Stooler's tainted legacy
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I suspect the author didn't want to be bombarded with hate mail by Stooler fans so he wrote some nice things.
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You know, I'm no Puker lover, but the national media really ought to be ashamed of themselves for garbage pieces like this. We had similar articles flooding out of Arizona two years ago. Funny how bitter writers with chips on their shoulder(whether they grew up in areas that hated the Steelers, or are fans of teams that are their primary rivals) get national stages, and then write articles so stilted and hateful that half way respectable local media wouldn't dare to run it...
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Theres no way I'm reading all that shit if its not about the Browns.
Theres no way I'm reading all that shit if its not about the Browns.
EXACTLLY.
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Theres no way I'm reading all that shit if its not about the Browns.
EXACTLLY.
EXACTLLY.
Good for you. Do you want a cookie or something?
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EXACTLLY.
Good for you. Do you want a cookie or something?
Good for you. Do you want a cookie or something?
Sure. I like cookies
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Chocolate chip are the best, but peanut butter cookies are really good too.
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Chocolate chip are the best, but peanut butter cookies are really good too.
Chocolate chip are the best, but peanut butter cookies are really good too.
I like the peanut butter cookies with the hershey kiss on top.
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wussies always confuse hard nose play with dirty play.
other hard nose people don't complain, they just come back at you.
with all i've heard about Big Ben being a rapist and i go to a online sex offender registry and look up cleveland and Pittsburgh and what do i find? cleveland has a CRAP load more sex offenders (and expecially child molesters) than Pittsburgh.......over 4X as many over all. 2055 of them to Pittsburgh's 421. www.familywatchdog.us better never hear one of you date raping, can't get a woman with my tiny peep unless i hold her down, child molesting hypocrits say anything else about Ben. -
wussies always confuse hard nose play with dirty play.
other hard nose people don't complain, they just come back at you.
wussies always confuse hard nose play with dirty play.
other hard nose people don't complain, they just come back at you.
and dirty players always call it hard nosed play
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James Harrison, Jack Lambert, Hines Ward, doesn't matter who or the era, the author is right. The assanine fans that support players that simply want to hit without rules or any display any kind of sports integrity at all, should stick to professional wrestling. Lambert was tough, Harrison is tough, Ward is commited ... they are and were disgraces to the sport. In the day when Lambert played, any guy playing on the defensive end of the field in any football league, wanted to be Jack Lambert. If that same guy now has a kid playing, what does he think of Lambert today ? Ward is dirty, end of story. Gets away with it because he's a receiver and most like a receiver that isn't afraid (many afraid ones come to mind, one used to play for us and now sometimes catches for the Jets), much less one that even dishes it out, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that he's a dirty, BS hitting player. Even more with Harrison.
Did the greatest linebacker of all time need to do that kind of BS - Lawrence Taylor ??? Did Clay Matthews Sr. need to ? How about Brian Urlacher ?
Drives me nuts the Squeelers get so many bandwagoners that claim they stand behind a 'tough team'. If they showed any kind of toughness at all, they'd stand behind a team with character. The dynasty of the Walsh 49ers were a team of character. Did Jerry Rice need be a dirty hit guy to make his team successful or prove his worth ?
QB's ... Ben R. even putting himself in such a 'compromising' position shows such a lack of class it's ridiculous. Cool star hangs with small town college girls and then buries his head in shame and smiles real nice, says 'Yes sir' and 'No Sir' on cue to the commisioner and guess what, he's high and mighty on the media list this week.
Like it or not, there used to be role models playing football that gave the game respect and credibility. Many will dump on this thread, but that's probably because they like sitting on their couch pretending to be a Jack Lambert in their dreams - scared of nothing, Bad A**, but bottom line - this game has gone down the wrong road. There are actually guys that made a difference and proved their grit without show boats or dirty players - Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Bernie Kosar, Ernest Byner, Eric Metcalf, Terry Metcalf, Peyton Hillis, Aaron Rodgers, etc., etc.
The Steelers organization is absolutely well run. Their ownership, coaching and offices are second to none for the long term except maybe New England, but there has to be a fair amount of darkside in Pittsburgh that does nothing about the crap going on. These guys have a somewhat open door to do what they do and whether it is in the name of winning or not, it's not what teams with REAL character do.
.... and for the guys that refuse to read the article, take the time. Yes, it's about Pittsburgh, but allot of food for thought there ... from both sides of the subject.
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You know, I'm no Puker lover, but the national media really ought to be ashamed of themselves for garbage pieces like this. We had similar articles flooding out of Arizona two years ago. Funny how bitter writers with chips on their shoulder(whether they grew up in areas that hated the Steelers, or are fans of teams that are their primary rivals) get national stages, and then write articles so stilted and hateful that half way respectable local media wouldn't dare to run it...
You know, I'm no Puker lover, but the national media really ought to be ashamed of themselves for garbage pieces like this. We had similar articles flooding out of Arizona two years ago. Funny how bitter writers with chips on their shoulder(whether they grew up in areas that hated the Steelers, or are fans of teams that are their primary rivals) get national stages, and then write articles so stilted and hateful that half way respectable local media wouldn't dare to run it...
Thank you and I completely agree. If the Browns were entering the Super Bowl I'd say exactly the same. It's crazy. First off I'm not sure how the organization as a whole can be blamed for any of the above. They don't make decisions for their players off the field or in team facilities. Especially when a lot of it is over blown. The Rooney's as a family are arguably one of the classiest/most upstanding in the entire league. Hell Dan Rooney is the US ambassador to Ireland. They front on all of these things and act accordingly. See the most recent example of Holmes being sent off for a basically anything offered. I also believe they played a role in Ben's Suspension but I could be wrong. Either way all of this right before the game is absolutely shameless reporting. Another slam piece was printed by some no name woman in SI about Ben and his off the field issues. All of which has been drug through the mud 10 times over. Best part. A lot of them are from rival bases. I recently read a absolutely awful one from a philly rag. The media has no shame but I think most of us are well aware of this by now.
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James Harrison, Jack Lambert, Hines Ward, doesn't matter who or the era, the author is right. The assanine fans that support players that simply want to hit without rules or any display any kind of sports integrity at all, should stick to professional wrestling. Lambert was tough, Harrison is tough, Ward is commited ... they are and were disgraces to the sport. In the day when Lambert played, any guy playing on the defensive end of the field in any football league, wanted to be Jack Lambert. If that same guy now has a kid playing, what does he think of Lambert today ? Ward is dirty, end of story. Gets away with it because he's a receiver and most like a receiver that isn't afraid (many afraid ones come to mind, one used to play for us and now sometimes catches for the Jets), much less one that even dishes it out, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that he's a dirty, BS hitting player. Even more with Harrison.
Did the greatest linebacker of all time need to do that kind of BS - Lawrence Taylor ??? Did Clay Matthews Sr. need to ? How about Brian Urlacher ?
Drives me nuts the Squeelers get so many bandwagoners that claim they stand behind a 'tough team'. If they showed any kind of toughness at all, they'd stand behind a team with character. The dynasty of the Walsh 49ers were a team of character. Did Jerry Rice need be a dirty hit guy to make his team successful or prove his worth ?
QB's ... Ben R. even putting himself in such a 'compromising' position shows such a lack of class it's ridiculous. Cool star hangs with small town college girls and then buries his head in shame and smiles real nice, says 'Yes sir' and 'No Sir' on cue to the commisioner and guess what, he's high and mighty on the media list this week.
Like it or not, there used to be role models playing football that gave the game respect and credibility. Many will dump on this thread, but that's probably because they like sitting on their couch pretending to be a Jack Lambert in their dreams - scared of nothing, Bad A**, but bottom line - this game has gone down the wrong road. There are actually guys that made a difference and proved their grit without show boats or dirty players - Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Bernie Kosar, Ernest Byner, Eric Metcalf, Terry Metcalf, Peyton Hillis, Aaron Rodgers, etc., etc.
The Steelers organization is absolutely well run. Their ownership, coaching and offices are second to none for the long term except maybe New England, but there has to be a fair amount of darkside in Pittsburgh that does nothing about the crap going on. These guys have a somewhat open door to do what they do and whether it is in the name of winning or not, it's not what teams with REAL character do.
.... and for the guys that refuse to read the article, take the time. Yes, it's about Pittsburgh, but allot of food for thought there ... from both sides of the subject.
James Harrison, Jack Lambert, Hines Ward, doesn't matter who or the era, the author is right. The assanine fans that support players that simply want to hit without rules or any display any kind of sports integrity at all, should stick to professional wrestling. Lambert was tough, Harrison is tough, Ward is commited ... they are and were disgraces to the sport. In the day when Lambert played, any guy playing on the defensive end of the field in any football league, wanted to be Jack Lambert. If that same guy now has a kid playing, what does he think of Lambert today ? Ward is dirty, end of story. Gets away with it because he's a receiver and most like a receiver that isn't afraid (many afraid ones come to mind, one used to play for us and now sometimes catches for the Jets), much less one that even dishes it out, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that he's a dirty, BS hitting player. Even more with Harrison.
Did the greatest linebacker of all time need to do that kind of BS - Lawrence Taylor ??? Did Clay Matthews Sr. need to ? How about Brian Urlacher ?
Drives me nuts the Squeelers get so many bandwagoners that claim they stand behind a 'tough team'. If they showed any kind of toughness at all, they'd stand behind a team with character. The dynasty of the Walsh 49ers were a team of character. Did Jerry Rice need be a dirty hit guy to make his team successful or prove his worth ?
QB's ... Ben R. even putting himself in such a 'compromising' position shows such a lack of class it's ridiculous. Cool star hangs with small town college girls and then buries his head in shame and smiles real nice, says 'Yes sir' and 'No Sir' on cue to the commisioner and guess what, he's high and mighty on the media list this week.
Like it or not, there used to be role models playing football that gave the game respect and credibility. Many will dump on this thread, but that's probably because they like sitting on their couch pretending to be a Jack Lambert in their dreams - scared of nothing, Bad A**, but bottom line - this game has gone down the wrong road. There are actually guys that made a difference and proved their grit without show boats or dirty players - Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Bernie Kosar, Ernest Byner, Eric Metcalf, Terry Metcalf, Peyton Hillis, Aaron Rodgers, etc., etc.
The Steelers organization is absolutely well run. Their ownership, coaching and offices are second to none for the long term except maybe New England, but there has to be a fair amount of darkside in Pittsburgh that does nothing about the crap going on. These guys have a somewhat open door to do what they do and whether it is in the name of winning or not, it's not what teams with REAL character do.
.... and for the guys that refuse to read the article, take the time. Yes, it's about Pittsburgh, but allot of food for thought there ... from both sides of the subject.
Very well said and agrees...
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http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...mp;sportCat=nfl
Two years ago the Pittsburgh Steelers were on their way to an unprecedented sixth Lombardi trophy and, after a brief encounter with Dan Rooney, the team's humble and magnanimous owner, I wondered, in this very space, if the Steelers were, in fact, the greatest franchise in sports.
Purchased by Art Rooney Sr. in 1933 with $2,500 he supposedly won at the track, the Steelers initially struggled for decades. But since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, no team has been better. Maybe not in any sport. In those 41 seasons, the Steelers have been in 22 divisional playoffs and 15 conference championships, including eight in the past 14 seasons.
They've been to eight Super Bowls and won six -- with a shot at No. 7 next week in Dallas.
Flem File
The Steelers have 20 Hall of Famers and a rabid, worldwide fan base, and their logo has become one of the most recognized and respected icons in the entire sports world. They have a scouting department, a coaching legacy and a front office that's the envy of the entire league, as well as a remarkable, tireless connection to dozens of local and national charities. And so, with apologies to the Montreal Canadiens, the Yankees and the Celtics, after factoring the parity and popularity of the NFL, as well as the social impact of the Rooney Rule, I'd still give the nod to the Steelers.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are the greatest franchise in sports.
But you know what I've learned while covering this team, extensively, during the past 15 years?
They also might be one of the dirtiest.
It's something we all might want to consider over the next 10 days as a nation of pundits blather on about the wholesome, blue-collar, old-fashioned, long-lost American goodness that the Steelers (or any other sports teams) represent.
Now, I'm not just talking about the well-documented, but unproven, accusations of sexual assault against Ben Roethlisberger that earned the Steelers' QB a four-game suspension this season; the $125,000 the league has fined linebacker James Harrison for illegal hits this season; the blocks by Hines Ward that earned him the rep as one of the game's dirtiest players and inspired the creation of the "Hines Ward Rule" against blindside blocks; or, even, the 13 arrests the Steelers have logged since Super Bowl XL (compared to, say, the Packers, who have had five players arrested during the same time frame), according to a database run by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
This is just the latest example of a sinister side to the Steelers that has run parallel to the team's phenomenal success during the past 41 years. To be sure, this isn't ticky-tack stuff like parking tickets and training camp curfew violations. These are reports, allegations or documented instances of shooting at cops, assaults against women, drugs, deadly high-speed car chases and suicides -- as well as repeated questions about performance-enhancing drugs.
None of it, a secret.
Yet the bigger question, at least to me, is that through it all our love and admiration for the Steelers has only continued to grow.
Why is that?
Even die-hard Steelers fans who are, no doubt, turning apoplectic at this point, have to admit it's a remarkable paradox -- our best, most beloved team is also one of the dirtiest? It offers a fascinating glimpse into the soul of this sport and those who love it.
Part of the problem is that to justify the time and energy we all spend on sports, we try to attribute some grand, mythical, moral undertones to events like the Super Bowl when, the truth of the matter is, off-the-field character in the NFL has little or no effect on on-field performance. Heck, it might even be a detriment. As one respected NFL veteran told me, "You can't win in this league with 53 choirboys." That's never been the Steelers' problem. They work the margins and push the envelope and walk the line as well as any team. And in a violent, uber-competitive league like the NFL, that's a virtue, not an indictment. The last time I checked, they weren't holding parades for 2-14 teams full of Boy Scouts.
"It's not all roses with this team, but there's just something about the Steelers uniform that deflects the negative," says Chad Millman, a colleague of mine at ESPN The Magazine and co-author of "The Ones Who Hit The Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s and the Fight for America's Soul."
"They've always walked that fine line. It might be cheap or dirty, but with the Steelers it's always framed as a virtue done in the name of winning. There's just so much iconic, mythical, blue-collar character associated with this team that it's hard for people to see the negative."
That doesn't mean it's not there, though.
In fact, Millman's book traces the Pittsburgh Paradox back to its exact origin: defensive end Ernie Holmes. "I think he wanted to beat people to death -- within the rules of the game," former Steelers safety Mike Wagner says of Holmes in the book.
Somewhere, I bet, a sweet little old granny in Pittsburgh is stitching that motto onto the back of her Terrible Towel.
In March 1973 Holmes, who was later diagnosed as suffering from acute paranoid psychosis, allegedly pulled a shotgun from his truck while driving on the Ohio turnpike and began shooting out the tires of passing trucks. This led to a high-speed chase, a shootout and a standoff with state police that ended in a nearby forest with Holmes allegedly shooting an officer in the ankle.
Two days later, a lawyer paid for by the Rooneys bailed Holmes out of jail using $45,000 supplied by the Rooneys. He was then taken to a psychiatric hospital (also paid for by the Rooneys) where he stayed for two months. When he got out, Holmes pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and, somehow, was given five years probation. (Just trying to imagine how something like this would play out in 2011 is mind-blowing, isn't it?) A few months later, though, Holmes was back at training camp and in the starting lineup, where he helped the Steelers win their first two Super Bowls.
Art Rooney Jr. said Holmes needed "mercy."
Of course, the Steel Curtain also needed a defensive end.
Either way, the lines had officially been blurred and the Pittsburgh Paradox had begun.
Pittsburgh, of course, went on to win four Super Bowls in the 1970s. It was a dynasty like no other that included some of the greatest, baddest football teams ever assembled. Pictures from this era dot the inner hallways of the team's practice facility and, if you're not careful you will get lost while gazing at floor-to-ceiling photos that feature Jack Lambert growling above a prostrate Fran Tarkenton.
The end of the Steelers' amazing run in the 1970s came a full decade before the NFL banned steroids. Nevertheless, there has been widespread speculation that the first part of the Steelers' dynasty is tainted in some way by the fact that it helped popularize steroid use in the NFL. In the 1991 book "False Glory: The Steve Courson Story," the former Steelers offensive lineman wrote that 75 percent of the offensive linemen on the Steelers' Super Bowl teams in the late 1970s had used steroids.
Steroid use was, after all, not banned by the league at the time, and I wonder if the spotlight has fallen on the Steelers largely because they were so damn good. Not everyone agrees, though. "It started, really, in Pittsburgh," Jim Haslett said in 2005 while coaching the New Orleans Saints. "They got an advantage on a lot of football teams. They were so much stronger [in the] '70s, late '70s, early '80s. They're the ones who kind of started it."
The Steelers challenged this statement, of course, but the ramifications -- and suspicions -- linger. A 2009 investigation by ESPN into the Steelers' history with performance-enhancing drugs found an alarming number of former players suffering from heart ailments. "Even if there is no pattern or clue linking the deaths to steroids," wrote the article's author, Mike Fish, "since 2000, 17 former Steelers have died before they reached the age of 59."
Seventeen men. Dead.
Still think this is all sensationalist anti-Steelers crap?
That list includes former Steelers guard Terry Long, who tried to kill himself with rat poison after testing positive for steroids in 1991. He died in 2005 after drinking antifreeze. A year before Long died, Steelers offensive linemen Justin Strzelczyk was killed in a fiery head-on collision with a tanker truck after leading New York state troopers on a 40-mile chase. Hall of Fame center Mike Webster died from heart failure in 2002 at the age of 50, tormented by years of dementia, drug use and homelessness.
Are there troubled souls and tragic accidents on every NFL team? Yes. Do most great teams have a dark side? Uh, look at the Dallas Cowboys. Yikes. I've probably done 50 stories on the Steelers in the past 15 years. I've traveled in Switzerland with Roethlisberger, hung out in Alabama with Kevin Greene, played golf with Dermontti Dawson, even had a civilized conversation with Greg Lloyd. My personal experience has been unequivocal: This is a class organization from top to bottom.
But in the next two weeks, the Steelers could become the most accomplished and important franchise in sports.
And, like it or not, this is all part of their remarkable story.
At the heart of Fish's 2009 investigation was the revelation in 2007 that Dr. Richard Rydze, a longtime member of the Steelers' medical staff, had been questioned by federal authorities after supposedly using a personal credit card to purchase six-figures worth of human growth hormone. According to published reports, Rydze said he purchased the HGH for his elderly patients. His ties to the team were cut four months after his name was identified in news reports. There was no proof that Rydze ever provided the drug to players.
This incident was followed by off-the-field problems involving, among others, Santonio Holmes, Jeff Reed and Roethlisberger. Holmes was traded to the Jets before the season and Reed was cut in November. Among the many admirable qualities of the Steelers, and especially the Rooney family, is the club's habit of cutting loose troublemakers in a league normally governed by a sliding scale of morality.
This one trait might also get to the root of why we are so eager to look the other way when it comes to the Pittsburgh Paradox.
Winning cures everything, no doubt. Especially in the NFL. It's also because the face and the heart of this franchise will always belong to people like Mike Tomlin, Jerome Bettis, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris and Jack Ham. In the final analysis, the good in Pittsburgh outweighs the bad. And that has a lot to do with the men and the family that have run the team since its inception: the Rooneys.
"It's easy to hate Jerry Jones, it's easy to hate Al Davis, it's easy to hate Dan Snyder," says Millman. "But the Rooneys are so decent and they have built up so much goodwill, it's hard not to root for them and hard for fans not to believe they're not trying to hurt anyone or do anything wrong -- they're just trying to win Super Bowls."
Which, I suspect, is exactly what's going to happen again next Sunday.
Good thing, too.
If you're trying to draw attention away from your dark side, seven shiny Lombardi trophies will probably do the trick.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...mp;sportCat=nfl
Two years ago the Pittsburgh Steelers were on their way to an unprecedented sixth Lombardi trophy and, after a brief encounter with Dan Rooney, the team's humble and magnanimous owner, I wondered, in this very space, if the Steelers were, in fact, the greatest franchise in sports.
Purchased by Art Rooney Sr. in 1933 with $2,500 he supposedly won at the track, the Steelers initially struggled for decades. But since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, no team has been better. Maybe not in any sport. In those 41 seasons, the Steelers have been in 22 divisional playoffs and 15 conference championships, including eight in the past 14 seasons.
They've been to eight Super Bowls and won six -- with a shot at No. 7 next week in Dallas.
Flem File
The Steelers have 20 Hall of Famers and a rabid, worldwide fan base, and their logo has become one of the most recognized and respected icons in the entire sports world. They have a scouting department, a coaching legacy and a front office that's the envy of the entire league, as well as a remarkable, tireless connection to dozens of local and national charities. And so, with apologies to the Montreal Canadiens, the Yankees and the Celtics, after factoring the parity and popularity of the NFL, as well as the social impact of the Rooney Rule, I'd still give the nod to the Steelers.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are the greatest franchise in sports.
But you know what I've learned while covering this team, extensively, during the past 15 years?
They also might be one of the dirtiest.
It's something we all might want to consider over the next 10 days as a nation of pundits blather on about the wholesome, blue-collar, old-fashioned, long-lost American goodness that the Steelers (or any other sports teams) represent.
Now, I'm not just talking about the well-documented, but unproven, accusations of sexual assault against Ben Roethlisberger that earned the Steelers' QB a four-game suspension this season; the $125,000 the league has fined linebacker James Harrison for illegal hits this season; the blocks by Hines Ward that earned him the rep as one of the game's dirtiest players and inspired the creation of the "Hines Ward Rule" against blindside blocks; or, even, the 13 arrests the Steelers have logged since Super Bowl XL (compared to, say, the Packers, who have had five players arrested during the same time frame), according to a database run by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
This is just the latest example of a sinister side to the Steelers that has run parallel to the team's phenomenal success during the past 41 years. To be sure, this isn't ticky-tack stuff like parking tickets and training camp curfew violations. These are reports, allegations or documented instances of shooting at cops, assaults against women, drugs, deadly high-speed car chases and suicides -- as well as repeated questions about performance-enhancing drugs.
None of it, a secret.
Yet the bigger question, at least to me, is that through it all our love and admiration for the Steelers has only continued to grow.
Why is that?
Even die-hard Steelers fans who are, no doubt, turning apoplectic at this point, have to admit it's a remarkable paradox -- our best, most beloved team is also one of the dirtiest? It offers a fascinating glimpse into the soul of this sport and those who love it.
Part of the problem is that to justify the time and energy we all spend on sports, we try to attribute some grand, mythical, moral undertones to events like the Super Bowl when, the truth of the matter is, off-the-field character in the NFL has little or no effect on on-field performance. Heck, it might even be a detriment. As one respected NFL veteran told me, "You can't win in this league with 53 choirboys." That's never been the Steelers' problem. They work the margins and push the envelope and walk the line as well as any team. And in a violent, uber-competitive league like the NFL, that's a virtue, not an indictment. The last time I checked, they weren't holding parades for 2-14 teams full of Boy Scouts.
"It's not all roses with this team, but there's just something about the Steelers uniform that deflects the negative," says Chad Millman, a colleague of mine at ESPN The Magazine and co-author of "The Ones Who Hit The Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s and the Fight for America's Soul."
"They've always walked that fine line. It might be cheap or dirty, but with the Steelers it's always framed as a virtue done in the name of winning. There's just so much iconic, mythical, blue-collar character associated with this team that it's hard for people to see the negative."
That doesn't mean it's not there, though.
In fact, Millman's book traces the Pittsburgh Paradox back to its exact origin: defensive end Ernie Holmes. "I think he wanted to beat people to death -- within the rules of the game," former Steelers safety Mike Wagner says of Holmes in the book.
Somewhere, I bet, a sweet little old granny in Pittsburgh is stitching that motto onto the back of her Terrible Towel.
In March 1973 Holmes, who was later diagnosed as suffering from acute paranoid psychosis, allegedly pulled a shotgun from his truck while driving on the Ohio turnpike and began shooting out the tires of passing trucks. This led to a high-speed chase, a shootout and a standoff with state police that ended in a nearby forest with Holmes allegedly shooting an officer in the ankle.
Two days later, a lawyer paid for by the Rooneys bailed Holmes out of jail using $45,000 supplied by the Rooneys. He was then taken to a psychiatric hospital (also paid for by the Rooneys) where he stayed for two months. When he got out, Holmes pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and, somehow, was given five years probation. (Just trying to imagine how something like this would play out in 2011 is mind-blowing, isn't it?) A few months later, though, Holmes was back at training camp and in the starting lineup, where he helped the Steelers win their first two Super Bowls.
Art Rooney Jr. said Holmes needed "mercy."
Of course, the Steel Curtain also needed a defensive end.
Either way, the lines had officially been blurred and the Pittsburgh Paradox had begun.
Pittsburgh, of course, went on to win four Super Bowls in the 1970s. It was a dynasty like no other that included some of the greatest, baddest football teams ever assembled. Pictures from this era dot the inner hallways of the team's practice facility and, if you're not careful you will get lost while gazing at floor-to-ceiling photos that feature Jack Lambert growling above a prostrate Fran Tarkenton.
The end of the Steelers' amazing run in the 1970s came a full decade before the NFL banned steroids. Nevertheless, there has been widespread speculation that the first part of the Steelers' dynasty is tainted in some way by the fact that it helped popularize steroid use in the NFL. In the 1991 book "False Glory: The Steve Courson Story," the former Steelers offensive lineman wrote that 75 percent of the offensive linemen on the Steelers' Super Bowl teams in the late 1970s had used steroids.
Steroid use was, after all, not banned by the league at the time, and I wonder if the spotlight has fallen on the Steelers largely because they were so damn good. Not everyone agrees, though. "It started, really, in Pittsburgh," Jim Haslett said in 2005 while coaching the New Orleans Saints. "They got an advantage on a lot of football teams. They were so much stronger [in the] '70s, late '70s, early '80s. They're the ones who kind of started it."
The Steelers challenged this statement, of course, but the ramifications -- and suspicions -- linger. A 2009 investigation by ESPN into the Steelers' history with performance-enhancing drugs found an alarming number of former players suffering from heart ailments. "Even if there is no pattern or clue linking the deaths to steroids," wrote the article's author, Mike Fish, "since 2000, 17 former Steelers have died before they reached the age of 59."
Seventeen men. Dead.
Still think this is all sensationalist anti-Steelers crap?
That list includes former Steelers guard Terry Long, who tried to kill himself with rat poison after testing positive for steroids in 1991. He died in 2005 after drinking antifreeze. A year before Long died, Steelers offensive linemen Justin Strzelczyk was killed in a fiery head-on collision with a tanker truck after leading New York state troopers on a 40-mile chase. Hall of Fame center Mike Webster died from heart failure in 2002 at the age of 50, tormented by years of dementia, drug use and homelessness.
Are there troubled souls and tragic accidents on every NFL team? Yes. Do most great teams have a dark side? Uh, look at the Dallas Cowboys. Yikes. I've probably done 50 stories on the Steelers in the past 15 years. I've traveled in Switzerland with Roethlisberger, hung out in Alabama with Kevin Greene, played golf with Dermontti Dawson, even had a civilized conversation with Greg Lloyd. My personal experience has been unequivocal: This is a class organization from top to bottom.
But in the next two weeks, the Steelers could become the most accomplished and important franchise in sports.
And, like it or not, this is all part of their remarkable story.
At the heart of Fish's 2009 investigation was the revelation in 2007 that Dr. Richard Rydze, a longtime member of the Steelers' medical staff, had been questioned by federal authorities after supposedly using a personal credit card to purchase six-figures worth of human growth hormone. According to published reports, Rydze said he purchased the HGH for his elderly patients. His ties to the team were cut four months after his name was identified in news reports. There was no proof that Rydze ever provided the drug to players.
This incident was followed by off-the-field problems involving, among others, Santonio Holmes, Jeff Reed and Roethlisberger. Holmes was traded to the Jets before the season and Reed was cut in November. Among the many admirable qualities of the Steelers, and especially the Rooney family, is the club's habit of cutting loose troublemakers in a league normally governed by a sliding scale of morality.
This one trait might also get to the root of why we are so eager to look the other way when it comes to the Pittsburgh Paradox.
Winning cures everything, no doubt. Especially in the NFL. It's also because the face and the heart of this franchise will always belong to people like Mike Tomlin, Jerome Bettis, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris and Jack Ham. In the final analysis, the good in Pittsburgh outweighs the bad. And that has a lot to do with the men and the family that have run the team since its inception: the Rooneys.
"It's easy to hate Jerry Jones, it's easy to hate Al Davis, it's easy to hate Dan Snyder," says Millman. "But the Rooneys are so decent and they have built up so much goodwill, it's hard not to root for them and hard for fans not to believe they're not trying to hurt anyone or do anything wrong -- they're just trying to win Super Bowls."
Which, I suspect, is exactly what's going to happen again next Sunday.
Good thing, too.
If you're trying to draw attention away from your dark side, seven shiny Lombardi trophies will probably do the trick.
SOUR Grapes from another Bitter man. Browns Sparkling 4-11 Record in NFL Championships ( I though you guys DOMINATED ??) And 16-20 All Time record in the Playoffs . We wont even go to the Current woes. You and many like you are Bitter...sad men. The NFL is like the rest of society( Including You and I ) ... full of flawed People. How bitter and Obsessed you must be to go looking for ANY Smidgen of negativity regarding Pittsburgh. Dig away... conjecture and hearsay... Nobody gives a damn and the Nation as a whole and the Media in General Salutes the Pittsburgh Steelers and it EATS People like you ALIVE !!! Get the Freak over it Bitter Boy ! Or... just keep looking like a weenie !!
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