THOSE SAME OLD STEELERS

The needs were many. A quarterback.  Even if Noll had drafted Terry Hanratty in the second round the year before, evidence insists he was pressured into it.  He never had faith in Hanratty's ability to be a winning NFL quarterback.

If Greene was to be a cornerstone, Terry Bradshaw, a kid from Louisiana Tech whose arm was best defined in calibre rather than inches, was the turning point.

Sure, he would need time, nurturing, the supporting cast.  But when Bradshaw became the first player selected in the 1970 collegiate draft, the success which later became a torrent, started to trickle.  In his debut, Bradshaw completed just four of 16 passes, was replaced by Hanratty, the Steelers were whipped and he sat in the parking lot after the game and wept.

Noll didn't.  He had a quarterback whose ability to run would torment defenses susceptible to a scrambler able to run over defensive backs.  It was a matter of education.  The talent was there.  "Watching Terry play quarterback is like watching a rose bloom on slow motion," thought tight end Bob Adams.

Under Bradshaw, the 1970 Steelers were young and unpredictable.  Cold (they lost their first three), hot (won four of five), cold (lost five of six).  Still, they were moving.  Bradshaw was learning, and the draft had also brought gifted wide receiver Ron Shanklin and cornerback Mel Blount, whom his colleagues immediately dubbed "Supe" in recognition of obvious superior athletic skill.  

The draft was working its magic.  Art Jr. second oldest of the five sons of Art Rooney, ran the personnel department and served as a buffer between Noll and the scouts, between whom there was little affection.  "Coaches always think they can scout better than we can," Artie Rooney would chuckle, "and we think we can coach better than they can."

Despite some differences - scouts like to drink beer and tell stories and none of them ever indicate a belief in uck Noll's infallibility - the Steelers got the talent.  In perhaps the pivotal draft in the club's history, the real nucleus of the Super Bowl clubs was born in the spring of 1971:

receiver Frank Lewis,
linebacker Jack Ham,
tight end-turned-tackle Larry Brown,
guard Gerry Mullins,
defensive linemen Dwight White, Ernie Holmes, and Craig Hanneman,
and safeties Mike Wagner and Glen Edwards. In all 11 rookies made the club.

For much of the 1971 season, the Steelers fought Cleveland for control of the AFC Central Division.  The teams were tied with 5-5 records before inexperience and a lack of overall talent caught up with the Steelers, who lost three of their last four and their bid for the first championship of any kind in their history.

It happened in the third game.  Everything that would follow was crystallized in that third game.  They beat San Diego, 21-17, in a mean, gritty game.  And they did it with two goaline stands, the Chargers failing once after getting a first down at the one.

They began to learn how not to lose that day.  For the first time in anyone's memory, the Steelers, faced with imminent collapse, had held fast.  When it was over, linebacker Andy Russell slowly unpeeled tape from his ankles and nodded his head with satisfaction.  "We're coming of age, we're getting there," the thoughtful linebacker mused.  "Two years ago, we would've lost this game."

"Just wait," promised Joe Greene.

The waiting ended the following season.  Franco Harris arrived in the draft, along with tackle Gordie Gravelle, tight end John McMakin, linebacker Ed Bradley, defensive end Steve Furness, defensive back Denny Meyer and a slender quarterback from a black college whose arm would one day seduce even the disciplined Noll, Joe Gilliam. 

Harris was drafted in the first round over the objections of Noll, who wanted to opt for a fireplug back named Robert Newhouse, who would become a dependable runner but no Harris for the Cowboys.  In 1972, Bradshaw finally asserted himself in the huddle, Harris stuttered and slithered and danced for more than 1,000 yards rushing, and the front four harassed opposing quarterbacks unmercifully.

In that unforgettable year, 1972, the millstone finally slipped from Arthur J. Rooney's aging neck.  They had to win this one.  They had not beaten the Cleveland Browns for a decade and now, the first weekend in December, with a division championship hanging in the balance, they had to beat Cleveland.

Even a sportswriter was rooting... and sportswriters don't root.  It's part of the job, like you being in Toledo and your suitcase being in Tampa.  Rooting is for the fans. I rooted.  For my town, Paris hard by the pollution, the Vienna of erector-set architecture.

My town.  I rooted for all the times I played hook to watch Pat Brady loft those incredible punts into the low-hanging clouds over Forbes Field, and for the times my old man and I had sat in the end zone sipping a little sour mash and watching them blow another one and learning something of that complicated business of father and son. I rooted for justice, by God.

Cleveland had 25 assorted championships; my stiffs were looking for their first one.  I rooted for a guy I knew, who worked with his hands, worked the split-shift so that he never knew whether it was time for breakfast or Archie Bunker, took his lunch in a tin pail and talked about the Steelers over chipped-on-rye and Tuesday's leftover cake.

Like the mortgage payment and the car that overheated and the kids with colds, they were his... and underneath my objective veneer they were mine, too.  We rooted them past the hated Browns that Sunday, and a city where people say "watch it, Mac," instead of "excuse me" when they bump one another on the street; where the gut drink is PM-and-a-beer; where the game is football, took the first big step toward becoming a city of champions.

The pointy-headed Steelers, who had never won anything, won the Central Division championship in San Diego on the last Sunday of the season and, a week later on the strength of the most bizarre, electrifying play in the NFL's history, immortality.

They had pounded Cincinnati (40-17) and Cleveland (30-0) at home enroute to an 11-3 record, best in their history, and Three Rivers held sway in the playoffs. "The great God, Tar-Tan, won't let us down," center Ray Mansfield predicted the day before the playoff game against Oakland, and if the Tartanturf didn't rise up in the Steelers' behalf, there were obviously some mysterious forces at work against the Raiders.

They led 7-6 with 22 seconds left in the game when Bradshaw rifled a desperate fourth-down pass at running back Frenchy Fuqua. He and Raider safetyman Jack Tatum went up for the ball as one and what occurred then was quickly dubbed The Immaculate Reception. The ball de- flected from either Tatum (legal) or Fuqua (illegal) into the hands of Harris, who tightroped a foot inside the sideline for a game-winning touchdown which triggered a debate that still ensues.

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