OT - 1000: Steelers reach milestone in games played

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http://www.post-gazette.com/steelers/20031026game1026p4.asp

1000: Steelers reach milestone in games played

Sunday, October 26, 2003

By Shelly Anderson, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

First, some perspective: Since Aug. 26, 1997, the Pirates have played 1,000 games. That's a little more than six years.

Today, the Steelers, founded in September 1933 by Art Rooney Sr., play No. 1,000 when they are host to the St. Louis Rams. That's a little over 70 years.

Some numbers come more slowly in football, a bruising game played once a week.

From the start, this football franchise has played in the same city, in the same league and has been owned by the same family. For decades it was a team mired in NFL backwash before rising to earn a spot among football's elite with four Super Bowl championships in the 1970s.

Talk about a grand occasion.

"It really is a tremendous thing," Dan Rooney said of the 1,000th game milestone. Rooney, son of the late Art Rooney Sr. and the longtime club president, yielded that post to the third generation this year when his son, Art Rooney II stepped up.

"I always say that our and my biggest thing that we did was to keep the Steelers in Pittsburgh and keep them viable. Playing the thousandth game is significant for that reason. It is a milestone because in those early days we were only playing 10 or 11 games a year. It took a long time to even get to a hundred."

No. 100, in 1941, was just the team's 25th win. But that's getting ahead of the game.

Game No. 1

Pro football didn't have much of an identity during the Great Depression.

"In Pittsburgh, the [baseball] Pirates were first, boxing was second, Pitt football was third and high school football came fourth," said Art Rooney Jr., Dan's brother, who took his history lesson from his father.

Sports was what Art Rooney Sr. knew. He had been an AAU champion boxer, a minor-league baseball prospect whose career was cut short by an arm injury and a semi-pro football player. He was a successful boxing promoter and horse track gambler.

In 1933, the 32-year-old Rooney secured a franchise from the NFL and gave the city a pro football team, one that shared the name of the established local major-league baseball club, the Pirates.

The team debuted on a Wednesday night, Sept. 20, 1933, at Forbes Field. The Post-Gazette's advance story about the game appeared on the third page of the sports section that day and carried no byline.

The Steelers first coach was Forrest "Jap" Douds, who also played tackle. His team, most of the players fresh out of college, lost the first game to the New York Giants, 23-2, in front of a larger-than-anticipated crowd of about 25,000. Giants quarterback Harry Newman ran for a touchdown, passed for another and kicked a field goal.

The football Pirates' fifth home game, Nov. 12 against the Brooklyn Dodgers, was moved to Sunday in an era of loosening blue laws. The move became permanent.

"The first Sunday game, they wanted the chief of police to shut it down," Art Rooney Jr. said. "Then they found him sitting with my dad."

The team was 3-6-2 that season. Douds was fired and replaced by Luby DeMelio, who also lasted a year.

The team's first .500 record came in 1936, 6-6, but winning was still years away. The Pirates won 22 football games in their first seven seasons under five different coaches.

In the summer of 1937, 5-year-old Dan Rooney made his first trip to training camp. He was left unsupervised and hung out with the players, who entertained him by grabbing his hands and flipping him. When the waterboy tried it, though, Dan fell on his face and broke his nose.

"My mother almost died," Dan Rooney said. "It turned out to be pretty good, though, because from then on, I was always close with the players."

The milestone games provide a tour of different eras in Steelers history.

Game No. 100

A 14-7 home win over Brooklyn Nov. 16, 1941 was considered a big upset for the team, which had changed its name to the Steelers in 1940. The franchise had a 25-75 record and had the reputation as a losing operation. The Dodgers, with coach Jock Sutherland, had their Eastern division title hopes set back by the loss.

The game was "a tremendous boost for ... professional football in Pittsburgh," according to the Post-Gazette's game coverage.

The next season, under coach Walt Kiesling, the Steelers were 7-4. It was their first winning record, but they wouldn't have another until 1947, after Sutherland, the former great Pitt coach, had returned to town to coach the Steelers in 1946. He led them to their first playoff game, a 21-0 loss to Philadelphia Dec. 21, 1947.

"My father lost money with the Steelers from 1933 when they started until 1946, when the war ended and people had money," Dan Rooney said. "He wanted to keep it going. He thought Pittsburgh deserved a team. And we had Jock Sutherland, who did a great job."

After just two seasons, though, Sutherland died because of a brain tumor.

Game No. 250

A come-from-behind, 20-17 win over the equally downtrodden Chicago Cardinals Dec. 6, 1954 in front of just 14,138 at Comiskey Park broke a four-game losing streak, but the Steelers were on their way to a 5-7 showing, their 18th losing season in 22 years of play.

Thanks to television, the NFL was starting to captivate the nation. The Steelers were getting left behind.

"We were so little recognized that people thought the two teams met outside the city on Sunday morning and decided who would win, like pro wrestling," said Ed Kiely, a longtime Steelers public relations director and front office man.

Art Rooney Sr., so successful in other sports ventures, was becoming known as a lovable loser.

"He'd done well in boxing and he was one of the great horse track gamblers in America -- which meant in the world," Art Rooney Jr. said. "But he was known mostly for the football team, and the football fans thought, 'Gee, what a dumb guy.' "

Game No. 500

Things were changing for the better, although the aggravating result of the 500th game was familiar.

On Nov. 19, 1972, Steelers rookie running back Franco Harris rushed for 136 yards and a touchdown before Don Crockett kicked a 26-yard field goal with eight seconds left for a 26-24 Browns win at muddy Cleveland Stadium.

It was coach Chuck Noll's fourth year. The Steelers didn't lose again that regular season and were on their way to their first AFC championship game -- a game they reached by beating Oakland in an opening-round playoff game on Harris' Immaculate Reception. His astounding touchdown catch off of a deflected pass in the waning seconds produced a 13-7 win over the Raiders and became part of NFL lore.

The team was building by drafting players such as Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount, Jack Ham and Harris -- all Hall of Fame members, along with Noll, Dan Rooney, Art Rooney Sr. and 11 others who spent all or most of their careers with the Steelers.

"Chuck Noll was such a shrewd judge of talent, and with the drafts they had with him, you could just see that this was a process that was going to materialize into a good football team," said Joe Gordon, another longtime public relations and front-office man.

Two years later, at the end of the 1974 season, the Steelers won their first Super Bowl, beating Minnesota, 16-6. It was a long-awaited payoff for the Rooneys, and the franchise was on its way to winning four championships in six seasons.

"The first Super Bowl was really a special thing for my father in that regard," Dan Rooney said.

"When the team turned around, it was unbelievable," Art Rooney Jr. said. "My father said, 'Now people are saying I'm smart even though I'm the same person.' "

Game No. 750

Noll was still coaching when the defending Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins needed a 19-yard field goal by Chip Lohmiller with 12 seconds left to beat the Steelers, 30-29, Sept. 11, 1988, in Washington. Bubby Brister passed for 258 yards and a touchdown and ran for another score for the Steelers, who were on their way to a desultory 5-11 season.

The Noll era was winding down. After 12 playoff appearances and four Super Bowl victories, he retired following the 1991 season. He gave way to Bill Cowher, the team's 15th coach but just its second in the past 34 years.

Cowher has led the Steelers to the playoffs eight times in 11 years, including a loss to Dallas in the Super Bowl following the 1995 season.

"If you look at what this franchise has meant to the NFL -- with one owner who has been through all the changes year to year where teams are moving from city to city and changing owners from year to year -- this franchise with [Dan] Rooney and his father have been the rock of stability, and that has been the backbone of the National Football League," Cowher said.

"That is what they should be recognized for, and certainly to be a small part of that, I have been blessed."

The Steelers head into game No. 1,000 with a 488-490-21 all-time record, including 23-18 in the playoffs. There have been 32 winning seasons, 32 losing seasons and six years of .500 ball.

"We sort of get recognized by this longevity, but there were times we got beat up," Dan Rooney said of the organization and his family, which sometimes seem interchangeable.

"I'm not complaining about it because regardless of what the record was, I've always thought it was fun."