Pittsburgh Steelers Dynasty Born Fifty Years Ago by Jeffrey W. Mason

(Author's Note: If any reader of the article below represents a publishing entity or knows of a specific one that would be interested in printing part of all of this 10,000 word article, please email me with the words "Possible publisher of Jeff Mason's Steelers Tribute" in the subject line to [email protected]. Thank you.)

Eighty nine years ago on July 8, 1933, eight years after Art Rooney and his brother Dan starred in their last season of minor league baseball for my hometown’s Wheeling Stogies team, Rooney established a new franchise in the National Football League – then called the Pittsburgh Pirates. But by 1940 a contest was held and the winning entry for the franchise’s new nickname became “The Steelers.”?So, 2022 will be the Steeler’s ninetieth season, but the pivotal year for Pittsburgh’s turnaround from the “same old Steelers” a team that couldn’t breakthrough from a skid of losing decades to become today’s winningest NFL franchise since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger was the 1972 season.

Half a century ago, 1972 was a very eventful year.?The Vietnam War was winding down and the Paris Peace Accords would come early in the next year.?President Nixon’s Watergate Scandal began with the arrest of five burglars at the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972. The final manned Apollo 17 moon landing mission would wrap up the year in December.?In the sports world, the United States did well in the 1972 Summer Olympics with American swimmer Mark Spitz winning several medals – with one exception of the Soviets controversially beating the U.S. men’s basketball team by a single disputed point to win the gold medal.?That is until a terrorist attack by Palestinians shocked the world and resulted in the deaths of a number of Israeli athletes.

Meanwhile, in the steel city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, sports fans celebrated the Pittsburgh Pirates autumn 1971 World Series championship, their first since Wheeling-born Bill Mazeroski belted the ninth inning walk off home run in 1960 to defeat the New York Yankees.?This time the Pirates had defeated the Baltimore Orioles four games to three and looked to defend their title the following year.?Although the Pirates didn’t win it all in ’72, the city of Pittsburgh would reign in the decade of the Seventies as the nation’s City of Champions with Pirate World Series wins in ’71 and ’79 (this later series won again by the same four to three count over the Orioles), the University of Pittsburgh Panthers won a college football national championship in 1976 under Coach Johnny Majors and a star Heisman Trophy winner Tony Dorsett (although my alma mater, the West Virginia University Mountaineers upset Top 25 Pitt the season before by a score of 17-14 on Nov. 8, 1975 in Morgantown), and the Pittsburgh Steelers became the first NFL team to win four Super Bowls which came in an eight year period, 1972-1979, that’s SEVEN championships for the City of Three Rivers!

?The purpose of this article is to explore the turning point for the Steelers when they went from perennial league doormat without a playoff victory to speak of to their run of four world championships.

The year was 1972, when the Steelers finally broke through, it was a season where the team set a record for season wins with eleven, chalked up their first ever division title, won their first ever playoff game for their 12th victory in a game that has become legendary for one of the greatest endings in NFL history – the “Immaculate Reception” game.?And, by a mere four point loss to the superpower of the day, the undefeated Miami Dolphins, they narrowly missed playing in their first Super Bowl!

So, let’s begin our celebration of the magnificent ’72 Pittsburgh Steelers, the beginning of a Steel City Dynasty.

No dynasty begins with the flick of a switch but one man’s hiring was a very decisive starting point.?On January 27, 1969, Art Rooney hired 37 year old Charles Henry “Chuck” Noll as the 16th head coach of the Steelers.?Noll was a former defensive coordinator for some powerful Baltimore Colts teams and a former assistant with the San Diego Chargers, a Cleveland born NFL veteran who played for his hometown Browns as a linebacker and “messenger guard” on offense (sending in play calls for the quarterback from Coach Paul Brown) from 1953-1959.?Decades later, Noll would join Paul Brown with his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio in 1993.?Noll was unusual in that he gave very few personal interviews to the news media and he preferred that his players, rather than himself, be focused on.?This included being offered product endorsements, TV commercials (for example “Mean” Joe Greene’s Pepsi ads) and televised one-on-one Q&As.?When asked why this was, his response was usually something like, “I’m really not a celebrity, I’m just a teacher.”?After he retired, when sports writers asked what was the secret of the Steelers Dynasty, he simply replied, “The single most important thing we had in the Steelers of the Seventies was the ability to work together.”

Chuck Noll, a.k.a. “The Emperor Chaz” in 21st century speak, who guided Pittsburgh to four Super Bowl wins in just six years (1974-1978), nine Central Division titles, sixteen wins in 24 playoff games, an overall won-loss record of 209-156-1 .572 from 1969 to 1991, slowly inexorably built Rooney’s team into a winner, mostly through the annual NFL draft.?In 1969 Noll with the help of others, particularly college scout African-American Bill Nunn from West Virginia State University – who was posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021 – went somewhat the unconventional route.?Pittsburgh grabbed quite a few key players from HBCs (historically black colleges) as seen in the Steelers’ first round choice in 1969 of future Hall of Famer “Mean” Joe Greene from North Texas State.?Others chosen in Noll’s first draft included quarterback Terry Hanratty from Notre Dame, running back Warren Bangston from Tulane, and center Jon Kolb from Oklahoma State.

The next year, 1970, quarterback Terry Bradshaw, another future Hall of Famer was drafted out of Louisiana Tech, as were wide receiver Ron Shanklin from North Texas State and future Hall of Famer defensive back Mel Blount from Southern University.?In 1971, Noll’s draft picks included wide receiver Frank Lewis from Grambling, future Hall of Famer, linebacker Jack Ham from Penn State, defensive end Dwight White from East Texas State, joining Greene as one of the legendary members of the brutal Steel Curtain defensive front along with another member defensive tackle Ernie “Arrowhead” Holmes from Southern University.?Other future starters picked were tight end Larry Brown from Kansas and defensive back Mike Wagner from Western Illinois.?In ’72 another key offensive superstar running back Franco Harris, a blocking back for Penn State star Lydell Mitchell, was a first round selection and others chosen included tight end John McMakin from Clemson, defensive end Steve Furness from Rhode Island and quarterback “Jefferson Street” Joe Gilliam from Tennessee State.

Of course it took time for Noll and his assistants to mentor and coach his players up.?Steeler fans had to endure 1-13, 5-9, and 6-8 won-loss records from 1969-71, but they were rewarded magnificently after that dismal 12-30 .286 record with an eight year streak of 88-27-1 .763 in the regular season and a 14-4 .778 playoff run, not to mention four Super Bowl victories, one over Minnesota 16-6; two over Dallas, 21-17, 35-31; and the last one over the Los Angeles Rams 31-19 in ’74, ’75, ’78 and ’79.?Noll’s coaching success with Pittsburgh was not widely celebrated but at least one prominent expert took notice.?None other than the later namesake for the NFL-AFL Championship Game (a.k.a. Super Bowl) trophy – Washington Redskins and former Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi who foresaw a Steeler dynasty.?He informed sportswriters at the Super Bowl V press party in Miami (the game was won by the Colts, 16-13, over the Cowboys), “Chuck Noll is building one hell of a football team up in Pittsburgh, I look for the Steelers to be the team of the future.”

The historic dynasty starting 1972 season got underway at the Steelers’ training camp at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania that summer.?The preseason, exhibition schedule included six games and Pittsburgh won four, lost one and tied another, outscoring foes 160-63.

Fifty years ago, Aug. 5, 1972, the Steelers’ preseason kicked off with a Saturday night game against Coach Alex Webster’s New York Giants at Three Rivers Stadium with 34,175 fans attending.?The Giants were coming off a 4-10 season, not too dissimilar from the Steelers’ 6-8 record in ’71.?Pittsburgh had nipped the Giants 17-13 in New York in a regular season victory in 1971 and had won three consecutive preseason games against them.?Third year quarterback Terry Bradshaw completed three of seven passes, including an 11 yard scoring pass to third year receiver Ron Shanklin but the Blond Bomber from La. Tech bruised his thigh in the second quarter and was replaced by 1971’s backup signal caller Bob Leahy of Emporia State.?Leahy hit second year receiver Frank Lewis with an 80 yard touchdown pass.?Another big play was defensive back Glen Edwards returning a New York punt 72 yards to paydirt.?A Giants’ big play was their block of Roy Gerela’s 50 yard field goal attempt and recovery of the ball at the Pittsburgh 34 yard line which resulted in a 45 yard Pete Gogolak field goal. In the fourth quarter, rookie running back Steve Davis of Delaware State scored a touchdown run while the Giants got their final points in a Steelers 28-10 romp with Ed Baker’s 23 yard scoring pass to Vince Clements.?Pittsburgh rushed for 245 yards on 36 carries.

In Pittsburgh’s second preseason game of half a century ago on Saturday Aug 12, 1972 in the Steelers’ first ever game at Seattle’s University of Washington stadium, before 44,038 neutral site fans, Pittsburgh defeated Super Bowl III winning coach Weeb Ewbank’s New York Jets 22-3 to improve to 6-4 against former American Football League teams since both leagues announced the 1970 NFL-AFL merger.?It was perhaps another indicator that 1972 might be a significantly improved year for the Steelers as the Jets matched Noll’s 1971 season record of 6-8 (and Ewbank’s team would go 7-7 in 1972).?Former Super Bowl MVP quarterback Joe Willie Namath, from Beaver Falls, Pa., played only sparingly in the first half completing only three of 14 throws against a tough Steelers defense before giving way to Jets’ backup Bob Davis in the second half.?Same thing for Pittsburgh’s Bradshaw although he did complete a 26 yard TD pass to third year receiver Dave Smith before backup Joe Gilliam played quarterback in the second half.?Placekicker Roy Gerela, a second year player from New Mexico State, was the star of the game hitting field goals of 51, 32, 37, 33 and 35 yards in the victory as Pittsburgh improved to 2-0 in preseason.

On Saturday Aug. 19, 1972, the Steelers journeyed to play Coach Norm Van Brocklin’s Atlanta Falcons on their home field in Georgia.?The Falcons, who were coming off a 7-6-1 year in ’71 (and would go 7-7 in ’72), was a team born in 1966 that Pittsburgh had defeated two of three times in regular season matchups but had not played in preseason.?Atlanta scored first with a Bill Bell 47 yard field goal but again Terry Bradshaw didn’t fare so well for Pittsburgh going out in the second quarter with a bruised right knee.?However, rookie running back Steve Davis scored a first quarter 30 yard touchdown run, then backup fourth year quarterback Terry Hanratty from Notre Dame hit receiver Frank Lewis with a 60 yard scoring pass.?Then a Gerela field goal and Hanratty 21 yard TD pass to Davis increased the Steelers’ lead.?One of the most exciting plays of the 1972 exhibition schedule was an amazing 76 yard scoring run by rookie runner Franco Harris.?Steeler Nation started to believe perhaps that they had a game breaker in this Penn State rookie who served mostly as a blocking back at Penn State for tailback Lydell Mitchell.?The Falcons lost 31-17 but finished with two fourth quarter scores by quarterback Dick Shiner from the University of Maryland, a former Steelers’ signal caller in 1968-69, who hit Art Malone with a 60 yard scoring pass and threw a 14 yard TD pass to Willie Belton.??Pittsburgh improved to 3-0 after three exhibition games.

Noll’s fourth preseason game of 1972 was a big challenge as the Steelers on Saturday Aug. 26th faced Noll’s old team – the Don McCafferty coached Baltimore Colts that featured two superstars, a monster defensive lineman Bubba Smith and another future Pro Football Hall of Famer quarterback Johnny Unitas born in the Steel City who played in college at Louisville and was drafted but let go in 1955 by Pittsburgh.?These Colts were winners of Super Bowl V just two seasons past (16-13 over the Cowboys) and recorded an impressive 10-4 won-loss record in ’71 scoring 313 points and allowing only 140 points (10 points per game), before a playoff win over Cleveland and a loss to the Miami Dolphins in the AFC Championship Game.?Baltimore had thoroughly dominated Pittsburgh in past meetings blasting the Steelers 38-10 in a 1965 preseason matchup and again 41-7 in Charm City in a regular season game in ’68, as well as a 1971 regular season victory 34-21.?This game would be played in Tampa Bay, Florida – a first for the Steelers. ?Roy Gerela kicked 43 and 11 yard field goals to give Pittsburgh a 6-0 lead but the Colts got lucky when fullback Don “Bowling Ball” Nottingham took the ball 42 yards from the 26 to Pittsburgh’s 32 yard line when he fumbled away the rock – but wide receiver Willie Franklin grabbed it and ran to paydirt to complete the 74 yard scoring run.?A missed extra point made it a 6-all tie.?Noll played his eleventh round draft pick, backup signal caller Joe Gilliam (1950-2000), an interesting talented quarterback born in Charleston, WV, raised in Nashville, who quarterbacked Tennessee A&I to a black college national championship.?Two seasons later in 1974, Noll benched the underperforming Terry Bradshaw and Gilliam led Pittsburgh in a flamboyant passing extravaganza (he threw 50 passes in a 35-35 tie with Denver) that excited some fans but also saw the Steelers play inconsistently, resulting in Bradshaw’s return and his winning nine of the last eleven games including Pittsburgh’s first Super Bowl.?Against the Colts in this exhibition game he drove the Steelers to paydirt scurrying five yards to give Noll’s team a 13-6 lead.?But Colts’ backup quarterback Marty Demres threw a scoring pass to Tom Mitchell to tie the game at 13-all.?The game would probably end up a tie the crowd sighed until with less than a minute left, linebacker Mike Curtis picked off a Steelers’ pass and seconds later Jim O’Brien, who kicked the field goal that beat the Cowboys in Super Bowl V, converted a 20 yarder to give the Colts a 16-13 victory and dropped Pittsburgh to 3-1 in preseason.

Disappointed in the score but not the way his team stacked up against a recent Super Bowl champion, Chuck Noll led his team on Saturday Sept. 2 to the Steelers’ first ever game in Memphis against the J.D. Roberts-coached New Orleans Saints, a team born in 1967.?Despite a 4-8-2 record in ’71 and never more than five wins in any of their first five seasons, New Orleans had won three consecutive regular season games in the last four years over the Black and Gold. ?But this game was a Steelers blowout win 56-7 – still today the largest preseason margin and most preseason points scored by Art Rooney’s franchise.?Terry Bradshaw, whose first two years as the Pittsburgh signal caller did not go as planned (a total of 19 passing touchdowns with six rushing scores stacked against a two season total of 46 interceptions, 58 sacks and quarterback ratings of a dismal 31.3 and 59.7 as well as an 11-17 won-loss record), was back recovered from his injuries and looking improved hitting 8 of 13 passes for 134 yards and three scores: a 30 yard strike to wide receiver Ron Shanklin, a 28-yarder to Dave Smith and a three-yarder to Franco Harris.?Joe Gilliam played the second half and led the Steelers to multiple touchdowns.?The Saints did not cross midfield except with an 80 yard drive in the third quarter.

The Steelers were back home at Three Rivers Stadium (where they played from 1970-2000 recording a won-loss record of 182-73 .714 including the playoffs before moving into their current venue at Heinz Field).?There they faced an up and coming NFL East power George Allen’s Washington Redskins (1971-77: 69-35-1) which went 9-4-1 and lost at San Francisco 24-20 in a divisional playoff in ’71 – they would go on to match Pittsburgh’s 11-3 regular season record in 1972, unseat the Cowboys from their NFC East division crown, defeat Green Bay 16-3 at RFK Stadium and decimate Dallas there as well, 26-3, in the NFC Championship but lost Super Bowl VII at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to undefeated Don Shula-coached Miami (17-0-0) by a 14-7 score.?Chuck Noll had served as Shula’s defensive coordinator in Baltimore several years before this period.??So the Pittsburgh head coach knew this game would be tough like the Colts game his team lost two weeks prior.?It was Saturday Sept. 9, 1972, eight days before the home regular season opener against another challenging opponent, the Oakland Raiders.?Quarterback Billy Kilmer hit receiver Roy Jefferson (a former Steeler from 1965-69) with an eight yard TD pass culminating a 69 yard drive and then Curt Knight hit a 49 yard field goal giving Washington a first quarter 10-0 lead but the Steeler defense knew it could stop the Redskins and it pitched a shutout the rest of the game.?Terry Bradshaw gave Washington’s defense more of a challenge than they may have been prepared for hitting receiver Dave Smith with a 52 yard scoring pass.?Smith and receiver Ron Shanklin caught a combined 11 passes from No. 12 for 193 yards.?Pittsburgh looked like it might grab the lead when Franco Harris returned a kickoff 71 yards but while the Steelers moved the rock all the way to the three yard line, they coughed up a fumble to end that drive.?L.C. Greenwood had one of the plays of the game blocking a chip shot 13 yard field goal attempt by Knight.?Roy Gerela’s 26 yard field goal in the fourth quarter tied it all up 10-10 and that’s the way the game ended.?While after the 1970 NFL-AFL merger Pittsburgh and Washington ended up in different conferences and wouldn’t play very frequently (although just the next season in 1973 the Redskins visited Three Rivers and lost to the Steelers 21-16 in a year when both teams finished 10-4), besides Pittsburgh’s long-time division rivalry with Cleveland which began in 1950, the Steelers had an even longer rivalry with Washington which began in 1933, with many more scrimmages and practice games since both teams competed with one another for decades when Washington held its preseason camp at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. (the hometown of this writer’s father-in-law) while Pittsburgh held its training camp not too far away at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.

The Steelers went 4-1-1 .750 in the 1972 exhibition season outscoring its foes 160-63 and in Coach Noll’s four seasons as Steelers’ head coach his preseason record of 13-7-1 was a decent mark of progress, but in the big picture, exhibition records were considered meaningless then and today.?So, the preseason was over and from now on all the remaining 14 games, six versus three AFC Central division rivals played home and away, counted.?The “Turk” had done his job, following orders from Chuck Noll, knocking on Vincent College training camp doors and sending dozens of players off the team as the regular season roster was finalized.?Of the 24 starters in 1972 including the two kickers (punter Bobby Walden and placekicker Roy Gerela), 14 were Noll draftees, seven on offense and seven on defense.?Four other starters were acquired in trades or as free agents.?The 1971 draft was especially productive with six of those players becoming starters:?wide receiver Frank Lewis, offensive tackle Gerry Mullins, defensive end Dwight White, outside linebacker Jack Ham, and safeties Mike Wagner and Ralph Anderson.?The ’69 and ’70 drafts provided offensive tackle Jon Kolb, defensive end L.C. Greenwood, quarterback Terry Bradshaw, receiver Ron Shanklin and cornerback Mel Blount and 1972’s draft gave the Black and Gold running back Franco Harris, who after the season ended was named NFL Rookie of the Year, the Steelers’ MVP and was the only rookie named to the AFC Pro Bowl team.

(Postscript: The American game of football, which is something I've enjoyed for decades, may be on its way out, as trends indicate fewer youth are playing the sport, on the formal institutional level in educational settings, etc. This legitimately reflects concerns by many millions of Americans about the high risk of injuries as compared to other sports, the short- and longer-term deadly serious impact of one of these injuries - concussions on the human brain, despite some mitigation by technologically sophisticated head gear, and the still relatively common and dangerous use of steroids and other similar stimulants or performance enhancing drugs. I'd also add that growing numbers of people take their "fan"-atical interest in sports to unhealthy levels, meaning that they let it negatively impact their work, family or other obligations. And for many, the area that suffers most from their overemphasis on football and other sports are their obligations and responsibilities as citizens to educate themselves on our nation's and other nations' histories and political trends, their role in embracing the evolution of our Constitution, and becoming knowledgeable about critical issues in local, state, and federal politics that demand their long-term focus in order to utilize their vote and public lobbying power to affect positive change. If you're already fulfilling these penultimate citizenry tasks, then by all means, you're entitled to entertain yourself by watching and participating in a variety of sports. Of course, this is just my humble opinion.)