Big John

There are a lot of things they don’t tell you about middle age. (Then again, there are a lot of things they don’t tell you about a lot of ages, but I don’t have time to get into all of that in this space.) One of those things is that hitting said age bracket involves seeing many of the heroes of your youth pass from this mortal coil. They don’t tell you that. And, they don’t tell you how much that sucks.

The biggest hero of my youth, Dad, passed on three years ago, and he plays a big part in this story, as he does in almost all of my stories, because, well, he wasn’t just my hero, but my best friend for five decades. And, Dad and I had many similarities when it came to folks we admired both in everyday life and in the culture at large. But, there was a place where we diverged, and that line is the key to this story.

See, Dad grew up in the 50s, and he liked the kinds of guys who were respected in that decade. When it came to football coaches, for example, Dad loved Chuck Noll and Tom Landry, smart, solid, no-nonsense guys. Now. Let me digress just a moment. Yeah. You knew it was coming, so, here we go.

Years ago, I read a story in which, when the lead character went to Heaven, right after being reunited with family members and friends who had preceded him to the great beyond, he found himself in the company of his heroes, people he’d admired throughout his life. Well. Gang. If this is how it really goes up there and I make the cut, believe me when I tell you, I’m going to meet Tom Landry.

So, yeah, Dad and I were in agreement on guys like that. But, there was the line. And, there’s no greater example of where that line was drawn than the quarterbacks who played in Super Bowl III. Dad was a huge admirer of John Unitas, the tough, smart, no-nonsense quarterback of the Baltimore Colts. He had little love, however, for Unitas’ opponent, Joe Namath of the New York Jets. Because, while crew cut sporting, high-top wearing John was Dad’s kind of guy, long-haired, white shoe-wearing Joe with his big personality and even bigger arm, was not.

I, on the other hand, love Joe Namath. Then and now. Because, while Namath was Broadway, he was Beaver Falls, too. And, he never forgot the latter. He was every bit as tough and smart as Unitas was, and every bit as talented, too. And, he told everybody who’d listen that an ethnic kid from a Western Pennsylvania steel town could do anything. And, then, gang, he went out and proved it. So, while Namath was never one of Dad’s favorites, he was always one of mine. And, years later, long after Joe had retired, Dad came around to realizing just how great Number 12 had been. Just like he came around on another guy I loved…Oakland Raiders coach John Madden.

Yeah, this is where we’re going. I loved Madden before the whole freaking country loved Madden. I loved Madden when he was the heavyset rumpled coach pacing the Raiders sideline screaming at people. And, Dad hated Madden…for a couple of reasons.

First, Madden was the anti-Noll. Loud and boisterous to Noll’s quiet and stoic. He was the anti-Landry, flamboyant and laid back to Landry’s reserved and detail-oriented. (While Landry exercised so much control over his players that each man had to know what steps to take with which foot against every possible play in Landry’s “Flex Defense”, Madden had three rules: 1. Be on time. 2. Pay attention. 3. Play like hell when I tell you to.) And, all of that rubbed Dad the wrong way. But, even worse was the fact that, as his beloved Steelers were rising to greatness in the 70s, the team that most often stood in their way was Madden’s powerful Raiders.

Now, let’s rewind a bit to tell you something that, in the words of Pete Townshend, “people forget”. Prior to the 70s, the Steelers bête noire had been, as hard as it might be to believe now, the Cleveland Browns. No. I am not kidding. The Browns joined the NFL from the old AAFC in 1950, the year the modern NFL was born. And, throughout Dad’s youth following the Black and Gold, the Browns dominated his favorite team. In the 50s, the teams played twenty times. And Cleveland won 15. In that decade, the Browns made the post-season eight times and the NFL Championship Game seven times. The Browns won three NFL Championships. The Steelers never finished higher than third, never once making the post-season.

The 1960s wouldn’t be any better. The Browns and Steelers played twenty times and Cleveland won 15 of the games. The Browns made the post-season six times, the conference championship game twice and the NFL Championship Game twice. In 1964, Cleveland won its fourth NFL Championship. The Steelers never finished higher than fourth, had exactly two winning seasons, and did not make the post-season. By decade’s end, Cleveland had four times as many NFL Championships as the Steelers had appearances in the post season. (The Steelers had qualified once in their history, in 1947, tying Philadelphia for the lead in the Eastern Conference. The result was a one-game playoff. Philadelphia won 21-0.)

Thus, at the dawn of the 70s, with Chuck Noll in his second year trying to clean out the Augean Stables that was the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Browns were the team Dad wanted to beat the most. But, that would quickly change, because the franchises were going in opposite directions. With Paul Brown, who’d built the team into a powerhouse long gone to Cincinnati, Cleveland was fading just as Pittsburgh was rising under Noll. As a result, the decade of the 70s would see a complete 180 in the series, with the Steelers winning 15 of the 20 meetings. (And, the fact that, after losing 31 of the first 40 contests, Pittsburgh now leads the all-time series 78-61-1 tells you all you need to know about how things have gone for the teams since.)

Of course, it took Dad some time to become a believer, so to speak. Not in Chuck Noll, mind. From the very beginning, Dad thought Noll was the guy who would finally lead the franchise out of the wilderness. A former player himself, he understood the game and could see progress being made, even when it wasn’t evident on the field, like in the team’s 1-13 first season under the future four-time Super Bowl winner. But in the fact that the Steelers were about to surpass their old rivals to the point where a new rival was going to come into the picture. That changed in 1972.

The Steelers/Raiders rivalry, of course, began on December 23, 1972. And, as the teams had been in different leagues until the 1970 merger, said playoff game was only the third meeting between the Steelers and Raiders. Oakland had won the first, in 1970. The Steelers had won the second, earlier in 1972. (In the third quarter of that December 23rd game, by the by, Roy Gerela hit a field goal to put the Steelers ahead 3-0. Those were the first post-season points in the history of the franchise. But, I digress.

The Steelers led 6-0 in the fourth when Ken Stabler ran 30 yards for a TD that put Oakland ahead 7-6. Madden was seconds from his third semi-final in four years as head coach. (Oakland had made the AFL Championship Game his first year and the AFC Championship Game his second, losing to eventual Super Bowl Champions Kansas City and Baltimore respectively.) Then came Terry Bradshaw, Jack Tatum, Frenchy Fuqua, and Franco Harris on his white charger. (And, despite memories which have gotten hazy over time, nobody in Pittsburgh save those at Three Rivers Stadium saw it happen. The game was blacked out within a 75 mile radius of the stadium due to NFL television rules at the time. It was aired on tape delay the next day. My friends and I did hear it live…hear it, not see it, because the game was broadcast live on the radio, with the giant talents of Jack Fleming making a call that will live on until the sun supernovas and melts the Earth.)

Madden, until the end of his days, still insisted it was the most unfair thing that he’d ever seen happen on a football field. In a 1980s interview, the coach described it this way. “In the history of football, when a guy crosses the goal line, it’s either a touchdown or it’s not. They didn’t know if it was a touchdown. I went out, they said, ‘Get away, we don’t know what happened.’ So now, the referee leaves the huddle and he goes over to the dugout, on the Pittsburgh Steelers side, and gets on the phone, and he makes a call to someone. Then he hangs up, and then he walks out the middle of the field and signals touchdown, some five or ten minutes later. They said that they didn’t look at replay, they didn’t do anything. I still don’t know who they made the phone call to because they won’t admit it…that question has never been answered to this day.”

Whatever happened, the Steelers went on to play in the AFC Championship Game, and Madden’s season ended. Folks have said, erroneously, it says here, that the Immaculate Reception started the Steelers dynasty. It didn’t. The team lost the following week, and, the following year, 1973, got crunched by Madden’s Raiders in the first round of the playoffs, 33-14. Madden went to the semi-final for a third time. And lost again. This time to the eventual Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphins.

As for the Steelers, the exact date of the beginning of the dynasty was November 25, 1974. The team, at that time, was a solid 7-2-1, but it was a mess offensively, having started three quarterbacks in those ten games. Joe Gilliam was the starter at the beginning of the season, but, eventually, he was pulled for Bradshaw, who was pulled for Terry Hanratty before Bradshaw was inserted back into the starting lineup for good for the Steelers’ Monday Night game against the New Orleans Saints. Pittsburgh won the game, lost the next week against Houston, and then won five straight, the last being  a victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IX. The fourth of those five victories came in Oakland, where the Steelers, trailing 10-3 entering the final quarter, did it to Madden’s Raiders again, rolling up three touchdowns in the last fifteen minutes to win 24-13.

Madden’s fifth trip to the semi-finals came the following year against the best team the Pittsburgh Steelers have ever had. The 1975 unit outscored its 14 opponents by over 200 points and, after a loss to Buffalo in Week Two, ran off 11 consecutive wins to push its record to 12-1. The final week, with everything clinched, both the Steelers and another playoff team, the LA Rams, called off the dogs, playing their backups extensively in what many thought might be a preview of Super Bowl X. It wasn’t. The Rams, after beating the Steelers, won the following week, but were absolutely obliterated by the Dallas Cowboys in the conference final 37-7. LA managed less than 120 yards in total offense compared to Dallas’ 450. Meanwhile, the Steelers, after disposing of the Colts in the opening round, engaged in a typical slugfest with Oakland. The game featured a whopping twelve turnovers, and, while Pittsburgh outgained Oakland by only 11 yards, the Steelers won the game 16-10…and left the Raiders fuming yet again, this time about the field outside the hash marks being frozen solid. Raiders owner Al Davis always claimed the Steelers deliberately froze the outsides of the field to neutralize the Raiders’ deep passing attack. The Steelers explanation, which is far more probable, is that the tarp covering the field leaked allowing the rain that had fallen the night before to get to the artificial turf and freeze it. Whatever the reason, the Raiders had fallen short yet again, while the Steelers would win their second Super Bowl two weeks later against the Cowboys.

Bridesmaid Madden finally became the bride the following season, but, in inimitable Raiders fashion, not without controversy. The Raiders romped to a 13-1 record, including a regular season win over the two-time defending champion Steelers. Oakland’s only loss? To the New England Patriots, who would be Madden’s opponent in the team’s opening playoff game. The Patriots led 21-17 late in the fourth quarter when Ken Stabler threw incomplete on third and 18. The game was all but over. Enter Ben “Givin’ Him The Business” Dreith…who called a phantom roughing the passer penalty on New England’s Sugar Bear Hamilton, giving the Raiders a first down. Two more Patriots penalties followed and Ken Stabler scored on a one yard run to give the Raiders the 24-21 win.  No one would come close to Oakland the rest of the season. The Raiders roared past the Steelers 24-7 in the semi-final and finally grabbed the brass ring with a 32-14 victory over the Vikings in the Super Bowl. And, while I’d been more than a little upset at the way the Patriots had been jobbed (especially because I liked that team and New England’s coach, Chuck Fairbanks, about whom we’ll talk more later), when it was all over, when “Old Man Willie” sealed things for the Raiders in Siper Bowl XI, well. I couldn’t have been happier for Big John as he was carried off the field by his players.

Oakland looked to be heading right back to the big game in 1977, running off an 11-3 mark yet still finishing a game behind the surprising Denver Broncos. Denver blasted Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs, while the Raiders went OT to beat the Colts in the famous “Ghost to the Post” game. That set up a third meeting between the division rivals, who’d split the season series. It was Madden’s fifth straight trip to the semi-finals and his seventh in nine years. And, then, stuff happened, as it always seemed to with Big John on the sidelines. With Denver up 7-3 and driving for a score, running back Rob Lytle was hit by Tatum at the one yard line and fumbled. Raider Mike McCoy scooped it up and looked to be on his way to making it 10-7 Oakland when the play was blown dead. The officials had not seen the fumble and gave the ball back to Denver at the one. Jon Keyworth scored on the next play to put Denver up 14-3…in a game the Broncos would win by three points, 20-17. A fourteen point swing. Madden was out in the semis again…only, this time, for the first time, the team that beat him wouldn’t win the championship. Dallas hammered Denver in the Super Bowl. And Madden had coached his final playoff game.

In 1978, the Raiders slipped to a 9-7 record, finishing a game out of the playoffs. The rejuvenated Steelers romped to a 14-2 record and their third Super Bowl win in five years. Madden, tired of all the flying required in his job (due to claustrophobia), retired and moved to the broadcast booth. He was working lower level games when Dad’s Steelers beat the Rams to win their fourth Lombardi Trophy after the 1979 season. But, in 1981, CBS moved Madden to the “A” team with Pat Summerall, creating the greatest football broadcasting team of all time, and also creating the forum that would allow Madden to go from highly-successful (His winning percentage is still best all-time for any coach with at least 100 games.) coach to beloved sports icon. Eventually, Madden worked for all four major networks, moving to FOX with Summerall when CBS lost the NFL, then to Monday Night Football to work with Al Michaels on ABC and finally to Sunday Night Football on NBC.

 But, it’s the years working with Summerall for which Madden will most be remembered, at least by me. If Pat and John were doing a game, no matter who was playing, I’d be watching. I can remember hating weeks when CBS/FOX didn’t have the doubleheader game. That meant Pat and John would be doing a 1pm game, and it might be a game I didn’t get to see. But, on those doubleheader weeks? Oh, it was appointment TV. Get in the chair. Get a drink and maybe a snack. Settle in. And let Pat and John drive the bus. There was nothing better. Ever.

As I’ve mentioned previously in this space, I used to do PA announcing along with play-by-play and color commentary for a variety of sports. I stole every single thing I ever did as far as PA announcing and play-by-play went from Pat Summerall. Everything. Because, there wasn’t anyone better. Again. Ever. As for Madden? I stole exactly nothing from him, because you could not. The guy was one of a kind and any form of imitation would have been seen as exactly that. The very best ever. Both of them. And, in the same booth.

 I can still remember so many of those games and those afternoons. And, if Heaven is like what it is in that story, well. Pat and John are together right now. And, the football fans up there are going to be treated to some fantastic broadcasts. Heaven. I hope that’s where they are. Because, that’s what they brought to us. Just a little bit of Heaven.