Meet the Steelers T here are many ways to measure success in football For most fans it comes down to a simple question How many times has your team won the Super Bowl The Pittsburgh Steelers won their sixth in January of 2009 more than any other team The Steelers are likely to add to their record The team is built to win championships Each year a group of good players comes together to play great football It has been that way for generations No matter who is coaching the team or who the Steelers are facing on the field chances are they will come out on top This book tells the story of the Steelers Every Sunday they pull on their uniforms and play their hearts out They hit hard think fast and work as a team Pittsburgh fans expect this and more of the players and coaches and the Steelers are happy to give them exactly what they want Ben Roethlisberger embraces Troy Polamalu after a Pittsburgh victory They have helped the Steelers win more Super Bowls than any other team 5
Glory Days During the darkest days of the Great Depression the sport of professional football was in need of smart ambitious people Art Rooney fit that description Rooney lived in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania He was young loved sports and had money to spend Rooney bought a team in the National Football League NFL in 1933 and named it the Pirates after the city’s baseball club Rooney had some good players on his team during the 1930s including Johnny Blood McNally Cap Oehler Ray Tesser Armand Niccolai and Byron Whizzer White In 1940 Rooney changed the name of the team to the Steelers in honor of Pittsburgh’s steel industry Not until 1942 however did they have their first winning season The star of that team was a rookie passer named Bill Dudley He was small 6
and slow and threw the ball with a weird sidearm motion Still he usually found a way to win Pittsburgh fans loved him Just when it looked as if the Steelers were ready to contend for the NFL championship Dudley and many teammates were called away to fight in World War II When Pittsburgh’s stars returned the game had changed and the Steelers were slow to keep up with the times At one point the team went eight years in a row without a winning season During the 1950s Pittsburgh had a strong defense that featured Ernie Stautner Dale Dodrill Bill McPeak Jerry Shipkey and Jack Butler But they lacked a great runner and passer The Steelers could have had the two best players of the era running back Jim Brown and quarterback Johnny Unitas But the team decided not to draft Brown and cut Unitas during training camp The Steelers began to show improvement in the late 1950s and early 1960s They were led by quarterback Bobby Layne running back John Henry Johnson and receiver Buddy Dial It was not until the early 1970s however that Pittsburgh fans were finally rewarded with a championship team LEFT When World War II began Bill Dudley swapped his football jersey for a military uniform ABOVE John Henry Johnson signed this photo which shows him in the early 1960s 7
