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Dark Ages of Steelers Football · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, everybody.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the podcast where uh two of us, lifelong fans, take a look back at some moments and events in Pittsburgh Sports.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Tim Hannon.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Steward.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if this episode sounds a little different on the audio, it's because we're in the middle of this social distancing.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we're recording this remotely, uh, trying to be safe.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so that's why this might sound just a little bit different.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: This episode, we are going to delve back into steelware football, and we're going to cover an era of steelware football that's not talked a lot about a lot.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the quote unquote dark ages of steelware football.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything that basically preceded the 1970s.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, um, we're calling it the Steeler Dark Ages because uh there wasn't a lot of success.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: But um a lot of interesting stuff did happen during this uh era of football, although it wasn't a very successful one uh necessarily on the field.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: There were definitely a lot of characters, and um, especially later as you get into the 60s, um, the development of uh Dan Rooney and seeing some of the mistakes that were made definitely laid the foundation for the success later on.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: But um to make it more interesting, I would go chronologically.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: It I thought that was kind of boring doing it that way.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I decided to go, we'll just do topically, and I'm gonna break it down into several categories for us.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, first we'll do with the uh players, and then we'll deal with the uh some of the coaches and then uh some of the memorable seasons.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um these uh these are all everything that happened until 1969, basically the hiring of Chuck Noll is uh when the franchise turned.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: And basically, Dan Rudy took over at that point solely from his father, the chief.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: So um, this is a franchise that was consistently one of the worst in football.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the phrase often associated with the fans when they were at uh you know Forbes Field or uh Pit Stadium was uh same old Steelers or same old uh excrement.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the Steelers were really bad back then, and uh rightfully so.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we have some cool PowerPoint, which I think helps bring it to life because uh you know you get to see some of the old stuff that you might never have uh seen before.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: If you're if you're watching on YouTube, yeah, I'd watch it on YouTube.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it's not the uh sorry about that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: There we go.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we'll start with the founding of the NFL, which happened in 1920.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: And this is actually predates the uh Pittsburgh Pirates, which were the original name, which we'll get into.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um back in 1920, horse racing, boxing, baseball, and college football were the big draws.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: That was the uh the Kentucky Derbies, the Triple Crowns, boxing, you know, Dempsey and uh who else Joe Lewis maybe was later, but that was the big thing.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh actually uh Rudy the Chief was a boxing promoter before he uh got into uh to uh the Steelers and um horse racing, and he was big into horse racing.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: The chief was a very good horse handicapper and had a lot of success uh winning money at the track.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was no television at the time, so unlike today, where it's more the games are a TV show and the people in the stands are just like an audience.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: The way you made money back then was to get as many people in the stands, turning the gates, selling tickets as humanly possible.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's why you had 60,000 stadiums and people, you know, baseball plays 160 games.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was 100 and what was 150 back then.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: But anywho, uh the and the backdrop of this, the NFL was founded in a Hutmobile dealership.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know where a Hutmobile is, or I guess that's one sitting there at the bottom left of our screen if you're watching on YouTube.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm not sure whatever happened to the Huttmobiles, but uh maybe Jay Leno owns one.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I do not.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the only two teams from the original league that survived were a team called the Decatur Stales, who became the Chicago Bears, and that was by uh Hallis, George Hallis, and the Chicago Cardinals, who later did become the Arizona Cardinals, and that was owned by um Bill Bidwell, I do believe, is who his son still owns the team.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so uh the ansys of 1920 to 1933, there are no Steelers.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh just to give us a backdrop of what was going on in 1933, the country had uh entered in Great Depression with unemployment reaching 24%.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: As of currently, right now, uh, this is April 6, 2020, after the highest rate in March, just to give us some perspective, uh the employment rate is 4.4%, and that's one of the after one of the worst uh employment months in long time.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we're still not to uh Great Depression error level yet.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: In 1933, uh Franklin Dillon Roosevelt was elected uh elected, defeating Hoover.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh one of his big planks was people were coming out of this, uh it was after the 20s and all the speakeasies and prohibition, people got sick of legislating morality.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a loosening, the the uh I think there was a generational change.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: So people started to lighten up a little bit and they wanted to have a drink occasionally, and they wanted to watch while they had their beer, they wanted to watch a sport, sporting events on Sunday.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, at that time, um, you weren't allowed.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Pennsylvania had something, they still have them.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're called the Blue Laws.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the Blue Laws are like a code of laws that don't allow you to do certain activities on Sunday.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of like a giveaway to the um clergy and the religious groups of the time.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the blue laws was you couldn't play sports on Sunday.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Rooney the Chief had worked for a gentleman, Bill Coyne.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: This is so long ago the Republicans were in charge of the state and the city.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: He uh he got wind of this through his political connections that they're repealing this blue law.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: So being the smart investor that he was, he decided that he would buy in him and a gentleman named Bert Bell uh for who ran the Eagles.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: They both bought in to the uh to join the National Football League.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if you ever wonder why you can't buy a car in Pennsylvania on Sunday, that would be a leftover blue law that nobody's ever gotten around them.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Repealing, I mean, I guess it's nice, you know, gift the car dealers a day off.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: But uh there's that good old FDR.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're watching on YouTube, the middle picture is actually of a soup kitchen line, and that's Al Capone's soup kitchen line.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: So Al Capone spreading the goodwill there.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Moving on.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you you know, that's something that that's something you really don't think about, Steve.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the fact that the Steel Words were founded right in the middle of the depression.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you just wouldn't think that would be a time that a business would be started.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: The chief, the chief was a risk taker, if anything.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I think you know, he knew too, like I said, he had some inside connections that he knew that you know the laws were going to be relaxed, and you know, he knew from success of baseball there's probably enough room out there for another you know professional sports franchise in town.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: So and you know, you know, they can't, and they don't play, you know, people that wanted to watch professionals instead of just college players.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off then.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh so 1933, the NFL expands by three teams: the Pirates, which became the Steelers, the Eagles, which are still the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Cincinnati Reds, which were a football team and who are now defunct.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Art Rooney paid$2,500 for the franchise in the NFL.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a rumor that um the chief had used some of his winnings from Saratoga to uh buy the team, but that Saratoga winning streak didn't happen until 1937, according to Dan, his son.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: So though the money did help them through some of the lean years, um, they was not the winnings, he did not use them to buy the team.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and later, just a couple of years ago, they actually had to divest some of the Rooney family had to divest themselves because they didn't the NFL made a rule where you couldn't own gambling tracks and uh sports franchises at the same time, which I don't know if it's go figure.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: So um he named the the Pirates, and uh at this time it was a common break practice to name the football team after the city's successful baseball team, such as the New York football giants, it's the New York baseball giants.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh always a great old-time way of saying things if you want to have fun.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: But there's the first uh pirates in 1933, the first team.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So was that, Steve, was that like uh was that because was that similar to what colleges do?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like like the Pit Panthers football team, the basketball team's also called the Pit Panthers and the the I yeah, I don't know if it was just kind of just a copycat just to kind of horn in on the success of the pirates, you know.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: They were 25, the pirates had won a World Series, 27, they went back and lost to some team called the Yankees who were really good that year.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I mean I think it's more just like kind of trying to glom on.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't believe there wasn't some sort of copyright infringement.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: I guess in the 20s, we cared.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it just was like whatever.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, whoever owned the pirates at the time, I would think I would be like kind of annoyed that you know, this upstart team, you know, get your own name and it's confusing, you know.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: The pirates beat the Giants 27-7.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like oh, okay.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, yeah, like you said, it's it was it was common, and and again, maybe that was the mentality, is like, hey, if if you're all from the same city, you'd all have the same name.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And not everybody did that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know George Hallis named the Bears um different than the Cubs, but he actually named the Bears like it was a take on the Cubs.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Cubs were were baby bears, and baseball players were smaller than football players, so that's why he named the Bears the Bears instead of the Cubs.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So he even that was still like themed with the other team's name.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's just interesting the mentality back then.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, you would think that there would be some kind of uh a copyright or at least objection by the existing team, but I guess not.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: And too, yeah, maybe they went with the any publicity's good publicity.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta remember things were so different then.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: People read about stuff in the papers.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: There was no TV, TV wasn't until the 50s.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I mean, unless you watch like movie tone news or something, you know, went to your local movie theater, you'd say, Oh, here's Red Grange or you know, the old old timey movie stuff.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, or you'd read about in the paper, like I said, the next day, and you know, maybe it wasn't as confusing too, because it'd be like, Oh, here's the football score, here's the baseball score, you know.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: But um, definitely a common practice, definitely an odd thing.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but in 1940, um, the chief wised up and got tired of being and also ran in the Pittsburgh.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: So he ran a contest in the local paper, and a guy named Joe Santoni from Charleroi suggested the Steelers.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: So Joe Santoni's prize was that he won Steeler season tickets for his winning suggestion.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he got to go watch a lot of really bad football in 1940.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Such a Pittsburgh name, too.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was Santonian.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Joe Santoni called over there and Charleroi, and he said we, yeah.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: But uh it and so and uh finally uh they didn't have the I I imagine back in the 40s they still had the old style helmets.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't until 1962 they actually adopted the iconic helmet look that it's the team is stuck with to this day, besides the one-offs that they do.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that was um there they actually had gold helmets at first, and uh the legend has it that the equipment manager wasn't sure that they were gonna keep this logo, so he only put it on one side of the helmet in case they told him to take it off, so you only have to do it once instead of twice.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but the team decided to stick with it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh definitely a unique look.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're the only team with logo on one side of their helmet.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they made the changes to the helmets, and the uh black color of the helmet is uh now the iconic look with the either the white shirts and gold pants or you know, or the home uniform with the black shirts.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I they don't they normally don't do black on black, they do black or white or black and gold.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: But um they were always black and gold, and the pirates are black and gold, so two out of the teams in Pittsburgh were both the same color, even going back to the um 40s and 60s.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: So nice picture of Santonio Holmes here.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, moving on.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, enough team history.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're gonna move into the players, and um boy, there's a lot of characters here.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: There wasn't a lot of success on the field, but the stories that these guys tell and that the stuff that they did are unbelievable, and um maybe give some perspective on the Antonio Browns of the world, you know.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: But these guys, these guys were uh were a motley crew.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: So um the first guy um was a gentleman named John Blood McNally, and he was both a player and a coach for the Steelers on and off from um 1934 to 1938.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um during the 1938 season, um McNally attended the Rose Bowl, which was nice, except the um Steelers were playing a home game in Huntington, West Virginia that day.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that could be a problem.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um he didn't have a cell phone, couldn't get on the wireless to call play.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: So he literally didn't know he had to coach a game.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: And like the reporters who were at the Rose Bowl were like, hey, aren't you supposed to be coaching you know the Pirates?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, uh no, we're not playing today.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, uh, yes, you are.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-oh.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope he enjoyed the Rose Bowl because uh the chief decided to fire him that day, but he was well liked by the players, and I guess the chief just didn't feel like firing till the end of the season.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: So he kept him on actually till the end of the season, and then got rid of John Blood McNally, who is definitely a character.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: I heard um another story, he he was such a party or drinker that they they made him go on a third-story hotel room so that he couldn't sneak out, and then he climbed out his window and still stuck out and still went and had fun that night.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: So John, like it just could you imagine somebody doing that?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: I it just just thing, I always think of that like could you imagine like a player, like the uproar that would happen.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh next player Twitter must have blown up when he forgot to coach the game, I'm sure.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, which defeat me?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Also, like if your nickname is blood, I mean that's that's pretty intense.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't have a face mask.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: This guy, this guy was uh this guy was hardcore.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um next up is a Supreme Court justice who was when not busy uh adjudicating Supreme Court cases, was up playing a little bit of football.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Byron Wizard White in uh 1938, he played for the Steelers, and um the chief had gotten sick of being the doormat of the league, so he paid them$15,000 a year, which was like an unheard of sum in 1938.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: I forget what the modern-day equipment equivalent is, but it was like quadruple or whatever the going rate for rookies was.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, and this becomes a theme in the 40s, kind of the Steelers.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, uh the World War II broke out, so he he went back to school at Yale and he did some time, I think in the Navy, and then um he became a Supreme Court justice.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: He did play two more years for the Lions, so it was um just kind of bad luck.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: He only played one year for the Steelers.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: He was really uh was a really good player, and um, I don't know his career as a Supreme Court justice.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: I guess he was a fair Supreme Court justice, and I didn't look into that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um a good quote um by the chief was of all the athletes I've known in my lifetime, I have to say that Wizard White came as close to anyone to giving 100% of himself when he was in Pittsburgh.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a great thing.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's all you can say if you go out there and do the best.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he was a pretty good player.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: He had a pretty good rushing rushing year that one year he played for the Steelers.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: So was it White?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um by the way, Steve, uh$15,000 in 1938 comes out to about$275,000 in 2020 money.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: So but they they I mean, because you read the interview, people were just like mouths open.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I guess for a football player that wasn't a lot back then.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you figure the gate, like once again, this is still 1938, so maybe they're on the radio.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: So besides radio money, it's not the TV millions and millions of dollars, and people aren't seeing, you know, I couldn't imagine like, you know, next week, like James Connor like becomes Supreme Court justice.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it just will be odd, yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Or yeah, I mean, there are players to have gone on to do other things and and quite successfully, you know.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think there was a player from Florida State who went to Oxford.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: He he never did play in the NFL, but I mean uh next up was uh Ernie Stotner.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: He's the um one of the few homegrown players that made the um Hall of Fame.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: He is the Steelers only retired number, I think.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: The number 70 is the only number.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: They retired, they retired Joe Green's number a couple years ago.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there's two.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's two now.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: 70 and 75 are the only two.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was the first to be retired, was the first Steeler inducted in the Hall of Fame.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: And Ernie was a throwback tough guy.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I have um I will read you a story written by Andy Russell about Ernie Stotner.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot believe this happened.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Under I can't believe this happened.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so he uh is an antidote from Andy Russell's book, Itases Toughness.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: He um returned to the huddle holding one of his hands, and in the other, uh Russell noticed that Stotner had a compound fracture of the thumb, which means the bone was actually sticking out of the skin.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Stotner only says only, what's the play?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he played the rest of the defensive series with a broken bone sticking out of his finger.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: When the defense returned to the sideline, Russell watched Stotner thinking he would go receive medical attention.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, Stotner said to someone, give me some tape.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And he taped up his hand into a club and played the rest of the game.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Ernie Stotner is among boys.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I I always thought my grandparents were way tougher than me.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're way tougher than I.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot imagine playing a football game with a compound fracture in your hand.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: But that's Ernie Stotner Hall of Famer, obviously.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Some great shots of him on the internet if you're watching.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, next player was a gentleman named Dick Hoke.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: He has spent 10 years as a player from 61 to 70 and was the fifth all-time leading rusher when he retired.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: He followed up that with a 30-year career dedicated to running backs coach for the Steelers.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: He coached um Franco Harris, Rocky Blair, and Bettis.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh probably more famously, he called the run play by Chris Fumato Fallout in the big playoff comeback win against Cleveland in 2001.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um Hook Hook uh finished up his career years ago, retired.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um he stated he beat the system by being a 30-year assistant coach with the same team.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great like Pittsburgh Steelers story.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: He spent 40 years with one employer.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's rare in any profession, but especially in football, where it seems like assistant coaches get get uh fired and hired a lot.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how many people did he go through from you know Chuck Knoll to you know Bill Cower?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think was he still around when Tomlin?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: He might even be still around when Tomlin was still.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I mean, in all the Super Bowls, he was here for nine eight Super Bowls, seven, eight Super Bowls.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's an impressive resume.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he was a good player too in fifth all-time leading Russia when he retired.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um Bullet Bill Dudley.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: He spent four years with the Steelers from 42 in 42 and then 45 to 46.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Umfortunately, another that bad luck in the 40s seemed to plague the Steelers because of the war.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: He missed three years in the Air Force.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: He did fly, actually flew supply missions in the Pacific during the war.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: He was only able to finish his rookie year since the draft would not.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: They they said he could hold off on the draft, I guess, in 42 for three months till they till he had to go in the uh Air Force.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he had the most success under um Jock Sutherland's uh offense.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um he was traded to Detroit after the uh 1946 season.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um Jim Finks, who is much more well known with Minnesota and Chicago than than than Pittsburgh, I he he played quarterback and running back, um, but he he uh had more success as a front office guy with those organizations.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: With the Steelers, but was still a very good uh player in his own right in from 49 to 55.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: He uh actually created two uh helped create two the purple people eaters in Minnesota.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: I could say Chris Fumonamala Fall, but not the Purple Peter people eaters.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: But um, and then uh he helped the 85 Bears defense.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: He drafted some of their players.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Too bad the Steelers uh never hired him for their front office people.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um another great old-time player, uh LB Nickel.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: He um he played tight end from um 1947 to 1957, and uh he finished his uh career with 329 receptions.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: And believe it or not, this is still second in Steelers history, um, the first being Heath Miller at 490, which is pretty impressive considering they really didn't throw the ball in those years in the 40s and 50s, especially to the tight end, and probably especially the Steelers.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um at in 2007, he made the 75th anniversary team.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he's fondly remembered and uh must have been one heck of a tight end to play back then.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Fran Rogrell, he played from 1950 to 1957.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was a running back.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um he was kind of a uh the fans had a chant for him called Hey Delodito, Rogel up the middle.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't really Rogel's fault because the coach was calling that play, and the coach was very stubborn and always ran the same play.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: So uh he he finished as an all-time leading rusher with 3,720 yards in 1957.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean you can see the offensive stats just weren't quite what they became later in in the later years.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So so that let me get that straight, Steve.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That that chant that the fans did where they said, hey, diddle diddle up Rogel up the middle, that was like a sarcastic like, oh, I wonder what play is.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: When we cover is Coach Walt Keisling, we'll cover that.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Walt the we'll cover that a little more in depth with Walt.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say that because it's more of Walt Keysling's fault, not Frey and Rogel's fault.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right, he didn't call it run the play the coach gives you.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Before Fran, he wasn't it he must not have been that bad.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, 3,000 yards.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: It was the their leading rusher at the time.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So apparently they were giving him the ball every play.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So they saw it first down.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh Jack, Jack Butler, he's a defensive back.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: He's in the Hall of Fame now from 51 to 59.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: He had he had 52 interceptions and was a four-time Pro Powl selection during his career.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And uh in 2008 he made the the all decade team and he's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Another person that had a lot of success after he formed a company called Blesto, which is a uh they formed the scouting for the NFL on the compound they're heavily, and yeah, that was his uh he was the guy who kind of embedded that and invented that.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: So another another uh feather in the cap of him for having a great successful career after football.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh an interesting gentleman here, John Henry Johnson.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: He was drafted, he was a running back, and he was drafted by the Steelers in 1953.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: But unfortunately, he decided he wanted to make more money, so he went to the uh Canadian Football League.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh led Chief to speculate that Johnson thought it was too cold in Pittsburgh, and he must have thought there was a resort up there.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why he thought Canada was a better choice than Pittsburgh.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: I get to feel like it was more the money than the weather.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he spent seven years with other teams before finally the Steelers did get him later in his career.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: He was the first Steelers Steeler to rush for a thousand yards in a season, and that was in 1962.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And in a 1964 game against the Cleveland Browns, Johnson had a 200-yard rushing and three touchdown performance.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he actually uh did better that day than the great Jim Brown.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was 34 at the time of that performance, and he's the oldest player to ever rush for 200 yards in a game, and that is a record that still stands at 34.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean who could break it uh is Peterson.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: How old is Adrian Peterson?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Is he 34 yet?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that would probably be the only person I could think could even come close to getting 200 yards rushing, you know.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: But um, he was a really good player, had a long career.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of the few bright spots probably of that era.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I remember about John Henry Johnson was he got inducted into the Hall of Fame in the late 1980s.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it was during that time, that was after all the 70s players had retired.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So every year there'd be, you know, at least I'd say at least two steelers inducted every year, you know, Mel Blunt, Joe Green, Jack Ham, Terry Bradshaw, right?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: All those guys were getting inducted.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember the year that John Henry Johnson got inducted, and I was I was like, who's John Henry Johnson?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't, he didn't, was he like Franco's backup?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it just I remember that thinking like, man, you nobody really knew a lot unless you were old enough to probably had experience that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people just didn't know much about pre-1970 Steelers, and he was a Hall of Fame running back.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: He's very good.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: He was a very good player.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just it's kind of weird that he didn't play for the Steelers till later in his career and still was really good.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think he hurt his knee when he was 34.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: So if they would have had modern medicine, maybe he would have played longer.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, but I mean 200 yards at 34, I mean, that's impressive.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's really impressive for a running back, especially in those days, too.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you there was no safety.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there was there was no safety measures.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you got hit hard every play, you got clothes lines.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's a Paul Brown coach Browns team with Jim Brown.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's not like you know, some slept team.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the the Browns were really good back then.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that that might have been one of their championship years.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, so that's that's impressive.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: John Hendry John's a very good player.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, next up is kind of a sad story.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he only played two years with the um Steelers.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's more known for playing at Baltimore, but he did have a good year with Pittsburgh.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's um big daddy Gene Libscomb.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he never attended college, but he served in the Marine Corps and he played on the Marine Corps, I guess they had football teams during during that time.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then he played, he got he walked on with the Rams and he was traded to Baltimore where he fell into some good fortune and he learned from the great Gino Morchetti and Art Donovan kind of taught on the ropes, and he was obviously physically athletically gifted enough that um he earned a nickname Big Daddy.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh fun guy character.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he liked the party, he liked women.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: He was uh he was one of those uh characters that I'm talking about, and he was a pro less pro wrestler in the offseason.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: If you're on the YouTube, you can see I don't know what kind of wrestling move that is, but get entertained.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Think of the wife, think of his kids Tanner and my uh inner Jim Ross there.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: But um unfortunately, he only did play one one or two seasons with the Steelers.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um he had a drug problem, he died of a heroin overdose in Baltimore in the offseason.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, unfortunately, his life was tragically cut short, as so many people's are.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so he he had you know, interesting character.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: I like like the wrestling.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, who would ever let somebody wrestle nowadays in the offseason?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think about wrestling.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like TJ Watt, or he's probably just decided, like, let's wrestle in the offseason.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's probably not gonna happen, especially if you got hurt.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Can you do magic?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: People be really mad.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, next up is uh probably the biggest character of the pre-70s Steelers, probably their best player, although he wasn't homegrown.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: They traded for him.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: It that would be one Bobby Lane.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: He was a um he was a quarterback.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um Doug Walker said that he never lost the game, time just ran out.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was known for hard partying and drinking.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: He would often play his games hung over.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: And uh asked once how he played so well.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he said he slept fast after his uh nights of having fun.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: Art Donovan, once again, the the uh he was a character too, he played played for the Colts, uh, tackled Lane and asked him, uh, he smelled like booze.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Boy, were you out late last night?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Bobby Lane said last night I was drinking at half.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: So so Bob Bobby was a character, and but a but a very good player player.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um once famously, and this is this is how I'm negotiating.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: If I ever have any contract negotiations, this is what I'm doing.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going Bobby Lane style.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: He just he comes in to the chief, and okay, how much do you want to get paid?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Here's your contract, just signs the blank contract, bottom say, you pay me what I think what you think I'm worth, and is like deuce it.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm out.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this guy, I mean, I don't know whether that's smart or stupid, but uh that's how Bobby Lane rolled.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the Detroit Lions haven't won a championship since he left, so I don't know.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: But Bobby's a character, he's a hall of playing player, great quarterback, and uh interesting person.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's stories of him wrecking his car into trolleys after drinking.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: That was Dick Hoke's story, and still showed up.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: So um but Bobby was a character.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Steve, is it true that he like smokes cigarettes in the huddle?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: I always heard that about I I didn't see that story, but I I oh I mean, my goodness, if you're wrecking, you know, if you're you're showing up drunk and you know, what's a cigarette?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that might sober you up.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean this guy's some point.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: And this guy, this guy was just it the Bobby Lane, and that's just like three Bobby Lane stories.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: There are so many of them that it's just it's funny.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: But he was a very good football player, he kind of like a Ken Stabler before Ken Stabler.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: So uh moving on to the coaches.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the early coaches, Forrest Dowds was the first coach, and there really is no information on Forrest Dowds.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even think I could find a picture of Forrest Dowds.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Forrest Dowd's claim to fame is that he coached the team for one season and then went off to do Forrest Dowd stuff somewhere else.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the next two coaches uh were friends of the chief, and apparently that's how you got your job.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: You just walked in, like you know, you're hanging out, and he was like, Hey, you want to coach a football team?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, sure, why not?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's Joe Joe Bach and Lobby Demilio were definitely fell into that category.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't really qualified to be head coaches per se.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: They just kind of play football and coach for the chief.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I do believe that um the chief got in fights with both of them.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, could you imagine that in the news?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Dan Rooney the second gets in fight with Mike Tomlin in his office.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be big news.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: They they they like, and I don't mean like argument, yelling, and screaming.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean like fist fights.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean like punches were thrown.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: So uh Joe Bach, uh, he hired him again in the 50s.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Joe threatened to quit so many times that finally, after a really bad season, the chief finally called him on his bluff.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: I guess he was just like, oh, I'm gonna quit.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, you'll never fire me.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, oh well.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: Quit one too many times here, Joe.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, now to the uh to the PS de resistance of our of our really the the Steelers really didn't have good coaches back then, and uh Walt Keisling is a perfect example of that.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is the guy who cut Johnny Unidas, and uh that was they ran into Johnny, um, him, the chief, Dan, uh down on West Liberty Avenue, like right after they cut him and wished him luck.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And Johnny was like, Yeah, I'm on my way to Baltimore.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it'll work out there.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe, maybe Johnny might work out a little bit there for you there, buddy.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um he was the gentleman who unfortunately gave Frank Rangel his uh name that was infamy.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, diddle diddle, Roquel up the middle.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a story that uh I know it was the chief or Dan told him that he wasn't allowed to run that play at the beginning of a game, that they had to run a play action pass.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, like the other team was totally shocked and went for a touchdown, but it was called back on like uh false start.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: And Dan always thought that he told the uh left tackle to do that on purpose, just that so that he wouldn't get proved wrong.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: So so uh Keyes was a Keyes was a character.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um he he hired him back, and the only thing I compare to, he hired him back three different times, and the only thing I compare to, it's like like a Billy Martin George Steinbrenner kind of thing.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like they just there was some sort of weird relationship there where they just kept bringing them back thinking that it was going to be different this time, or very temptuous relationship between him and the chief who ran the team at that time.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's kind of like you know, that Seinfeld bit where Steinbrenner's naming all his coaches at the end of one of the Seinfelds he keeps saying, Well, Billy Martin, you know, Bill Verdon, Billy Martin, you know.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: So you could do the same thing with Wal Keysling.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't he didn't like coaching young players, right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: He well, yeah, that wasn't that was another reason they traded away their draft picks.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: He would he would trade away draft picks because he always thought, well, you can win with a veteran.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Him and the other guy, there's another coach to Buddy Parker, kind of similar.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: I guess that was common back then.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: That was a common coaching philosophy that they didn't want to take time to develop the players, they just wanted to win with veterans.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we got no time.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Dr.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: Jock Sutherland.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was a very successful coach at the University of Pittsburgh.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: He learned under um Pop Warner, he may have a pop warner football.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: He won a Rose Bowl national championship at Pitt and he used an old-style double wing offense, um, which I did read that they said it's a predecessor of the spread.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's kind of like you snap it to one of these three guys behind the line and they all run, and you have too many people to block on one side.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the Steelers had their most successful season under him.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a modern offense.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's the only thing I will say.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know how much longer that would have lasted in the 50s, even if Dr.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: Sutler who unfortunately Dr.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sutler got a brain tumor and died in uh in this on a scouting trip in 47 or vacation, they said in 47.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: They found him in a field and he had passed away from a brain tumor.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: But um Dr.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Settler was very, very strict guy, didn't drink, didn't smoke, was very upstanding.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um very successful coach.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, everybody was kind of afraid of him.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Even Dan, who was younger, was afraid.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: I remember they said they didn't have a chalkboard for him, and they were like running all over St.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent's looking for a chalkboard.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: That was in one of Dan's stories about him.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: But um unfortunately, you know, once again, that kind of plays into that decade of the 40s between the war and Dr.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: Sutherland dying and players leaving, they just didn't have a lot of luck in the 40s.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: They they probably would have won something in the 40s if they would have had a little bit better luck back then.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Buddy Parker was the longest tenured and most successful coach of the dark years, and he was another one of those he wanted to win with players that were veterans, veteran guy.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he got had the Steelers' best season.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: He got them within a game of the championship, which we'll cover in 1963, which was their most successful well, their second most successful.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: We'll cover those two seasons next.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: But Buddy Parker was the longest tenured.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is the only picture I could find of Bill Austin with the Steelers.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: He is is seated in the lower if you're watching on the internet.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this was kind of like a set, this is like a key like happening with with the Steelers.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is one of the events that probably turned.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you learn more from your failures than your successes sometimes.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is what shaped Dan Rooney.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: That and the Keisling shading away all his pick for veterans and never, you know, developing players.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of interviewing several candidates, um, Dan and Art interviewed Bill Austin, who was an assistant under Vince Lobardi in the 60s and the very successful Packer teams of those days.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so the chief knows, you know, being owner forever, calls up Lombardi, and Lombardi, of course, wants to give his coach a good reference.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, he's great.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can't go wrong with him.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um, the chief says, Well, if it's good enough for Lombardi, it's good enough for me.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, unfortunately, this guy just wasn't didn't have what Lombardi had.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: He was an okay assistant, but he wasn't a very good head coach.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Dan learned his lesson after that and interviewed several coaches.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: And this was the last coach that they hired before Chuck Null.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: And really, you know, this is what I say when it's you know, sometimes your failures teach you what not.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you gotta learn what not to do before you learn what to do.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of the last coach there.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: But um, definitely of all the coaches, um, Buddy Parker was probably the most successful, Dr.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: Sutton was the second most successful, the worst was probably Walt Keisling, in my opinion, because he just was a total, you know, idiot.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, who the people he cut are like Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are you doing?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, so anywho.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: So so Steve, so Steve, two things are so Bill Austin, I mean, he might right now he's definitely a trivia question answer because he's literally the last coach that the Steelers fired, which is hard to believe.
• 40:07
  unknown: Right?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is, yeah.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: 1968.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: 1968, it was last time the Steelers fired a coach.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be interesting to see how many coaches have been fired total since then in the league.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm sure it's a lot.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Cleveland's gone through like 20 of them in the last you know decade or whatever.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then going back to Buddy Parker, my favorite Buddy Parker story was I guess he was um he was very like he if he got mad at somebody, he'd get he'd really go crazy if they fumbled or they did something wrong.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a preseason game one year where the whole team just stunk.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he put the whole team, the whole team.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: He put the whole team on waivers.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Burt Bell, I think, was the commissioner.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he actually like and he literally submitted the transaction to the league office to put the whole team on waivers.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Burt Bell called him the next day.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Burt Bell's like, you can't do that.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Buddy Parker said, Why not?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: They all stink.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh, yeah, Bert Bell, uh, that's unbelievable.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's like a bad fantasy deal.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's yeah.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that I Buddy Parker, like you said, had the most success, was also a very um apparently reactionary kind of individual.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would give Dr.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sutherland more success, but he just was only there two seasons.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I just I can't get like if I think if he would have been there five to seven years, they would have won something.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: They would have won a championship.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, it was it like the he was he was not only was he only there for a couple seasons, but it was the seasons right after the war ended.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have guys coming back from the war, football's just getting going again.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, imagine if he's there, you know, 10 years, what what he's able to do potentially.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, very unfortunate.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um now moving on to memorable seasons.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is a short topic from 1933 to 1972.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: There are not, I mean, I'm gonna include the first two years of Chuck Dolan.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: There is not a lot there.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've all heard this before.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is pretty cliched, it's pretty common knowledge.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: During 1943, due to the manpower shortage of the Steelers, they always had a close relationship, the chief with Burt Bell, who, like you said, was the commissioner eventually.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: He also owned the Eagles and ran the Eagles for a while.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they combined their efforts.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, uh none of the coaches, Kiesling and Greasy Neal, what a name, they wouldn't accept the demotion.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: So they both were like co-coaches.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that was a good idea.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: You can't make this stuff up.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's like and uh it's uh the and the Steels actually had a respectable team.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: They are 5'4 and 1.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's the first winning season for the Eagles for all you Philadelphia fans out there that I'm don't know why you're watching this, but there you go.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Congratulations for you, bully for you.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the team split its games between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they didn't do it again the next year because I think the greasy neo or whoever was in charge of the Eagles wanted to kind of ace Rooney out and just run it for himself, or but uh Rooney didn't want to deal with them again, even though he's friends with Burp Bell.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a nice picture of the the old Steagles.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the next year things got worse.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is the worst.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna say this is the worst team in uh the worst Steelers team in team history.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna say it.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: That I it's their only season where they never won a game.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: They finished 0 10 and the um they merged with the Chicago Cardinals.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: That would be Bill Bellwell's team that is still around.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which was fun.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Super Bowl 43 was the first time two teams that actually been one team played each other.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Super Bowl and their nickname was the carpets because they were so bad.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: And um, the reason they were so bad was the players that were on this team were 4F, which um I'm not even sure they use that anymore.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: But back in World War II, they the 4F they call flat feet, or you know, if you had some asthma, I think, or some sort of hell, like you had to be really sick.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, it's World War II, they're drafted anybody that has, you know, is breathing.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so these people were not healthy, they are not healthy people who would be like, you know, and probably older or past their prime.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the chief would recall about this team.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: We put two bed, we put two bad teams together and made them twice as bad.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's just this classic.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: I love the chief.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: The chief was a character too.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: He had teens that are a character.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, this team really stunk.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: So so why so it's funny that when they combined with the Eagles, they got creative and they came up with the name Steagles, right?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: But then the next year they merged with the Cardinals and they're called Card Pit.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: That like hype of creativity.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: I you know, it's the bidwells, you know, the bit maybe the bidwells had something to do with that.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's just in the carpets, which is just even better.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I just I I mean, I don't know.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I guess like stardles or something would have sounded weird, but I just card pit was just the weirdest name.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then the team was in Chicago, not Arizona back then, too.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because they were starting they hadn't moved to Arizona or St.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: Louis, actually, they need to move St.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Moved to Arizona via St.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Louis.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: So um 1947, I'm going to call this their most successful season of the dark era because it's their only playoff game from 1933 to 1972.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is the only playoff game the Steelers have played in.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, they lost, they had an 8-4 record and um they made it to the playoffs, but they lost to Philadelphia 21 to nothing.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: That was the only playoff game in it's almost 40 years, 39 years.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's unbelievable.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: I can't imagine being a fan of a team and not even having a playoff.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even even like the Houston Texans have had playoff game.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to the Clippers, the Clippers have been in a playoffs, haven't they?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: I can't think of like a modern day equivalent.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Pirates have been I mean, it it's well I think I think back then, Steve, I think, right, the they they don't like I don't think they really had too many postseason games.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think they had the league was small, so you had like the two teams from Yeah, each division or the top of the yeah, it was like baseball with the pennant.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: You would pennant like back then in baseball, you could win a hundred and some games, and it was like great season, see you next year, guys.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the same with football.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but I think I I don't know what precipitated that.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: It must have been some kind of like they finished in a tie kind of thing, because the winner of that game played the Cardinals for the NFL championship, and it it I think that's might have been what happened.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: There it was some kind of tie or something, and so they had a a playoff to break the tie, and then the Eagles ended up playing the Cardinals in the NFL championship game, which is also interesting.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Was that the one they played the snow?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was that was so you talk about playoff droughts.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was the one that the Cardinals won.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they haven't won since.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they haven't won anything since.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, I think it's one like they played in the snow in Philadelphia, and like the guy who like scored the winning touchdown like rode the trolley home.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, eh, you just scored two touchdowns on championship.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I think the Cardinals, uh, I think the Cardinals didn't win a playoff game until like the late 90s.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think they went something like 50 years without winning a playoff game.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that might that might be uh an apt comparison with with the Cardinals.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: So so going back to the Chiefs quote about you know, two very bad franchises, um, those were definitely two of the worst, although um the card 1947 was apparently a good season for both of them.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, and then uh 1963 is a weird year.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they kind of get lucky.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they finished 7-4-3, and because of the way the steel the NFL determined their playoffs, they didn't count ties.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: So because they were seven and four, they had to beat the Giants to play the Giants for the championship at the end of the season.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: But this was just a regular season game at the end of the year, and they ended up losing.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I do believe that is Frank um Frank Gifford catching a pass if you're welcome on the internet in that game.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because yeah, that's December, November.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's the I have a little thing, little pamphlet from the game, too.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: But um, all the Steelers needed to do was to win that game, and then they would have to play the Giants again.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was like a double double elimination tournament.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: But um, no, the Steelers lost, and I'm sure many of the fans that year said same old Steelers.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they gone through some uh adversity that year.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Bobby Lane retired and uh Big Daddy Lipscomb had died in the offseason, but um they played hard and uh had a successful season, but uh unfortunately came to a crashing end without any further success.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um conclusions, what what happened during all this?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um 40 years of ineptitude.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, there's some I think in the 40s they would have had more success, but there was a lot of unlucky between world events and then you know Byron Wizard White deciding he wanted to be Supreme Court justice, you know, and you know, people getting drafted and um inept by not drafting well.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they kept hiring and firing Walt Keesling, um hiring coaches that were just buddies of Art Rooney.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think the chief didn't take the NFL seriously, he was more into his horse racing and horse tracks, that's what made him his money, and the NFL is kind of like his just you know side business.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he didn't expect it, like he said that he didn't expect the NFL to become as popular as it did.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: And from his perspective, you know, you know, what's a good I mean I'm I'm you know 43.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I don't know, like seems like people were into these esports now, especially with the virus and everything, that you can't be face to face.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: I can't say in 20, 30 years that these esports are gonna take off, you know.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of compare it to that.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you're older and you don't maybe understand something or can't who could predict that TV was gonna take off the way it was, and that the NFL really would capitalize on that like it did.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they cut quarterbacks, Ted Marchaboda, Len Dawson, Johnny Unidas.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: They traded Or Morrill, Earl Morrill.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they didn't really scout well.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um a great story is they once drafted a name a guy named Gary Glick.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: And they the only recommendation they had was a letter from his college, and he played like in Colorado or something.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um Keisling was just, oh, this guy's the greatest.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta sign him, he's this, he's that.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: So they gave in and they they signed him and they finally got film on him, and he was like horrible.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe should have strafted him a little bit better.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um only one playoff, parents, like we said, and they lost that.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: It puts the I mean, you wonder why people like in '72 went nuts and were running on the field and celebrating and talked about that play, still talk about that play, especially the older generation.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: That was the first taste of success that the Steelers had ever had.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you talk to everybody, you know, they always say there was a million people at that game when there was only really 30,000.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, your dad was legitimately at that game, too.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: He was.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: He was but yeah, but it wasn't even on television locally because it was blacked out, right?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: But um, it really the significance of the Immaculate Reception really you can see why people it's so significant to Fitzberg and the Steelers in particular.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we did a podcast about the um the 2013 Pirates Reds playoff game.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and when we did that podcast, Steve, remember we talked about how you know the reason that people were just so on fire for that game because they had waited for 20 years of losing.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: They they sat through 20 years of losing.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the Immaculate Reception, that was literally double double the amount of the years.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: That was 40 years of Super Bowl.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't win the Super Bowl.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, but just to have, like you said, a playoff win.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, when you see the replay of that game, there's just people like jumping out of the stands onto the field, like totally losing their minds.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's just you sit through so much losing, and then you finally finally win something of importance.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: It it definitely must have been a big deal for people at that time.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I mean that set up uh the lessons learned.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think it set up the Steelers to have success under Dan in the 70s and uh and through on now to his uh son who's running the team.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um thank you for uh tuning in.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I hope it found it informative.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I was entertained.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: I there are a lot of great stories from this era.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh wasn't well, it's more about the characters and the people that play than really the success on the field, I think, with this era.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um the team did survive.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Rooney kept it together.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's to his credit.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_02: He kept the team together and was able to, you know, have them uh be successful.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: They wouldn't be there if they wouldn't have survived the lean years.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, sometimes, you know, you gotta appreciate, you know, to appreciate where you are, you gotta learn where you've been.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks for tuning in.