Jock Sutherland

The Steelers Sixties Index

The Steelers Decades Index

SUTHERLAND'S SINGLE WING

Everyday should have been New Years' Eve. It was 1946. The war was over. These were gay times.

It was a hot August. The place was Hershey, Pa. The smell of chocolate overwhelmed you. The heavy smell of chocolate is almost nauseous. The smell, mixed with small clouds of dust, made 70 sweaty athletes - some 4 F, some recently from service, but all trying to win a place on the Pittsburgh Steeler roster - miserable. But not nearly as miserable as the tall, spare man, with the stern look of a hell-and-brimstone evangelist, made them. He strode swiftly from one knot of sweaty football players to another. Seldom did he communicate with the player directly.

The military chain-of-command carried over to this football field. He gave the orders to his assistant coaches, and they, in turn, "chewed out" the players. The mistakes these players made lived after them, the good, as far as the coaches were concerned, was interred in their bones. The stern one was the headmaster. He was famous.

His name?

Dr. John Bain (Jock) Sutherland. He was more a legend than a man. He had coached for years at the University of Pittsburgh, and controversy enveloped him, both on and off the campus. He was called the Great Stone Face. He was respected but not loved. He was considered one of the greatest of football coaches but his frugality made one think of many characters in a Dickens novel.

He was a bachelor and his players said his only mistress was football. His practices were long and hard, almost cruel. But the end apparently justified the means. His teams were successful. His record still stands as one of the best in football.

But his controversial self was greater than his record and, in the end, he was forced to step down as head football coach at the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt, was, first, his Alma Mater and second, a school which he had built into a giant, intercontinental football power. To be forced to leave the campus was a severe traumatic blow. The "resignation" had become a matter beyond his control and he and his followers did not accept the results philosophically.

He coached Brooklyn in the National Football League, but there were those who said he was never happy there. The war came and he joined the Navy. Then he accepted the head coaching job with the Steelers. He was home again in Pittsburgh.

"It's strange," Art Rooney, owner of the Steelers, recalled recently. "But shortly after we announced the signing of Jock Sutherland, we started to sell tickets like never in our history. He was a magic name in Pittsburgh. It was right after the war and no one, not even Sutherland, knew what players we would have, but the Pittsburgh fans had faith in this coach."

This was the background as the Steelers trooped to Hershey. "It was the beginning of an experience that anyone who passed through that camp will never forget," "recalled Nick Skorich, now a member of the Cleveland Brown coaching staff, and a survivor of this ordeal.

"I think the first morning practice was in shorts, the rest of the time, morning and afternoon, we were in pads and we scrimmaged. For the Doctor, you continued working until he was satisfied and many times he had the lights turned on and we kept working until seven or eight o'clock. Although there was a bed check every night, it was hardly necessary. The players were so weary that they barely made it to supper and then struggled to bed.

Skorich said buses drove into Hershey twice daily to carry away the weak and the wounded and to dump off a new load of recruits who were either willing to make the sacrifice or who had not received the word of what was going on there.

Every other team in the National Football League played the T formation. Sutherland stayed with the single-wing offense, an offense that caused strong men to shudder.

"The Steelers seem to come at you in waves," Em Tunnell, the great New York Giant, remembered. "Everyone hated to play them. They played like angry young men. It was almost physical destruction. They blocked in groups. They tackled in groups. They were the most awesome afternoons in my football career."

"The day of the game was a holiday," Skorich remembers. "It was a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable than Dr. Sutherland's practices. None of us will ever forget those practices.