by Dan Rooney
Joe Gilliam, one of the first African-American quarterbacks to be drafted in the NFL, came to us from Tennessee State. Other draft picks helped bolster the already formidable “Steel Curtain,” a term coined just a few months before in a Pittsburgh radio contest. Even with Greene, Greenwood, Holmes, and White, Noll continued to seek defensive depth.
Al Davis’s Oakland Raiders came to Three Rivers to open the 1972 season. Al had built a tough team, but linebacker Henry Davis blocked a punt, and Bradshaw ran for two touchdowns and passed for another in a 34-28 win. Then we traveled to Cincinnati, for a disappointing 15-10 loss. On the road again at St. Louis, we defeated the Cardinals, 25-19. Then on to Dallas, where the Cowboys squeezed past us, 17-13. Following our loss to the Cowboys we went on a five-game winning streak, starting with Houston, 24-7. The Steel Curtain nearly shut down New England, 33-3. Our offense powered past Buffalo, 38-21, then back home to play Cincinnati, where we avenged our earlier loss, 40-17. Against Kansas City, our defense held the Chiefs to only one score and we beat them, 16-7, a big win for us—they had been Super Bowl champions two years before. In a last-minute nail-biter, Cleveland defeated us, 26-24. We would not be defeated again for the rest of the season, and two of those wins proved to be important building blocks for the new Steelers.
The November 26 game against Minnesota brought a lot of national sportswriters to town, and these guys weren’t used to seeing the Steelers win important games this late in the season. Beating the Vikings was similar to defeating the Chiefs. Minnesota had won three straight division championships and played in Super Bowl IV. Dave Anderson of the New York Times wrote this from the Three Rivers Stadium press box that day:
The weather never seems to change much here this time of year. It’s usually cloudy and gloomy . . . Art Rooney never seems to change much, either . . . But his Pittsburgh Steelers have changed. They used to find a way to lose. But today, they found a way to win a big game from the Minnesota Vikings, and if they find a way to a win over the Cleveland Browns here next Sunday, they may go on to win their first division title in the 40-year history of the franchise. In other National Football League cities, a division title is a stepping-stone to the playoffs. Here, it’s a milestone.
We did beat the Browns that next Sunday, but that didn’t clinch the AFC Central Division title. To do that we had to go to Houston and beat an Oilers team that would finish 1-13 that season. It sounds like a piece of cake, but it wasn’t. L.C. Greenwood and starting guard Sam Davis were out with injuries. Two more starting offensive linemen, Jon Kolb and Gerry Mullins, had bad cases of the flu, and Mullins only made it into the third quarter. Another starting guard, Bruce Van Dyke, pulled a calf muscle in the first quarter and was done for the day. Ron Shanklin, our leading receiver, suffered an injury in the first quarter and was done for the day. Jim Clack injured an ankle and was done. Craig Hanneman, Greenwood’s backup, aggravated a knee injury and was done for the day. Terry Bradshaw dislocated a finger in the second quarter and left the game, never to return. Dwight White injured a knee, and Steve Furness, a backup defensive lineman, sprained an ankle. Larry Brown, usually our tight end, had to play flanker.
In this situation a great player steps up, and that’s exactly what Joe Greene did on December 10, 1972, in the Astrodome. Greene had five sacks, blocked a short field goal, recovered one fumble, and forced another that set up two field goals for us. So in what turned out to be a 9-3 win that kept our hopes alive, Joe Greene personally accounted for nine of the game’s twelve points.
That win put us in a position where all we had to do to win the AFC Central Division was to travel to San Diego and beat the Chargers. We did that, 24-2, and we won the first division championship in Steelers history. We thought we were unstoppable. When we took the field against the Oakland Raiders at Three Rivers Stadium on December 23, 1972, we felt like a Super Bowl team. We had assembled a team like no other in Steelers history.
The Steelers hadn’t played in a meaningful postseason game since 1947, when we lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in a game to decide the Eastern Division championship. In 1962 we had played in what the NFL then called the Playoff Bowl, really nothing but a consolation game for the two teams that finished second in their divisions. But now we were going into the 1972 playoffs as the AFC Central Division champions against Davis’s AFC West champion Oakland Raiders.
Game time was 12:30. Usually I picked up my father an hour or two before kickoff, but today I wanted to get there early, so I drove directly to Three Rivers, while someone else picked up the Chief. I arrived at about 10 a.m. and began making the rounds, talking to groundskeepers, game officials and referees, league representatives, and even the scoreboard people. I also looked for Mossy Murphy, Bill Day, and Joe Gordon to check on the afternoon’s entertainment. Everything seemed a go, and Steelers fans were already streaming into the stands.
I saw Al Davis on the sidelines as the Raiders began their warm-up routine. Al always liked to talk to the best players on the other team during pre-game. He’d say things like, “Hey, Blount, you would look good in silver and black.” Or, “Franco, the weather in Oakland is better than this.” He was always looking for ways to distract an opponent. I wanted to be sure he left our players alone—especially for a big game like this—so I walked over to say hello. We exchanged pleasantries, nothing of substance. It had been three years since the difficult realignment talks in 1969. Since then, when we saw each other at games and league meetings, we were always cordial. But I can’t say we were friends. We shook hands, chatted a while about league matters, and then I went up to the press box.
The Three Rivers’ press box was long and narrow. This day, it was packed with newsmen. The public address announcer and television and radio broadcasters worked in smaller boxes. The camera operators positioned themselves on a stand higher in the stadium, above all the people, and another stand in the end zone.
The Chief arrived at the stadium about 11 a.m. We met in our offices, which were located on the ground floor. My son Art was with him, along with a couple of Steelers staff, who worked security with their two-way radios.
Patricia, the girls, and some of our younger boys sat in an outside box. My daughter Kathleen was the most vocal. She would yell and scream at the officials—and the coaches. “They don’t know what they’re doing,” she’d shout, and she was usually right. The McGinleys and some of my brothers were in a box nearby, and Marianne Noll sat about four boxes down, with young Chris. These boxes were not elaborate affairs. They had concrete floors and were exposed to the open air.
The day was cold, not freezing, but cold and gray. Franco’s Italian Army got the fans warmed up with chants and cheers. It was amazing how quickly this twenty-two-year-old rookie had captured the hearts of the Pittsburgh fans. African American, Italian American, Irish American . . . it didn’t matter. In the fourteen-game regular season he had rushed for over a thousand yards, an incredible accomplishment for a rookie. When he first came to camp we weren’t sure he was aggressive enough. But on game day he not only found the holes, he knew which way to bounce and run for daylight. You can’t teach that kind of thing. And when he had to, he put his head down and plowed through defenders. Franco was not only a special football player but a special person. I found him to be an exceptional individual off the field as well as on. He was quiet and thoughtful, he didn’t stay out late drinking with the veterans, and I could see he had the qualities of a leader.
The Raiders won the coin toss. At exactly 12:30 we kicked off. Both defenses played tough and neither offense could move the ball. At halftime the game was scoreless. In the third quarter, our kicker Roy Gerela booted an 18-yard field goal for the first points of the game. In the fourth quarter, Gerela kicked a 29-yarder, putting the Steelers up 6-0. Despite the low score, I thought we were dominating the Raiders. In the third quarter, Raiders’ quarterback Ken Stabler came in for Daryle Lamonica, who had thrown two interceptions and been sacked four times. But Stabler didn’t move the Raiders any
better than Lamonica had—until he read a blitz and took advantage of it. With less than two minutes on the clock, he turned the corner on defensive end Craig Hanneman and scampered 30 yards down the left side for the go-ahead touchdown.
Bradshaw came back and advanced the ball to our 40-yard line. The Raiders really tightened up. One, two, three plays—we were getting nowhere. We called a timeout on fourth down. So it’s fourth-and- 10, we have the ball on our 40-yard line, last play, no question. In our box no one said a thing. The clock on the scoreboard read 22 seconds. Bradshaw took the snap, scrambled out of the pocket, dodged Raiders linemen, and threw that ball with everything he had . . . Well, as you know, the rest is history. Franco’s Immaculate Reception was a defining moment for the Steelers. We showed the world that this was a team to be reckoned with—no longer lovable losers—a team of destiny.
Even so, the controversy over the Immaculate Reception call began almost immediately. In our locker room, Chuck Noll said, “The officials know what they’re doing—they said it hit Tatum, so that’s what it did.”
When I talked to Frenchy Fuqua in the locker room, Andy Russell had already taken him aside and counseled him not to say anything to the press that might cast doubt on the call. Frenchy contributed to the mystery, saying, “I’m not telling anybody, this will go to the grave with me.”
But I agree with Russell: I don’t think Frenchy really knew what happened. Tatum clobbered him, and Frenchy didn’t know whether the ball, Tatum—or a ton of bricks—hit him.
Myron Cope, who loves to tell stories, claimed to be the only person to see the WTAE film of the hit. He claims the television station secured it in a vault and then lost it. He liked to play it up, same as Frenchy, but both those guys loved media attention.
Al Davis and Raiders coach John Madden were furious with the call. They thought the Raiders had the game in the bag. To this day, I don’t think either one has any idea what happened. At the end of the next regular league business meeting in March, Davis told me, “We got robbed.” Later still, he told me that if it hadn’t been for that game, the Raiders would have gone on to win many Super Bowls and be remembered as the greatest football team ever. I don’t know about that. They may have been “greater” than the NFC teams, but they had to get past the black and gold to get to the Super Bowl.
What I do know is that fans, sportswriters, scientists, conspiracy theorists, and even psychics have studied and dissected and diagrammed this one play to death. I believe the ball bounced off Tatum, and Franco made a great catch. But the greatest play in NFL history will forever remain a mystery.
Elated fans mobbed the players before the team even got off the field. Some of the players couldn’t get into the tunnel leading to the locker room. I was worried our guys might get hurt, that a fan would trip a player and the crowd might fall on him. But the Pittsburgh people were really, really good as they celebrated our first division title in forty years.
NFL spokesman Val Pinchbeck said to the Pittsburgh Press, “Pittsburgh never won anything before so their fans don’t know how to act.” This stupid comment really upset my father. He hated seeing this kind of thing in print, because it made Pittsburgh—and our fans—look bad. It was a cheap shot. In the next day or two, Dad set the record straight. “The crowds were fine. If you saw the pictures, they weren’t looking to cause trouble. They were having a joyous time and congratulating the team. Nobody tried to pull down the goal posts.”
After the hubbub of the game died down, our family met for a quiet dinner at Tambellini’s Italian restaurant on Seventh Street. The smiling faces at the restaurant told us how proud people were of the Steelers’ achievement. But everyone maintained a respectful distance. A nod of the head, a handshake, or a simple “Congratulations”—that’s all.
It’s hard to explain how much the Steelers meant to the people of Pittsburgh at this time. The old days of steel mills and thriving industry were fast disappearing. As the factories and steel mills closed, tens of thousands of industrial workers found themselves laid off. The region’s economy had hit the skids, and Pittsburghers left by the thousands to find work in other parts of the country. We had thought steel would be here forever. It was part of our identity, our character—it was the name of our team. Our self-confidence as a people had been shaken to its core. Pittsburgh’s sports teams helped restore some of that old confidence.
The Pirates won the pennant and brought home the World Series trophy in 1971. Now, it was the Steelers’ turn to step up and show everyone what Pittsburgh could do.
We all knew beating Miami next week was not a forgone conclusion. But if we beat the Dolphins, we’d have a shot at our first Super Bowl, something our veterans couldn’t even imagine a few years ago. Now we were only a game away from professional football’s ultimate contest.
The AFC championship game would be played in Pittsburgh. Although they were undefeated, the Dolphins would have to play in our new stadium, on our turf. The home sites in those days were set before the season started, according to a rotation formula. It was our AFC Central Division’s turn to host the game. In 1975 the formula would change so that the team with the best record would host the game. Pete Rozelle and NFL officials moved to Pittsburgh and set up an office and press room in the William Penn Hotel.
The world got a pretty good look at Pittsburgh. Even the weather cooperated. The Goodyear Blimp captured on film the Three Rivers with Miami-like weather. On game day, December 31, the thermometer hit seventy-one—warmer that day than Miami.
Three Rivers Stadium and Pittsburgh looked great as the undefeated Dolphins took the field. We scored first after a Bradshaw fumble rolled into the Dolphins’ end zone and “Moon” Mullins fell on it. But Terry was badly shaken up on the play (he later told me he didn’t know where he was and that the playbook looked like Greek to him) and wouldn’t return until near the end of the game. The Dolphins tied the score after a fake punt resulted in a run by kicker Larry Seiple. Everybody in the stands could see what was happening. As soon as the ball was snapped, our front line turned to form a wedge for our punt returner. But Seiple was on the run already.
We were on our feet shouting, “Turn around! Turn around!”
But no one saw him—Seiple cruised for a 37-yard gain. This set up a 9-yard Earl Morrall touchdown pass to Larry Csonka and the Dolphins had tied us. The fake punt changed the momentum of the game.
In the third quarter, Roy Gerela’s field goal gave Pittsburgh a 10-7 lead. But then the Dolphins’ Bob Griese, who had been sidelined for the previous ten weeks with a broken leg, came in for Morrall. Right off the bench he threw a 52-yard pass to Paul Warfield, which set up a Jim Kiick touchdown run. Griese led another touchdown drive. Then Noll sent Bradshaw back into the game. He was still shaken, but Bradshaw wanted to play. He threw a touchdown pass, and might have thrown another, but with twenty-two seconds left the Dolphins’ Nick Buoniconti intercepted and the game was over. The Dolphins won, 21-17. What a heartbreaker. We thought we were the better team, and the city went into a deep gloom.
That very night, a plane carrying Pirates’ great Roberto Clemente, on a humanitarian mission to Managua, Nicaragua, crashed into the ocean. The next day, New Years Day 1973, the city of Pittsburgh mourned.
The 1973 season began with high expectations. Steelers fans bought season tickets in record numbers. In fact, the Steelers have sold out every home game since the Immaculate Reception in 1972. And it wasn’t just Pittsburgh that was captivated by the Steelers story. Sports Illustrated commissioned award-winning writer Roy Blount Jr. to write a book about our team. While doing the research for About Three Bricks Shy of a Load, Blount embedded himself with the team—he lived, ate, slept, and loafed with the players, in camp and on the road.
Noll didn’t like this one bit. Blount would be a fox in the hen house, a threat to Noll’s code of secrecy: don’t reveal anything—player health, training techniques, football philosophy, or personnel problems—not to other teams, the press, or the fans. Any
intelligence might be used by another team to gain an advantage. In this league, coaches believe even a slight edge can mean the difference between winning and losing.
I believed if we were careful and did not speak out of turn, Blount’s presence might contribute to the team’s closeness. This proved to be the case, as some veteran players later told me.
Feelings for the team ran so high that even pessimistic Pittsburghers allowed themselves to believe this could be the year the Steelers would go all the way to the Super Bowl.
But 1973 would not be our year.
Injuries and inconsistent quarterbacking plagued the team. Frenchy Fuqua injured his shoulder, and Joe Greene was hospitalized with a bad back. Wide receiver Frank Lewis, offensive tackle Gordon Gravelle, and guard/center Jim Clack were all out of action for a part of the season. Even more troubling was the quarterback situation. Bradshaw had proven himself in 1972 but threw too many interceptions. Noll worried Bradshaw wasn’t taking his job seriously enough. His inattention drove Chuck crazy. Terry would say, “Just give me the ball and let’s go play.” Then Bradshaw hurt his shoulder and was out four weeks. Noll turned to Hanratty and Joe Gilliam. Hanratty couldn’t shake the stigma of his 1969 rookie season, when the team went 1-13. He was smart and seemed to understand what Noll wanted of him, but he was quickly eclipsed when Bradshaw came to Pittsburgh as the number-one draft pick in 1970. When Hanratty saw he wasn’t going to play, he lost his focus and took to clowning around in team meetings. Gilliam, from Tennessee State, came on board in 1972. Intense, focused, almost combative with Noll, he questioned everything.
Who would lead the team? Although Hanratty had a stellar career at Notre Dame—he’d been on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Time—the players just didn’t rally around him. Gilliam, a gifted passer, wanted to throw every play, much to Noll’s frustration. Bradshaw had tremendous talent. If he could mature and avoid making mistakes, the players would support him. While Noll tried to figure out which quarterback should have the job, Greene saw the potential in the athletic and affable Bradshaw. Greene’s influence with the other players cannot be overestimated. He had emerged as a team leader, and when he took Bradshaw under his wing it seemed clear to everyone who our quarterback would be.