Because of Chuck Noll...

Ironically, because I was trolling Twitter the night of Friday the 13th trying to keep up with the Pirates while watching the Stanley Cup Finals, I was likely one of the first people to see the breaking news, but now, as other sad commemorations crowded in on the week, I'm probably one of the last of the Steelers Nation to publicly comment on it.  Yet so much of my life is framed around the fact that I'm a Steelers fan, which, let's be honest, wouldn't have happened had they not rose up out of the ashes to become a marquis franchise that got lots of air time even in the far away Rocky Mountains that I simply cannot stop for a moment and comment on Coach Noll's passing.

What you realize when an icon from your youth passes on is that you're hit hard by it because it drives home a fact that you know intellectually, but struggle to accept emotionally:  the carefree days of being young are truly, irrevocably gone.  There really is no returning to lazy Sunday afternoons by the fire listening to your dad explain what just happened on a particular play while he takes a sip of Hamm's, and you're explaining back that you just like it when a bunch of people all pile on top of one another (seriously, my first memories of Steelers football is that Steel Curtain defense just all swarming to the ball like it was a magnet and they were - well - steel).  And I guess it was for that reason that it took a while before I could accept it.  I saw the Pittsburgh Post Gazette announce via Twitter that Chuck Noll had passed away at his home in Sewickley and my first thought was, "Wow, isn't that interesting?  There's another local celeb who shares Coach Noll's name.  I wonder if I'm supposed to know who that is."  There was a good 30-45 second gap before it hit me maybe they meant the actual Coach Noll.  Then I moved on to the next stage of grief:  denial.  I figured it was a mistake.  I switched over to ESPN.  Nothing.  I pulled up Facebook.  Nothing.  Root Sports.  Nothing.  I began to relax a little.  And then I saw it - a scroll across the bottom of the screen. The Twitter-sphere began to pick up on it as well.  Finally, at intermission between periods in the hockey game, the local news broke in to announce it.  Denial was no longer an option.  There it was, all vestige's of my youth truly gone.

As I tried unsuccessfully pay attention to the OT hockey on the screen in front of me, I thought of his family and what they must be going through at that moment, and I've thought about them often in the intervening days.  I wonder if they felt a sense of comfort their dad and husband meant so much to so many that he's on the cover of the Sports Illustrated sitting on my table downstairs, or if all of us wanting to share their grief seems intrusive.  I hope it's the former.  Because what I've also reflected on since that night is how sports is more than a game (and hence people like me crawl into laundry rooms to cry when their team loses a big one), it's a unifying force that brings people together and gives them pride and hope and joy where they might not otherwise have any.  No city needed that more than this one in the 70's.  I must have heard a hundred stories over the next few days of how rough those days were as the steel industry collapsed and a quarter of the population was out of work.  As it was said over and over, for six days a week, there was nothing but worry and misery, but on Sunday, all of that was briefly forgotten.

I have been reminiscent of that speech of Admiral McRaven's that I quoted from last time. Coach Noll embodied the message that one man can truly change the world.  Think about it.  Because of Chuck Noll, Mean Joe Greene came to professional football and learned to control his temper and turned into a household name.  He broke racial barriers when he starred in a Coca-Cola commercial.

Speaking of racial barriers, because of Chuck Noll, an African American man was a starting quarterback in the NFL.  Not so stunning these days, but to our shame as a nation, as recently as the 70's it was.

Because of Chuck Noll, the team I love are six-time Super Bowl Champions, boasting such greats past and present as Rod Woodson, Jerome Bettis, Hines Ward, Ben Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu, and the list goes on.  All because of what Chuck Noll began when he brought together the men who became one of football's all-time great dynasties.

Because of Chuck Noll, a soot laden city in the middle of the greatest economic collapse since the Depression began to recover its reputation, gained a sense of pride and hope and never looked back.  Look at this city now - it took a lot of people and lots of faith to reshape it, true, but I believe that became a bit easier once the world saw Pittsburgh as something more than a dying city; when they began to perceive it as being as tough as the Steel Curtain defense.

Because of Chuck Noll, a little girl growing up in Bozeman, Montana learned to love football and became such a Steelers fan that she lives in their town now.  So, if someday I do something wondrous for the people of this city, then you can know - it was really because of Chuck Noll.

So, Coach Noll, I never met you and you would never know who I am or what you meant to me.  Take it to the bank, though, you changed my world.  And I thank you for it.

Justin Osborne