Cowher caps unlikely success story with Hall of Fame nod

TROY LATER TONIGHT. NOW LET’S HEAD TO THE OTHER COAST AND HEAR FROM THE BLACK AND GOLD COACH DRAFTED TROY. HE HAS COMPLETEDIS H JOURNEY TO CANTON. RY:AN LONG BEFORE HE WAS A NEW YORKER A AND HALL OF FAMER, BILL WAS JUST A KID FROM GRAFTON. RYAN: WHO WAS YOUNG BILLY FROM GRAFTON? BILL: I HAD A PAPER ROUTE. I WORKED IAN NURSERY I WORDKE CONSTRUCTION. I WORKED AS A BOILERMAKER. MY BROTHERS PUT THEMSELVES THROUGH COLLEGE. I WAS BLESSED ENOUGH TO GET A SCHOLARSHIP. MY FATHER HAD A CHANCE TO MOVE TO OTHER PLACES BUT HE WANDTE TO BUILD STABILITY FOR US IN ONE PLACE. I WAS THE RESIDUEF OA PITTSBURGHER, THROUGH AND THROUGH. RYAN: FEW KNOW HIM BETTER THEN HIS LONGTIME FRIEND, JN.OH THEY HAVE BEEN CLOSE FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS. >> 55 YEARS AGO WE MET. BILL LIVED IN THIS HOUSE BEHDIN ME HERE. I AM ONE STREET OVER. WE HIT IT OFF IMMEDIATELY. WE WERE THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK. WE WERE COMPETITO.RS BASKETBALL, FOOTBALL, BASEBALL, ONE AFTER THE OTHER, A WONDERFUL TI ME. IN THAT HOUSE, WE ENDED UP PLAYGIN HOCKEY, THE SLIDING, THOUSANDS OF GAMES UP THERE AGAINST EACH OTHER AND HE HAD TO WIN. BILL WAS A BORN COMPETITOR. LET’S PUT IT THAT WAY. HE HAD THAT FIGHT IN HIM. RYAN: MANY OF THEIR COMPETITIONS TOOK PLACE IN THIS ALLEY, BEHIND THE HOUSE. >> TACKLE FOOTBALL TOU THERE, TOUCH OUT HERE. WE WERE AVID BASEBALL PLAYERS. THIS IS WHERE WE DID ALL ARE CATCHING. HIS DAD WOULD CATCH US AS PI TCHERS. GUESS WHAT HAPPENS WN HEA BALL GETS AWAY FROM YOU HERE? GOES A LONG WAY. WE DID A LOT OF CHASING IN THIS BACK ALLEY. THIS WAS OUR HOME. RY:AN IT WAS RENAMED IN00 26, A PERMANENT, SIMPLISTIC AND APPROPRIATE GESTURE, SYMBOLIZING THE BEGINNING OF A HALL OF FAME CAREER. BILL: IT IS A REMINDER TO ME. THE COWHER WAY IS NEVER LOSE SIGHT WHERE YOU CAME FROM. I LOVE THE NAME. AN ALLEY. THE GREAT, THE GRIND. RYAN: THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANY OTHER WAY BUT TO GRIND. UNDERSIZED AND LARGELY OVERLOOKED OUT OF CARLTON HIGH SCHOOL, HE HADEW F OFFERS. HE LANDED AND FLOURISHED AT NC STATE BUT WENT ON DRAFTED IN THE NFL- - UNDRAFTED IN THE NFL. >> HE SIGNS WITHHE T EAGLES AND MAKES IT TO THE LAST CUT. IN THAT OFF-SEASON, I SEE HIM JOGGING UP LINOD, WOMY STREET. I STOP, HEY, WHAT’S GOING ON. I’M WORKING OUT, GETTING READY FOR NEXT SEASON. >> I SAID, YOU ARE CUT. HE SAYS, I WILL MAKE IT TO THE NFL. I AM GOOD ENOUGH. I WILL MEAK IT. >> I’M THINKG,IN WOW, I DON’T THINK THAT IS HOW IT WORKS BUT OK. XTNE YEAR, THE REST IS HISTO.RY SCHOTTENHEIMER SAID TO BILL, YOU REMIND ME OF ME. YOU ARE NOT THE FASTEST OR THE BIGGEST BUT YOU GOT IT. RYAN: THAT COMPETITEIV SPIRIT IS WHY MARTY BELIEVED IN HIM AND WHY HE MADE HIM THE YOUNGEST DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR IN THE NFL, GROOMING HIM TO BECOME A HEAD COACH AT AGE 34. IT WAS A QUICK RISE UP THE COACHING RANKS IN LNF HIERARC,HY TRACED BACK TO THE STREET OF CRAFTON. CRAFTON PREPARED YOU? BILL: YH.EA YOU EARN EVERYTHING. I DIDN’T GET RECRUITED. CAME OUTF O COLLEGE, I WAS CUT THE FIRST TIME. I KNEW WHAT DISAPPOINTMENT WAS, CHALLENGES WERE. THAT WAS MY WHOLE LIFE, KIND OF LIKE THAT. IT DOESN’T DISCOURAGE YOU. TO ME, IT JUST INSPIRES YOU. DON’T GET DISCOURAGED. OPPELE START TALKING THAT YOU CANNOT DO SOMETHING, I LIVE BY THAT. I AM TOO SLOW TO MAKE IT IN THE NFL? I LLWI SHOW YOU. YOU CANNOT WIN A SUPER BL.OW WE WILL AND KEEP COMING BACK. WE WILL BE YOUR WORST NIGHTMA.RE WE WILL BE DEFINED BY HOW MANY TIMES WE CONTINUE TO GET BACK UP ON OUR FEET, PUT IT BESIDES, U LESSON LEARNED, MOVE ON. >> NONE OF IT WAS EY.AS FROM HIGH SCOLHO TO COLLEGE TO PLAYING TOOA CCHING, NONE OF IT WAS EASY. PEOPLE NEED TO REALIZE, PRETTY TYPICAL OF LIFE. IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE SUCCESSF, THULERE IS NOT AN EASY LITTLE PATH. IT IS A BUMPY ROAD. RYAN: WE ARHEE RE IN CENTRAL PARK. THE NATIONAL PLATFM.OR IN MANY WAYS, YOU ARE STILL BILLY FROM CRAFTON. BILL: TOTALLY. I NEVER LOST SIGHT OF THAT LITTLE TOWN GUY. YOU HAVE TO WORK HARD TO BEAT THE PERSON ACROSS FROM YOU. I LEARNED HOW TO COMPETE, THE IMPORTANCE OF WINNING. I LEARNED THE IMPORTANCE OF HARD WORK. IT DOESN’T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. SOME PEOPLE FIND WAYS TO FIND SOMETHINTOG COMPETE, THAT CAN EQUALIZE THE FIELD. I WAS ALWAYS TRYING TO EQLIUAZE THE FIELD. YOU ARE PROBABLY A BETTER ATHLETE THAN M BE,UT SOME WAY,

On the surface, Bill Cowher looked like he wasn’t ready to be an NFL head coach. Too young. Too anonymous. Too unproven.So while the then-34-year-old Cowher might have been on the list to replace Chuck Noll following Noll’s retirement after the 1991 season, thanks to the enthusiastic endorsement of mentor Marty Schottenheimer, he wasn’t exactly at the top of it.“We thought we were going to need somebody older,” said Art Rooney II, the team’s vice president at the time Noll stepped away.Yet there was something about Cowher’s manner that stuck with Rooney and his father, team chairman Dan Rooney, as they set about finding someone to take over for the most successful coach in franchise history. The more the Rooneys talked to the former special teamer who grew up four miles from Three Rivers Stadium, the more they were won over by Cowher’s combination of intelligence and charisma. “You could see he was somebody who was going to be able to command the team, have the presence to stand in front of a group of twentysomethings every day and keep their attention,” said Art Rooney, now the team president.That was something Cowher did for 15 seasons, 170 wins, one Super Bowl title and an appearance in another. His jaw jutting out from underneath a moustache that gave him an everyman blue-collar vibe, Cowher re-established the Steelers as one of the league’s marquee franchises with a style as impassioned as Noll’s was professorial.“You know, you follow a guy like Chuck Noll, I don’t even think there’s any pressure, because you’re not even going to come close to doing what he did in terms of ... the run they had in the ’70s, what he did for the city of Pittsburgh and rejuvenating that whole city,” Cowher said.Maybe, but Cowher came pretty close. And 15 years after stepping away, Cowher will follow in Noll’s footsteps once again when he is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.Not bad for a former linebacker who spent his brief four-year NFL career in the early 1980s as a special teams ace who got by more on guile and innate football IQ than athletic ability.“I just was very average skill set but I knew how to do all the little things to get by,” Cowher said. “And so, that was my idea. I was like a teacher. I always liked teaching. And teaching is finding a way to connect with your students, and those were the players, those were the coaches, and so I embraced it all.”Schottenheimer hired Cowher as an assistant in Cleveland in 1985 and the two headed west to Kansas City in 1989. Cowher spent two years as the defensive coordinator for the Chiefs, and when the Steelers started exploring who would lead them into the post-Noll era, Schottenheimer gave Cowher a rousing endorsement.“Even though he was that young, Marty felt really good about him being ready to go,” Rooney said. And he was. Cowher’s impact on the Steelers was immediate. They made the playoffs in each of his first six seasons, reaching the 1996 Super Bowl before falling to the Dallas Cowboys.Yet the standards for success in Pittsburgh aren’t what they are elsewhere. The Steelers lost the AFC championship at home in 1994 and 1997. A 22-26 stretch around the turn of the millennium eroded confidence among the team’s ardent fan base.Cowher’s bosses, however, were not concerned. Instead, they doubled down, offering him a contract extension.“I can honestly say we never thought hard about letting him go at that point,” Rooney said. “It was a matter of just feeling like we would turn the corner and we’d work hard to get there to turn the corner.”The Steelers returned to the playoffs in 2001 but found themselves repeating a familiar pattern. They dropped AFC championship games to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in 2001 and 2004. Cowher remained upbeat, relying on the tenets that propelled him from Crafton, Pennsylvania to the top of his profession.“We were going to be tough,” he said. “We were not going to beat ourselves. We’re going to come to work with our lunch pail every day and find a way to get it done.”Finally, in 2005 they did. Pittsburgh entered the playoffs as the sixth seed. The Steelers drilled division rival Cincinnati in the first round, then used Ben Roethlisberger’s shoestring tackle of Colts defensive back Nick Harper to hold off Peyton Manning and Indianapolis. They dropped top-seeded Denver the following week to reach the franchise’s sixth Super Bowl.Two weeks later, Cowher — buoyed by a wide-receiver option pass from Antwaan Randle El to Hines Ward touchdown pass, the kind of risky call emblematic of Cowher’s go-for-broke style — raised his arms triumphantly following a 21-10 win over Seattle that returned the Steelers to the top.A year later, however, he was done at age 49. Cowher retired following the 2006 season to spend more time with his wife Kaye and their three daughters. Though his name has continued to be floated for vacant NFL jobs following Kaye’s death in 2010 from skin cancer, Cowher has remained committed to his broadcasting job for CBS’ “NFL Today” pre-game show.Cowher misses the relationships and the challenge of navigating a season. He does not, however, miss the lifestyle.“I have so much more balance in my life than I ever had,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever come close to going back.”

PITTSBURGH (AP) —

On the surface, Bill Cowher looked like he wasn’t ready to be an NFL head coach. Too young. Too anonymous. Too unproven.

So while the then-34-year-old Cowher might have been on the list to replace Chuck Noll following Noll’s retirement after the 1991 season, thanks to the enthusiastic endorsement of mentor Marty Schottenheimer, he wasn’t exactly at the top of it.

“We thought we were going to need somebody older,” said Art Rooney II, the team’s vice president at the time Noll stepped away.

Yet there was something about Cowher’s manner that stuck with Rooney and his father, team chairman Dan Rooney, as they set about finding someone to take over for the most successful coach in franchise history. The more the Rooneys talked to the former special teamer who grew up four miles from Three Rivers Stadium, the more they were won over by Cowher’s combination of intelligence and charisma.

“You could see he was somebody who was going to be able to command the team, have the presence to stand in front of a group of twentysomethings every day and keep their attention,” said Art Rooney, now the team president.

That was something Cowher did for 15 seasons, 170 wins, one Super Bowl title and an appearance in another. His jaw jutting out from underneath a moustache that gave him an everyman blue-collar vibe, Cowher re-established the Steelers as one of the league’s marquee franchises with a style as impassioned as Noll’s was professorial.

“You know, you follow a guy like Chuck Noll, I don’t even think there’s any pressure, because you’re not even going to come close to doing what he did in terms of ... the run they had in the ’70s, what he did for the city of Pittsburgh and rejuvenating that whole city,” Cowher said.

Maybe, but Cowher came pretty close. And 15 years after stepping away, Cowher will follow in Noll’s footsteps once again when he is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Not bad for a former linebacker who spent his brief four-year NFL career in the early 1980s as a special teams ace who got by more on guile and innate football IQ than athletic ability.

“I just was very average skill set but I knew how to do all the little things to get by,” Cowher said. “And so, that was my idea. I was like a teacher. I always liked teaching. And teaching is finding a way to connect with your students, and those were the players, those were the coaches, and so I embraced it all.”

Schottenheimer hired Cowher as an assistant in Cleveland in 1985 and the two headed west to Kansas City in 1989. Cowher spent two years as the defensive coordinator for the Chiefs, and when the Steelers started exploring who would lead them into the post-Noll era, Schottenheimer gave Cowher a rousing endorsement.

“Even though he was that young, Marty felt really good about him being ready to go,” Rooney said.

And he was. Cowher’s impact on the Steelers was immediate. They made the playoffs in each of his first six seasons, reaching the 1996 Super Bowl before falling to the Dallas Cowboys.

Yet the standards for success in Pittsburgh aren’t what they are elsewhere. The Steelers lost the AFC championship at home in 1994 and 1997. A 22-26 stretch around the turn of the millennium eroded confidence among the team’s ardent fan base.

Cowher’s bosses, however, were not concerned. Instead, they doubled down, offering him a contract extension.

“I can honestly say we never thought hard about letting him go at that point,” Rooney said. “It was a matter of just feeling like we would turn the corner and we’d work hard to get there to turn the corner.”

The Steelers returned to the playoffs in 2001 but found themselves repeating a familiar pattern. They dropped AFC championship games to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in 2001 and 2004. Cowher remained upbeat, relying on the tenets that propelled him from Crafton, Pennsylvania to the top of his profession.

“We were going to be tough,” he said. “We were not going to beat ourselves. We’re going to come to work with our lunch pail every day and find a way to get it done.”

Finally, in 2005 they did. Pittsburgh entered the playoffs as the sixth seed. The Steelers drilled division rival Cincinnati in the first round, then used Ben Roethlisberger’s shoestring tackle of Colts defensive back Nick Harper to hold off Peyton Manning and Indianapolis. They dropped top-seeded Denver the following week to reach the franchise’s sixth Super Bowl.

Two weeks later, Cowher — buoyed by a wide-receiver option pass from Antwaan Randle El to Hines Ward touchdown pass, the kind of risky call emblematic of Cowher’s go-for-broke style — raised his arms triumphantly following a 21-10 win over Seattle that returned the Steelers to the top.

A year later, however, he was done at age 49. Cowher retired following the 2006 season to spend more time with his wife Kaye and their three daughters. Though his name has continued to be floated for vacant NFL jobs following Kaye’s death in 2010 from skin cancer, Cowher has remained committed to his broadcasting job for CBS’ “NFL Today” pre-game show.

Cowher misses the relationships and the challenge of navigating a season. He does not, however, miss the lifestyle.

“I have so much more balance in my life than I ever had,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever come close to going back.”

Cowher caps unlikely success story with Hall of Fame nod

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