The Immaculate Trinity

Different people have differing opinions on how that success is attained. What some people forget, and many more were never even around yet to see, is that the Steelers were not always this way. The team never even won a playoff game until Franco Harris made the ‘Immaculate Reception’ in 1972.

Now, much in the same miraculous fashion as that play, it seems the team can hardly ever figure out how to lose. The one constant during this nearly 40-year reign of terror upon the rest of the league is that the Steelers have only had three head coaches, far and away the lowest amount of any other team in that span.

While coach’s Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin are similar in their winning ways, the same cannot always be said in the way they have gone about their business in doing so.

Chuck Noll, a man who commanded so much authority in his reign as the Steelers head man that he acquired the nickname ‘the Emperor Chazz’, was the first of these men to walk the sidelines in black and gold.

Hired in 1969, Noll, only 37 years old at the time, was charged with turning around a franchise that had been to only one playoff game in their previous 37 years of existence. It was a task that many had failed and few wanted.

Noll was coming off of a Super Bowl win the previous season as a Defensive Coordinator for the Baltimore Colts and was ready for a new challenge, even one that seemed as daunting as this. During his first season the team only won one game out of fourteen, but he was setting a tone.

According to Steelers legend Andy Russell, when Noll had his first meeting with that first team he said “Men, you’re not losing because you’re not trying. You’re losing because you’re not good. I am here to change that, so most of you won’t be.”

That was his style. He was confident, honest, and to the point.

His demeanor was a very stoic one. Under his charge, the team finally won that playoff game in ’72 and went on to much bigger things.

He had an unparalleled eye for talent and proved it in 1974, when his draft class featured four Hall of Famers. That same year, he won the first of his still record four Super Bowl titles as a head coach.

When the Emperor finally decided to abdicate the throne after the 1991 season, the team decided it was time to hire a man whose style of coaching contrasted with the now retired legend.   

In early 1992, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced their first head coaching change in 23 years, bringing in another defensive coordinator, the little known Bill Cowher. He had previously worked for the Kansas City Chiefs, and at 35, was also a young man at the time of his hiring.

Now, while Cowher and Noll were alike in their youth and defensive background, Cowher was much different from Noll in demeanor. To say Cowher was a loud man would be like saying Angelina Jolie is pretty, while both are technically true, neither are adjectives that truly serve justice.

Cowher got his nickname, ‘the Chin’, because of the way he jutted his chin out as he grabbed a hold of his players and made them aware of any deficiencies in their game.

As scary as the man could be, he had another common theme with his predecessor—he was a winner.

While he never measured up to Noll as a playoff coach, he actually had a higher winning percentage over his career than did the ‘Emperor.’ He made it to two Super Bowls in his 15 years on the sidelines, losing the first, and the winning the second.

After those 15 seasons, only three of which ended with a losing record, Cowher decided to take a break from coaching to spend more time with his family. So, in January of 2007, he decided to hang up the clipboard, which meant, for only the second time in 39 years, Pittsburgh was in the market for a new head man.

The man that the Rooney family, the head of the organization since its inception, decided would be the next coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers would be Mike Tomlin. He became the first African-American head coach the team ever hired.

It was fitting, because Steelers owner Dan Rooney implemented a rule to force all teams to include at least one African-American in their interview process when hiring a new coach. In fact, it had become known as the ‘Rooney Rule.’

Tomlin, like his two predecessors before him, was young man at 35, and also one with a defensive background. He was the Coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings before becoming the Steelers head man.

Tomlin’s coaching style is more similar to Noll’s than to Cowher’s. While all three are motivators, Tomlin and Noll go about their duties with much less flare than Cowher.

In 2007, Tomlin took over a veteran team that had only known one coach their entire pro careers. It was a tough sell to win them over, especially since he was not much older than some of them.

In his first season, like Cowher, he won the division and made the playoffs. Also like Cowher’s first campaign, he lost to an underdog in the playoffs. There had been some grumbling amongst the players that perhaps he worked them too hard, starting with camp, and that they were worn out at season’s end.

Like any great coach, Tomlin learned from his mistakes. During his second season as coach, he rested the veteran players an extra day every week to keep them fresher for games and throughout the season. This paid of immensely, as the team finished with a record of 12-4, despite playing the toughest NFL schedule since the ‘70’s.

Tomlin showed in his second postseason, that perhaps he is more similar to Noll during January than he is to Cowher. In just his second season, the coach, who has yet to garner a nickname from his players, at least one of public record, won the Super Bowl.

In doing so, he became the youngest coach ever to receive that honor. 

What these three coaches have put together in a row is unparalleled in the history of American sports. It would almost seem that any man you put in charge of this franchise would have success, almost.

Each of these men has unique qualities that have made them the most successful at what they do. The ownership has just done a remarkable job of finding the right men, and then sticking with them instead of having a hair trigger like so many others in their profession.

In the mind of the Steelers fans, who come home from their holy church on Sundays to the church of ‘black n gold’, this trinity of coaches can’t help but remind us of that other trinity we spend Sundays praising.

The only difference is that this trinity has given them a little taste of Heaven on Earth.