Chuck Noll was never selected as AP Coach of the Year despite winning four Super Bowls in six years and building the foundation of Steeler Nation from scratch; he inherited nothing and built the team into the premiere and dominant one of the 1970s

Chuck Noll with four Lombardi trophies he won

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… Tomlin inherited Super Bowl talent, but has built nothing

From the time that I started rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955, until Chuck Noll arrived in Pittsburgh as the Steelers head coach in 1969, the team compiled a 75-102 record, winning just 42 percent of their games. They had never captured any kind of championship from 1933 until that time.

I remember as a boy about nine or ten years old, saying to my father, “Daddy, can’t I root for any other team than the Steelers?”

He immediately replied, “No, they’re our team.”

“But Daddy, they’re so bad.”

When the Steelers captured their first Super Bowl in the 1974 season, I was 27 years old. Worse, my dad was 68, and he had been a loyal fan for 41 years.

Who made that happen? Chuck Noll

My father loved Chuck Noll, not just because he started a winning tradition with the Steelers. As a referee at the college and high school levels, he liked coaches who were class acts.

Chuck Noll not only won games and four Super Bowls in six years in the 1970s. He was a class act.

Yet, despite winning those four Super Bowls and building a dynasty out of literally nothing, Chuck Noll was never selected as the Associated Press Coach of the Year.

That never bothered him. Winning the four Super Bowls and building the foundation for a franchise that had never experienced success were much more important to him than any individual honors.

Today, Steelers fans can be found throughout the country, but many of them do not understand the role that Chuck Noll had in building that success and what is now known as Steeler Nation.

And doing it the right way.

Noll background

From his biography, I have learned a great deal about him personally that I did not know previously.

First, he had a very difficult childhood and early adulthood. His father was ill for most of Chuck’s life and could not work, meaning that the family struggled financially.

Second, Chuck’s parents gave him a very strong religious background. Both were devout Catholics, and the coach followed that throughout his life.

Third, Chuck attended Catholic schools throughout his life: Grade school, Benedictine High School in Cleveland, Notre Dame for a short time, and the University of Dayton.

Fourth, his family could not afford to pay his tuition for high school, so Chuck did not play freshman football because he had to work to raise money for his tuition. He eventually made enough in the summers so that he could play after that.

Fifth, Chuck suffered from epilepsy through a long period of his life, and that is why he was sent him from Notre Dame by football coach Frank Leahy, who feared that he would permanently injure himself. Leahy did help him to get into Dayton.

Conclusion: All of that played into the foundation that he laid for the Steelers. He was a tough taskmaster: Just ask Terry Bradshaw.

But, the foundation lay with discipline, good fundamentals, good character, and pride. While it started with defense, the first pick being the legendary Mean Joe Greene, the four MVPs in the Super Bowls of the 1970s were all offense: Franco, Lynn Swann, and Bradshaw twice.

Contrast: Mike Tomlin deserves Coach of the Year honors?

Chuck Noll built the Steelers from nothing. They had very little talent, no winning mindset, and no tradition. Today, they have all of that.

Art Rooney, Sr. was not a great manager of the Steelers. They did not start winning until his son, Dan, took over in the mid-60s. However, he insisted that the players represent their team well.

The Chief’s namesake has denigrated that. It started when he failed to discipline Ben Roethlisberger for damaging the reputation of the franchise with his two sexual assault/rape allegations. He said that he would, but he did not.

It continued with Tomlin’s change from a tough taskmaster like Noll to a “player’s coach.” Thus he allowed a player who was arrested for possessing and smoking marijuana before a preseason game to play in that game.

Noll would have cut Le’Veon Bell after that arrest— and Dan Rooney and Art Sr. would have agreed with him.

Chuck was compassionate: He understood that Ernie Holmes, a member of the Steel Curtain defense, had serious mental problems when he shot at a police officer. He even visited him in jail and tried to secure help for him.

Compassion is good; lack of discipline is not.

So, how can fans now say that a coach who was superb early in his career and looked like a great successor to Noll, but who has not been close to a Super Bowl in a decade, be Coach of the Year with a record of 8-6, one that could worsen over the next two weeks?

Tomlin inherited Super Bowl talent, but he has built nothing on his own. Those who argue that the defense is great ignore the fact that so many QBs this year, like Baker Mayfield, not the greatest, have carved it up. Brady made mincemeat of it.

Sorry, Steeler fans, Tomlin does not deserve to be Coach of the Year. He is not a worthy successor to Chuck Noll, on many levels, despite the fact that he has had great talent in his career.