Art Rooney applied that role to everybody on the team, uh, but you know, it was really there primarily for Parker.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: And Parker actually has to sign a release saying, I understand that these are the roles.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and that by all accounts does fix the you know the airplane issues, but not a whole lot else.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um because Parker just continues to kind of cause problems.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he he was always super distraught after any loss, even preseason losses, as we've mentioned earlier.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he would get drunk and he'd pull all his assistant coaches into for like a post-game meeting, and he would lie flat on his back, you'd get a pair of scissors, and he would cut off his neck tie right below the knot.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know what that was all about, but uh that that's what he would do, and then he would start um raging against all these players that he was going to cut or trade because he blamed them for the loss, and sometimes he would even actually follow through and do that.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the impulsiveness with him is just really, I mean, it's it's it's something to behold how impulsive he was.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: He once submits a transaction to the league office to put his entire roster on waivers.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he doesn't say this, he literally submits the official transaction to waive all 53 players.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the commissioner calls him and says, you can't do that, to which Parker says, why not?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: They all stink.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's yeah.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was Burt Bell, wasn't it?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: That was Burt Bell, yep.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: Whoops.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: So all of this chaos is going on.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there is one guy in the Steelers front office who realizes that this is probably not a productive way to run a football team.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that guy's name is Dan Rooney.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, Steve, you kind of alluded to this earlier.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Art Rooney had five sons.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Three of those sons, Tim Pat and John, really ran Art's horse racing business.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And Dan and Arcuna Arcunior were involved with the football team.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: Art Art ran the horse racing business more than he ran the Steelers.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: The Steelers was just like his side business.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: I always felt like he was a better horse racing guy than he was football guy.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Art Sr., the chief.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would agree with that, especially up to this point.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so Dan and Art Jr., they're they're football guys, and they both agree that the way Parker's running the team is a disaster.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Trading away all the draft picks, signing guys who were problems, uh making sure the team was as white as possible.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: All these things were not going to be good for long-term success.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And Steve, you you kind of were asking this question earlier.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Our junior at this point is still pretty young, but Dan was becoming more and more of a powerful influence in the organization.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: He had a college degree, he had worked his way up through the organization, through a bunch of different jobs.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it one thing you can say about the chief, he never really handed anything to his kids.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: He always made them work their way up.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's why I was wondering, because I know our Dan told stories about bringing a chalkboard for when um uh Jock uh Sutherland was the coach in the 40s.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I mean Dan, I mean, I figured Dan was older than like 10 years old doing that.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: So and then this is what, 62?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, Dan, Dan was a ball boy.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Dan had a bunch of different roles before um he kind of moved into a more powerful position because again, you know, Art Art wanted his sons to work their way up, and that's exactly what they did.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Dan Rooney is starting to get just gain more influence in general.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's actually at this point working with Commissioner Pete Rosell and some of the other owners to create new revenue streams for the league.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he's an incredibly bright guy, his stars on the rise.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And for someone like Buddy Parker, Dan Rooney is a threat.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: He actually confronts Art Rooney about that, and he says, I came here to work for you, not to work for Dan.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but but by this point, you know, Art Art Sr.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: had made Dan the VP of the Steelers, and he was slowly turning over the full day-to-day control of the team to Dan.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so even though Art kind of had this history of capitulating to Buddy Parker's demands, this time he he he's like, well, sorry, that's the way it is.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, he even makes a rule that Parker has to get approval from Dan now on all of his trades.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's gonna make him crazy.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: He's just gonna get crazier.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, you you may have you may be predicting something here.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: So 1963, the Steelers head into that season looking to take the next step, but now their franchise quarterback has just retired.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Sound familiar?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh also, tragedy strikes during the offseason.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Big Daddy Lipscomb dies of a heroin overdose.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: So not only do they lose their franchise quarterback, they're also down one of their best defensive players.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: But in 1963, the Steelers really battle.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the guy that they got to play quarterback was a guy named Ed Brown.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's another like veteran, former Pro Bowler who had been acquired from the Bears.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he kind of has one of those like late career renaissance seasons that the quarterbacks sometimes have.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: Puts up 3,000 yards that year.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that was back, by this point, it was a 14-game schedule, but but again, there's no rules to help the offense back then like there is now.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: So 3,000 yards is pretty impressive.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's actually named the NFL comeback player of the year that year.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the defense is pretty good too that year.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the guys we haven't talked about yet from this era is Ernie Stoutner, who's a Hall of Famer.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And as we detailed in our fun facts episode, one of only two stealers to have his number retired by the team.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And here in 1963, he's playing in what will be his final season, but he's still a force.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: And Steve, in our our Dark Ages episode, you relayed the story about how Stoutner broke his thumb during a game that year, and and how the bone was like basically sticking out of his skin.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so he instead of you know going straight to an emergency room, he instead puts tape around it and he keeps playing.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that guy was probably a little crazy too, but really, really good.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was just a that's just a whole different breed of person.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: So 1963, the Steelers again have a pretty good season.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Heading into the final week of the season, they're set to play the Giants at Yankee Stadium, and heading into that final week, the Stewers are seven, three, and three, and the Giants are ten and three.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you'd look at those two records and you would think, oh, well, the Giants have probably have clinched by this point, and this game doesn't matter.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: However, the NFL did not count ties back then in the standings.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Ties were like games that never happened.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: So because both teams had three.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's too hard to figure out that.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: It would just act like it didn't happen.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: That was literally how they treated it.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And at this point, both teams have three losses.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: So they're actually tied for first place in the conference, which means that the winner of Steelers at Giants would win the conference and advance to play the Chicago Bears in the NFL championship game.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this is really the culmination of what Parker had been building for all these years.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: He was finally going to get the Steelers to the big game.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: The whole Steelers history had come to this point where they were finally going to have the opportunity to play for a championship game.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: So there was no there was no overtime in the regular season either, just in the playoff, just in the championship game.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't the NFL didn't implement overtime until 1974.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: That was that that that's yeah, that was in one of our trivia trivia sessions.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, one of our fun facts.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: Steelers and Steelers and Broncos played the first ever overtime game in the regular season in 1974.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: And ironically, the game ended in a tie.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, they put in this overtime period to get rid of ties, and then still ended in a tie.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, the Steelers, huge game.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're all set.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be it.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they lose 33-17.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it just it wasn't meant to be they don't show up that day and the Giants win the conference and they go on to the championship game instead of the Steelers.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: Did the Giants win?
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: Giants won the NFL that year, right?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: 60.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, the Bears won.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: The Bears did win that one?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, this the the Ed Brown, the quarterback who had had such a good season, does not play well in that game.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Myron Cope actually blamed that loss on Ed Brown giving up booze the week before the game.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I guess Ed Brown was also a heavy drinker, but because that was such a huge game, that week he's like, okay, gotta get serious, gotta focus on game film, gotta really, you know, not drink at all this week.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: And Myron Cope said that made him tight and and you know, in that game, and he just played poorly.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: So whether or not that's true is highly debatable, but interesting theory, at least from Myron Cope.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: But what an absolutely different world it was in 1963.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: I just just like boggles your mind, doesn't it?
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yep.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it's just like you can't even like it's not even the same in any way, shape, or form, just like culture or like anything.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's wild.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: This world does not exist anymore, I guess.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: For better or worse.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's that's absolutely true.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you can you can make arguments on both sides of that, I'm sure.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for the better or worse side.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: So after that season, Parker makes a highly controversial move.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: He trades Buddy Dial, who is uh one of the Steelers, not only best receivers at the time, but one of their best all-time receivers.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's actually in their Hall of Honor.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: He trades him to the Cowboys for the number number four overall pick in the draft, who was a guy named Scott Appleton.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of weird because you know, here's Parker trading a veteran for a rookie draft pick.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I I don't know, maybe Buddy Parker didn't really have experience a whole lot with rookies, because it turns out he never bothered to see if Appleton was intending to play for the NFL or the AFL.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because remember, there was two leagues back then before he made that trade.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Appleton chooses the AFL, so the Steelers literally trade away their best wide receiver for nothing.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and fans are really irate.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Dial was a huge fan favorite.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um Twitter just blows up with the fireparker hashtags.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's a lot of angry Steelers fans for sure.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Again, trading their best best player for nobody.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't think the Steeler fan base was quite as big back then, but yeah.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: All 30,000 of them were pretty pretty upset.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: It ex I mean it still existed, you know.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean that they certainly still had a fan base to get through all the years that they did.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and people really like Buddy Dow and people were really upset.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not only that he was traded, but that we got nothing for him.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and I would say at this point, Dan Rooney's really becoming restless.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like he he he just can't take much more of this.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Parker also starts to lose control of the team.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in addition to Big Daddy Lipscomb overdosing, there's also some other issues on the team.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Lou Michaels, who's their defensive lineman slash kicker, beats up one of his teammates pretty bad, and the Steelers are forced to trade him away.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the police are called for several incidents involving players.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Parker kind of had had this tendency to bring in these troubled, hard partying type of players.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we talked about the quarterbacks and their boozing, right?
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and some of these other things, I mean, Big Daddy Lipscomb, you know, shooting up heroin.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know what Parker was thinking.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: Steve, kind of your to your earlier point, he probably wasn't thinking.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, what's the strategy there?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I maybe he's thinking I can turn these guys around if I just treat them like trash.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it didn't work.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he was running a secret rehab facility at the cheat at the Steelers.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Unlikely.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, it's AA only like they give you more alcohol and drugs.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one thing I can tell you for sure about addiction is that it creates the illusion of control.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: You you think you're in control when you're really not in control, and I think Parker probably thought he still had control over all of this, even as it's slipping away.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: In 1964, Ed Brown comes back to Earth, he throws 19 interceptions, kind of has like that Tommy Maddox story where he, you know, the veteran guy who c has a great, one great magical comeback year and then turns into an interception machine after that.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: The Steel Wars finished 5-9 in 1964, so they're not able to replicate the success of the previous two seasons.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: But despite that, you know, Art Rooney, he still believes in Parker.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in 1965, the Steel Wars actually signed him to a lucrative three-year extension.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, you know, I mean, it it sounds crazy to extend a guy that has been doing all this crazy stuff, but at that point, uh, the Steelers are a franchise who only had four winning seasons in their existence before they hired Parker.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: And by this point in Parker's tenure, they've already had four winning seasons just under Parker.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, say what you will about the chaos and the craziness, but he's winning, and that's more than any Steeler coach has done before that.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: So this brings us to 1965.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the Steelers are in training camp, and you know, Parker thinks that even though they had a down season in '64, he thinks that the team's really close to contending again.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in that preseason, they lose a preseason game, which, as we already talked about, Parker had a that was a real trigger for Parker to lose preseason games, and he gets drunk, and he decides he wants to trade defensive lineman Ben McGee and a draft pick to the Eagles for some veteran defensive players.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Ben McGee was a very good young player who would actually later go on to multiple Pro Bowls for the Steelers.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: But Parker, as usual, has no use for such guys, and you know, also Ben McGee is black, so that probably didn't help.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: So Parker's drunk.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: He calls up Dan Rooney on the phone and proposes this trade because again, Art Sr.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: had said the role is you have to consult Dan on all your trades.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Dan hears him out, and then Dan says, you know what, why don't we talk about this in the morning?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Parker gets all angry and he's like, Well, where are you questioning my judgment?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Dan says, No, I just don't believe in making trades in the middle of the night after a loss.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty good take by Dan there.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Parker says, Well then I quit.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: And Dan's like, Well then don't let the door hit you on the way out.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he accepts his recognition, and that's the end of Buddy Parker's time in Pittsburgh.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he quit one too many times there.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what happened.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I'm sure when he said he quit, he probably just thought he would come back the next day like he always did.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: But Dan is not his father, and Dan is just like, nope, you're done.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just to give you an idea of kind of how self-destructive Parker was in his alcoholism.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: The Steelers had recently given him that very large three-year extension.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: That was a guaranteed contract.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: So if Dan Rooney had fired him like later that season or after that season, Steelers still would have had to pay.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: They still would have been on the hook for that contract.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: But because Parker voluntarily quit, Steelers owe him nothing.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, that's just the destructive path Parker was on.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: One final footnote to this story.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: After he quit, Parker flew home to Texas.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: And while he was waiting at his gate at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport, there was a photographer there from one of the local papers, and he snaps a photo of him at the gate, kind of like a farewell after eight long seasons in Pittsburgh, photo to publish in the paper.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in the background of that photo, Steve, guess which gate number Buddy Parker is waiting in?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Number 13, maybe.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's correct.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of fitting.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: How ironic.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: How ironic, don't you think?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: Have fun in Texas, buddy.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know what to tell you.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the end of that experiment.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so let's talk about the aftermath of some of this.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the Steelers now don't have a coach in the preseason again.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they they they do name Mike Nixon their interim coach for 65, but then after that season, they're they decide, okay, we need to hire a new coach, like a permanent coach.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Dan wants to do like a nationwide search, he wants to bring guys in for interviews, he wants to make this whole process.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: And kind of unbeknownst to him, his father just goes ahead and hires Bill Austin to be the head coach.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason was because Bill Austin uh was the offensive line coach in Green Bay, and and Vincent Lombardi vouched for him, and that was kind of how the chief operated.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um Vincent Lombardi's my buddy.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: He says that Bill Austin's a good guy, so I don't need to vet him, I don't need to interview other people.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're just gonna go ahead and hire him.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that didn't work out well, which isn't surprising.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: Austin has a miserable record in Pittsburgh.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: And after he is fired in 1969, Dan then got to do things his way, and the next coach they hired was a Colts assistant named Chuck Knoll, and the rest of that story, of course, is history.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Dan Rooney said, quote, I felt this business couldn't be run without structure, uh, which obviously was kind of a not probably an intentional slight at his father, but basically implying that his father wasn't running the team with any structure before that.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: At least sobriety.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at least there's some sobriety with all things.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's a that's a good first start.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: At least you know, Bill Austin by all accounts brought that to the team, but not much else.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so so Dan, you know, of course, with with help from his brother R Jr.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh turns the Steelers from garbage into literally the most successful NFL franchise of the post-merger era.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they have more wins than any other team during that time.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: And this was all really set up by that Buddy Parker era.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they Dan saw the this this you know trying to win win now kind of attitude.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: He saw dysfunction, he saw disorganization, and he had a vision for how he was going to change all that, and he did.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and Steve, I would say honestly, in my opinion, and let me know if you agree or disagree with this, I think the two most significant figures in the history of Pittsburgh sports are Mario Lemieux and Dan Rooney.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because without Mario Lemieux, there's no there's literally no Penguins.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: Without Dan Rooney, the the Steelers are the the Detroit Lions or the or the Jacksonville Jaguars or some other Morabound franchise.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, without Dan Rooney, the Steelers are more about I'm trying to think of like, you know, if anybody else like I was thinking maybe the Galbraithes that owned the Pirates and you know they won a couple World Series or um uh who was the uh who was the general branch Ricky?
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe but I mean Branch Ricky didn't I don't know if Branch Ricky was there for the 60 World Series, so may maybe not.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it it's definitely I can't think of another person that approaches those two per se besides Mario and and Dan.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean they took two franchises that were limping along if you know, especially the Penguins.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: They were, like you said, on their way out of town, you know, or out of business.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the Steelers weren't much better.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, boy, did things really I mean the Steelers didn't become the Steelers until the 70s, and that was under Dan's leadership.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it says says a lot about him.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think now, like spinning it forward, like you know, you see that Dan's been gone for a couple years, you can see like you know, the new I I I hope I hope like Dan's leadership and level of this head is doesn't skip a generation or something, and we have to wait for you know his grandkids to take over.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because the the the the new he needs the yeah, I mean not the talk too current for that.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: I just get to be in the owner needs to step in and you know uh lay down the law a little bit with uh some stuff that's going on in the organization lately.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, time time will tell where that goes, as we kind of hit in our our previous episode.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um Bobby Lane, he is elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's one of only two ass soon-to-be-three Steelers quarterbacks to make it to the Hall of Fame.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: He dies at the age of 59.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lane's prediction does come true.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: The Lions do not win for the next 50 years, and just to really put the Cherry on top of the cursed ice cream Sunday, on the exact 50th anniversary of that trade, which was the 2008 season, the Steelers win their sixth Super Bowl while the Lions become the first ever team to post an 0-16 record.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good for uh the Lions there.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't the Fords didn't own them way back in the 60s, I imagine.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know who owned them back in the 60s or 50s, but my goodness.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: The Detroit Lions like that's mind-boggling.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why how Detroit can be that bad?
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it seems like they just should have at least had one or two successful seasons.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they've they've won one playoff game since that trade, and it was a 91 division of playoff against Dallas.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's hard to believe.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, believe in curses or don't believe in curses, but Bobby Lane saying this team won't win anything for 50 years, and then literally on the 50th year, that happens.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's pretty crazy.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh those quarterbacks who Parker shipped out because they were too young.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Earl Morrill goes on to become league MVP, has a bunch of success with Baltimore and then with Miami.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Len Dawson wins the Super Bowl for Kansas City, and as Steve mentioned earlier, is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and then Jack Kemp.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: Steve mentioned this too, wins two AFL championships.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's the MVP of that league, and then of course later runs uh on the ticket with Bob Dolphur, vice president in 1996.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: Parker, Buddy Parker, he never again coaches.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: He dies in 1982 at the age of 68.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: His record with the Steelers, 51, 47, and 6 in eight seasons.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's still a winning record.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: And again, took them to heights that they had never previously reached.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: And there's been a push recently to get Parker elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's only three coaches, uh, Buddy Parker, George Seaford, and Mike Shanahan, who've won multiple championships and are not enshrined in Canton.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: Did Flores get in?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: Tom Flores.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: He finally got it.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because that was another guy like I get the Seaford thing.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_02: People think he won with Bill Walsh's team.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: But Shanahan?
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't understand why Shanahan isn't in the football, pro football hall of fame.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's just probably based on John Elweg.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: They like they think he couldn't win without Elwag.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think it's more just the time frame with short.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that team was really good for three or four years, and then he wasn't he never really put together good teams after that, and and he didn't put together good teams when he coached Washington either.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think it's just it's a it's a short time frame, and I think maybe that's what hurts Buddy Parker too.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: That was a short time frame in the 50s.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean I would argue that again with the Steelers he he at least had more success than a lot of the previous guys.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: And literally, they were twice, they were one win away from playing in the championship in 58 and 63.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's that's better, I think, than most people remember.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's a shame because man, Steve, it like it's kind of like Antonio Brown, right?
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like you wonder what this guy could have been capable of if he just could have gotten out of his own way.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: If he just could have if he just could have gotten out of his own way.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was that good of a coach and that good of a uh a tactician and evaluator of talent.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just imagine what he may have been able to do.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think they at least would have won, at least played in the championship game, if not won one.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean you look at the teams he would have been, he would have going up against like the Packers and the Bears and stuff.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like those are pretty I mean I don't know how legendary that Bears team was in 64.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: Or was it 63, it was 63.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: So the Colts were really good in the 50s with Unidas, and I always thought Unitis was more of the two-minute drill in that championship game in 58, like that's the infamous you know, where him and uh Ray Barry, you know, just just absolutely tortured whoever that corner was for the Giants.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that was Johnny Unitis, like kind of implemented the two-minute drill.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I don't know if he stole that from Buddy Parker or I don't know who the Colts who the coach of the Colts was back then.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: Was that Weeb?
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: They did.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know that he stole it, but that was when Buddy Parker and and the Lions did that in the earlier part of that decade, that was the first time it was done.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and just like just like kind of like when the Patriots were winning Super Bowls, you know, it wasn't all it wasn't every year.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: You had, you know, kind of these other years where there was the Seattle Seahawks or the the Steelers in the 2000s, right?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: Won two Super Bowls while the Patriots were winning all the Super Bowls.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_02: So even there's other games in the 80s.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the Redskins won three Super Bowls in the eighties.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: So with the n with the 49ers, the Giants won a couple.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so you you always have other teams kind of in the mix.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the I the Steelers could have been one of those teams, and they were very, very close to being one of those teams.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just wonder if if Parker was able to just get a little bit of control over the addiction and over his impulsivity and and just try to do something there if if I don't know, they just the history could have been very different.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: He's not well known, and like and plus I guess like when you look back at his behavior, I could see like maybe that might like kind of like a Pete Rose thing where like people kind of hold it against him, we're like OJ.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess OJ's already in the Hall of Fame.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: O.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: J.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: still is in the NFL Hall of Fame.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they haven't taken him out.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if like sometimes something like that, like you know, if you have a really bad reputation, they're not gonna put you in.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: Especially nowadays with all his you know, obviously his racial views, which were just I'm not justifying them, I just saying they weren't unusual for that generation and that time.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't make it right, just you know, doesn't make doesn't make him like uh a different person, which is bad bad for Buddy Parker, right?
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he should have been a better person like that, but he wasn't.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, no, that's a good point.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't you we we hadn't kind of evolved past a lot of that yet, but but yeah, you're right.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe some of his you know is off the
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Field troubles were yeah, are are probably you know, if he would have been like you know, a different person off the field, it'd be easier to elect him to the Hall of Fame.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like if they put him up for the Hall of Fame, like people are I mean, unless he's just so unknown, nobody cares, but I could see like a big stink being raised about that, and rightfully so about some of the stuff he said.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: But there there has been a push for that.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's been some writers and some people in the media that have put forth that case.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: So time will tell to see if he he gets in or not.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: But it's an interesting story.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you know, it I I think the most interesting thing about the story is not only that the the craziness that that happened and the Steelers almost succeeding despite it all, but really the fact that it it really shapes the Steelers way for decades to come.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because Dan went through all that, he saw how it how that worked, and he decided he was going to do things a different way, and and really to this day, that's still how the Steelers operate.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, until the minka Fitzpatrick, that's the first time I ever remember them trading away future picks for a now player.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and that was because Dan, once again, once Dan's influence was gone.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, it just sometimes when you you know, but it served them so well for so long, Dan not doing that and just get draft picks, stockpile draft picks, get talent, you know, and it it just you know worked for so long that you know hopefully they go back to that.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, I mean I think even like the Mink of Fist, like even when they do stuff like that, it's it's very measured and thought out.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they they also traded uh you know, draft picks to high draft picks to get Jerome Bettis.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_01: They traded uh high draft picks to to move up to get Troy Paul Malo in that draft.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I I mean it wasn't unprecedented, it's not unprecedented for them to make a big move.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_02: He would normally not do it over multiple years like Buddy Parker, like you know what I mean, where you're like picking the next like he would just do it within that draft.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like he would never like because that's like he said, like I remember reading it, like you said, like he didn't want to get rid of his future, you know.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_02: If it's still within that same year, like that draft, that draft, he was okay with it, but he didn't want to go into the next year and not have any first round pick at all.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's a thirtieth pick.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: He at least wanted to have that 30th pick, you know.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's a good point.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, definitely definitely um again, the the the Steelers tried it that way, and then for the next literally 50 plus years, they they they did it the complete opposite.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely an interesting story, definitely one that probably a lot of Steelers fans don't you know don't don't remember or don't know a ton about.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: So um hopefully you enjoyed that little trip down the the Buddy Parker era memory lane.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Steve, any final thoughts?
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_02: He's definitely um the fourth most successful coach in Steelers history.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was it I it doesn't say much because he didn't really win much, but um rest in peace, Buddy Parker.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but did did Bill Cower ever lie down on the floor of the locker room and cut off his tie?
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, he never like you know cut the whole team either.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: So right.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you he's got that going for him.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks everybody.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.
• 1:09:27
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• 1:09:37
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• 1:09:44
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• 1:09:48
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• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks everybody.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: Have a good one.