Steelers dynasty ‘just happened’
To say the Pittsburgh Steelers were a force in the 1970s would be selling the franchise short.
The team put together a record of 99-44-1 from 1970-79, went 14-4 in playoff games, won seven division titles, four AFC championships and, of course, four Super Bowl crowns.
“We didn’t see that coming,” Butler native and former Steelers quarterback Terry Hanratty said of that decade of dominance. “It just happened. Chuck Noll was the only one who figured that success was coming.”
Hanratty added that the Steelers coach told the players when he was hired in 1969 that “this franchise is going to win a lot of games. Unfortunately, a lot of you won’t be around when that happens.”
Given the recent history of the Steelers franchise at that point, few people took Noll’s forecast very seriously.
The Steelers of the 1960s won 46 games, lost 85 and tied seven. The only playoff game in their history to that point was a 21-0 loss to Philadelphia in the Eastern Division Championship Game in 1947. From the mid-1950s into the ’60s, the Steelers had five quarterbacks in camp at one point — John Unitas, Earl Morrall, Len Dawson, Jack Kemp and Bill Nelsen — who eventually led other teams to division titles.
The organization’s judgment of talent was shaky, at best.
Then the team ousted head coach Bill Austin and hired Noll — a Baltimore Colts assistant coach — to take over the team in 1969. The Steelers finished 1-13 in Noll’s first season, edging the Detroit Lions, 16-13, in the season opener before dropping 13 straight.
Among those 13 losses was a 38-7 drubbing at the hands of the Chicago Bears, who also finished 1-13 in 1969.
“We were terrible,” Hanratty recalled. “In today’s day and age, a coach could never survive a one-win season in the NFL. We had losing seasons after that. But the Rooney family knew what they had in Chuck. He was no-nonsense, stuck to the facts. You knew where you stood with him. The Rooneys believed in him. They committed to him.
“Then, what happened, happened.”
The Steelers won a coin toss with the Bears for the No. 1 pick in the 1970 draft, choosing quarterback Terry Bradshaw from Louisiana Tech. With the fourth pick of the 1969 draft, they had taken defensive tackle Joe Greene from North Texas State.
Also in 1969, Pittsburgh selected defensive end L.C. Greenwood out of Arkansas AM&N. That began a trend for the Steelers of taking players from predominantly small Black colleges in the south. John Stallworth came from Alabama A&M, Mel Blount from Southern, Joe Gilliam from Tennessee State and Frank Lewis from Grambling. Bill Nunn was the scout who found those talents before other NFL teams began looking in that direction.
“What I remember from those Steelers teams of the ’70s was they were home-grown,” said Butler resident Ron Uram, son of the late Paul Uram, a Steelers assistant coach during that decade. “That entire team was built through the draft. Many of the assistant coaches back then — Dan Radakovich, Bud Carson, George Perles and my father — were from Western Pennsylvania.
“Those teams definitely had a Pittsburgh feel. That and the fact the team had not won before made it easy for the city to get behind them.”
After seasons of 5-9 in 1970 and 6-8 in 1971, the Steelers broke through with an 11-3 mark in 1972. Their first playoff game resulted in the Immaculate Reception by Franco Harris that produced a 13-7 win over the Oakland Raiders at Three Rivers Stadium.
That victory gave birth to the bitter Steelers-Raiders rivalry that lasted for the rest of the decade and beyond.
Unique fan clubs such as Gerela’s Gorillas (supporting placekicker Roy Gerela) and Franco’s Italian Army quickly formed as the foundation of Steelers Nation was laid.
“Chuck Noll laid that foundation,” Hanratty said. “It was laid for Bill Cowher’s teams and then Mike Tomlin’s teams. All of those fans who travel to see the Steelers play on the road these days, that’s all part of Chuck’s legacy.”
After a first-round playoff loss to Oakland in 1973, the Steelers reeled off four Super Bowl titles in the next six years. Former Butler High School assistant football coach Ralph McElhaney was a season ticket holder throughout the 1970s and was in the stands at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans when Pittsburgh defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 16-6, for its first Super Bowl title.
“I was sitting next to Gerela’s Gorillas and the guy in the gorilla costume,” McElhaney recalled. “We returned home after the game and a friend of mine who stayed in New Orleans an extra day brought me that Monday edition of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A picture of me and that gorilla in the stands was on the front page.
“The fans’ connection to that team has never gone away. But you don’t see fan clubs like Gerela’s Gorillas or Franco’s Italian Army much anymore.”
The Steelers reached the playoffs every year from 1972-79, including the 1976 season that saw them start out 1-4 before reeling off nine consecutive wins, allowing only 28 combined points and shutting out five opponents. Bradshaw was out with an injury for a few of those games, replaced in the lineup by little-known Mike Kruczek.
Running backs Harris and Rocky Bleier went down with injuries during Pittsburgh’s 40-14 drubbing of the Colts in the first round of the playoffs. The team’s only healthy running back in the AFC title game that year — a 24-7 loss in Oakland — was Reggie Harrison as the Steelers were denied a third successive Super Bowl trip.
The Dallas Cowboys won more games than the Steelers in the ’70s, but Pittsburgh’s two Super Bowl wins over the Cowboys — 21-17 in 1975 and 35-31 in 1978 — gave the Steelers the unofficial title of the NFL’s team of the decade.
“I remember the NFL wanting to put the ‘America’s Team’ tag on the Steelers, but Art Rooney would not allow it,” McElhaney said. “Then the Dallas Cowboys wound up with that name.
“The last Super Bowl of that decade (a 31-19 win over the Los Angeles Rams) stands out for me because Rich Saul started at center for the Rams.”
Saul and his brothers, Bill and Ron, all graduated from Butler and played in the NFL. Bill Saul played for the Steelers during the 1960s.
Ten Steelers players from that 1970s dynasty are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. They include Bradshaw, Harris, Lynn Swann, Stallworth, Mike Webster, Greene, Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, Blount and Donnie Shell.
“Jack Lambert was my favorite,” McElhaney said of the middle linebacker. “He was always kind of a mysterious guy.”
Ron Uram enjoyed watching Bradshaw throw the football.
“It took him a while to settle into the starting job (1974), but once he did, he was a downfield passer all the way,” Uram said. “He could zing that ball 40 to 60 yards on a shoestring to Swann and Stallworth ... so much fun to watch.”
With that decade now a part of Steelers lore, some believe there remains some unfinished business with that group.
Many of the Steelers from that time may have never received their just due. Larry Brown won two Super Bowls as a tight end, two more as an offensive tackle. Andy Russell was a standout linebacker on poor Steelers teams in the 1960s and the first two Steelers Super Bowl teams. Mike Wagner compiled 36 interceptions and 12 fumble recoveries as a safety. None of these players are in the Hall of Fame.
“They all belong there, especially (offensive lineman) Jon Kolb and Andy Russell,” Hanratty said. “It’s a joke those guys aren’t in there.”
The Steelers of the ’70s were no joke.
They were simply dominant.
“You just never expected them to lose a game,” McElhaney said. “They were that good.”
