First, tell me a bit about coach and who influenced you as a coach, and how?
Well, I’m back in Alabama, coaching high school football.
I played for quite a few coaches. Bill Oliver was my secondary coach in Alabama and I enjoyed playing for him. Of course I played for Bill Belichick and Nick Sabam too.
I liked the fact that all three coaches were meticulous about the small things. The fundamentals, techniques, and assignments. They’d stress playing at eight, not 10 yards off, or five, not three – to be precise. Those small things that made a big difference.
They also weren’t yellers. I like to coach and teach – I don’t like to yell. Especially with high school kids- they clam up when you start yelling at them. So I related to that too.
You were drafted by Cleveland – what was that Steelers-Cleveland rivalry like for you and how did it differ when you moved to Baltimore?
Cleveland was a football city. It always has been. The fans are die-hard. When the Browns moved to Baltimore I think it took the life out of the city for a while. Basketball wasn’t really big then – not until LeBron came along to Cleveland.
Baltimore had a team before Cleveland moved there and I think the fans felt the pain of the Browns fans. They went through the same thing when the Colts moved. So I think it was hard for them to accept us at first – knowing how we got there. It took a while to create that loving relationship, so to speak.
Was the move a surprise to the players as it was the fans?
We knew the team was having discussions with the city of Baltimore about moving, but we just thought the owners were using that as part of it’s negotiations with Cleveland to get what it wanted from Cleveland. We didn’t take those discussions seriously as players – we figured we’d still be in Cleveland.
Then after the season we went to the meeting room and Art Modell was there with the rest of the staff telling us we were moving to Baltimore. For some of the older guys it was tough – they had been in Cleveland for years and their families had established themselves there. For me, I was in my second season. I had grown to love the city. But it was also a job to me. I had no choice or say-so anyway!
As a young guy in Cleveland, how was that rivalry for you -what do you remember personally about it?
I just remember it really wasn’t the same when we moved to Baltimore. Cleveland was two hours away from Pittsburgh by bus. It was a long-standing rivalry. For a while it just didn’t feel right playing the Steelers in Ravens colors.
Back then the rivalry for me was at the Auburn-Alabama level. It was the same way when I was in Cleveland. Everyone would talk about the game. We didn’t plan for it differently though. Belichick never changed anything based on the rivalry. He always preached that no game was bigger than another on the schedule.
The fans were the ones that amped it up.
Any good memories from those games?
Oh yeah – once in Pittsburgh we were there and the fans and players were waving their Terrible Towels – we were all jawing with one another. The players were swinging them around when Earnest Byner snatched one from a player and threw it down and started jumping on it.
Well, that amplified the game 20 times higher. It was a battle! I never heard so much jawing and trash-talking – all because of Byner! But it made for a great game!
Who were some of the guys you looked forward to playing against?
Hastings – I played against him in college. Charles Johnson and I were good friends – we played in All-American games together. Ernie Mills was a good receiver – I played him in college too. And Yancey Thigpen was the guy we all knew we had to stop.
And at running back they had Barry Foster and my good friend Bam Morris.
Any of those guys talkers?
Oh Bam was the worst – he was awful. He would trash talk all the time. Mills and Thigpen were pretty quiet – they didn’t say a lot. Hastings too. O’Donnell was a good quarterback, but when Harbaugh played there for a short while he was awful. He’d trash talk – I couldn’t stand him. You don’t trash talk as a quarterback!
Any other memories stand out?
I just remember we had a good football team in ’94. We battled back and forth with the Steelers all season. When we played Pittsburgh in the playoffs then, it was a good game. It was a dogfight. We knew if we won we’d go to the championship game, but Pittsburgh beat us and went on to play and lose against the Chargers. We had a solid team tough in ’94 – that was a tough loss.
I also remember one game going up against Charles Johnson. I told our safety Eric Turner, who’s no longer with us. that I was going to jump the slant and he should play back. Well, I remember breaking on the route and Eric hit me on the side of the head and knocked me out. We used to call that friendly fire! He didn’t do his job. He must have thought I was telling him to jump the route. Well, at least Charles didn’t catch it. Eric didn’t catch it. And I sure didn’t catch it!
What do you think of the rivalries today?
Honestly, I think the Browns rivalry with the Steelers has flipped to Baltimore. All those years Cleveland didn’t have a team, it flipped to be a bigger Steelers-Ravens rivalry. The Browns and Steelers rivalry lost that umph. I think it’ll get there again – it’ll just take time. I think the Browns and Ravens rivalry is big though now!
And whose side do you take on that one?
Oh my friends always call me on those games and get after me! I tell them I sit firmly on the 50 yard line on those games – I don’t sit on either side!
Read more by former Steelers via the book Steelers Takeaways: Player Memories Through the Decades. To order, just click on the book:
