First, can you let me know what you are doing with yourself besides the press box and basketball work?
I’ve been in the insurance business for over 40 years. I ran my own agency for years – it was in Bethel Park with Bob Purkey – the former Pirate. I bought it out from Bob when he retired in 2003 then sold it last year to First National Bank and have been working for them since. It’s worked out great.
I still do the press box work for the Steelers and, if we get back to playing again, coaching the Steelers charity basketball team.
How did you get the job working as the press box assistant and basketball coach?
“Baldy” Regan was a Pittsburgh personality back in the 60’s and 70’s – he grew up with the Rooneys and did those jobs before me. He started the basketball team in the 50’s and brought me in when I was in high school in 1969. That was a great time to start, with Chuck Noll coming in for his first year. Back then we played about 15 games a year for spaghetti dinners. It grew from there to over 60-to-70 games – all fundraisers for the groups we play against.
Was it hard getting guys to play on the team?
Back then every NFL team had a basketball team – now we may be the only one. Most are done for sure. Now they are afraid of injuries I think, and most guys now train year-round. A lot of those guys don’t stay in town like they used to so can’t play. James Harrison used to play all the time but his last few seasons he trained in Arizona in the offseason. Heyward now goes to Florida. It’s harder now to get some of those more popular players than it was. We often get some of the older players to play instead. Guys like Batch, Lipps…they play a lot.
Any of those games get contentious?
We played the Browns twice a year in the 80’s. They could be bitter games. Usually we played high school coaches and faculty – maybe you’d get one guy that used to be a high school star that would want to show off a bit and that was ok.
But the Browns games – there was one game where Randy Grossman ran into Reggie Rucker when he was doing a layup. He made it look like an accident but it turned out they had an incident in a game that year. Well they tussled and then Cliff Stoudt grabbed linebacker Robert Johnson.
A quarterback holding back a linebacker?
That’s what Cliff said. “What was I thinking” he asked me after – “why did I grab that guy!”
Lloyd was also pretty intense – just like he was on the field.
Gary Dunn was a good friend of mine then too and was a fun guy to be around. In fact I helped him open up his Oceanview Inn in Florida – that was 25 years ago! I went down there and his partner was Dennis Hannah – a former player for the Rams. Well, it was Memorial Day weekend and Dennis gave the cleaning staff the weekend off. It turned out the inn was full – so the three of us spent the weekend cleaning toilets and changing sheets, if you can imagine!
As a press box assistant, what memories stand out to you?
Well of course the Al Davis incident. After the Immaculate Reception he was furious. He said the reception shouldn’t count. I don’t know why I said it, but I told him ‘The ref said it didn’t hit an offensive player!’ After, I thought, “What the hell am I doing yelling at Al Davis!” No one said anything to me after though.
When I first started it was at Pitt Stadium. I had to run the stats at the end of every quarter from one press box, down the stand to the other side of the field to the other press box.
When we moved to Three Rivers, it was much easier. I remember Art Modell – he was a real gentleman. Baldy told me I should take care of him – offer him coffee – just to take good care of him because he was one of the nicest guys that came through the press box. Well I asked him if he wanted coffee after the first and second quarter, and at the half he slipped a $20 bill into my pocket. After that I brought him coffee it seems like 30 times – whether he wanted it or not!
Any other good memories of your press box work?
The funniest thing was when Eddie DeBartolo Jr. came in. We were playing the 49ers and he came in with six bodyguards, wearing a fur coat. Baldy and I chuckled to each other about that and joked about which of the six guys we could take.
Well, what made it funny to me was that about two hours after the game I was leaving the stadium and saw Mr. and Mrs. Rooney walking down the street together by themselves, through the fans, on their way home. Shows you the difference between them…
Another good one was when Rush Limbaugh came into the press box. That was when he was just on his way to becoming a big-time national radio host. He was a big Steelers fan. I was just amazed at the reaction he got. A lot of well-known guys have been in that box. My dad was actually with me that day and he’s a die-hard, stone liberal Democrat and wouldn’t even look at him much less shake his hand. But the reporters all came and asked for autographs – there were no cellphones to take pictures with then.
He stood there in the entrance holding court until Joe Gordon came in and told him he had to move on – that he couldn’t block the entrance. But it was just interesting – I never saw reporters so enamored with someone like that.
Any issues come up in the press box?
There was one time when four guys came into the press box when no one else was in it. They rolled in and clearly had a lot to drink. I walked past with Baldy and looked in and saw them. Then PR Director Ed Kiely came by and told us that we needed to get those guys out of there. We were like the unofficial bouncers I guess.
Well, I told them they had to go and two of them left on their own, but the other two weren’t being so congenial. One guy had a thermos and Baldy grabbed him by the belt and collar and tried to throw him out into the concourse area. The guy swung his thermos, so I pushed the other guy away and grabbed him and ran him into the concourse wall – his feet went up in the air as I was holding him and he was looking down from the wall into the parking lot below. Just then Dan Rooney walked by and I though, “That’s it for me. I’m going to be fired.” Baldy just laughed afterwards and told me not to worry.
Later on I went down to the locker room and dropped off the game stat books and talked to some players when Dan came by and the blood just drained from my face. He asked me what happened and told me I really lost my temper there. He wasn’t smiling. I told him he swung the thermos at Baldy and Baldy was like my dad. He told me I needed to keep my composure – that I couldn’t do that.
Well, then Jim Boston came over and asked what happened too. He said he heard I almost threw someone into the parking lot. When I told him what happened he joked that he thought it was Dan’s brother, then he and Dan walked away laughing. Apparently, I was ok after all since I’ve been working there since!
Were there guys you were most excited to see there?
There were so many wonderful people. Joe Namath – Baldy knew Joe from some of the football camps they did together. He was hurt – I think it was in ’71 – so he sat in the press box. I was a big fan of him. Don Meredith too.
One of the other jobs I had, in essence, was to escort the Monday Night broadcast crew to their limos after the game. Howard Cosell, Al Michaels, Alex Karras and I were all walking to the elevator down to the limos when the fans starting screaming at Cosell. He started waving at them, then they started swearing at him. Cosell just looked at us and told us the fans here loved him! Karras just looked at hm and shook his head….
I also had to go to the field during the national anthem and escort the singers off the field after they sang. Once it was country singer Dottie West. We had to dress in suits when we did this – and after the song was done she took me by my arm and we walked off together off the field. Well. 10 of my good buddies were in the stands and we walked by them, and they were just giving it to me – hooting and hollering – really letting me have it!
Any other issues occur there?
When they had the blackout rule in place, they asked me to stand and watch the ticket takers to ensure they were counting correctly – they needed precise counts for the blackout stuff – they had to make sure people had tickets if they got in.
Well, it was difficult – I knew a lot of those guys – a lot let me in to the baseball games for free. When the ticket supervisors saw me they got mad that I was there to report on their work. I told them I didn’t have a choice but they called me a snitch!
Well, I saw 50 guys waiting on the ramp when I was talking to the supervisor. I didn’t want to get them in trouble. So I finally told them I going to gate C – and it would take me about 10 minutes, then I’m coming right back! I smiled at them and headed out. When I got back, there wasn’t one person left on the ramp!
I wanted to talk more about your basketball work too and some of those fun stories….?
There were maybe a handful of times when I actually had to play – when guys were no-shows or something else happened.
One of those times – it was at Deer Lakes High School. Me, Chris Hoke, Randy Grossman, Edmund Nelson and a rookie – I forget who that was – we all played. They announced us all and Chris Hoke’s wife told us later that when they announced me one of the fans said “That guy must have played a long time ago!”
Who were some of the better players?
Franco was really good – under-rated because he was so humble – he didn’t try to show off. He was one of my favorites.
Preston Pearson was an All Big 10 basketball guard in college so he was very good. Stallworth and Woodruff were good – Larry Brown was too. I mean, that guy went from a 235 pound tight end to a 260 pound tackle in six months. He was a prototype player then. And Jack Ham was a very good shooter.
As the game changed, the linebackers became some of the better players – they had to be such great athletes. Before that it was the skill positions – receivers, quarterbacks, running backs…
Brett Keisel too. In fact Armen Gilliam used to play on some of the teams we’d play – he was a former NBA star and teams brought him in to be competitive. He was very nice but competitive.
Well, he came up to me once and asked me who that guy was he was playing against. This was maybe a couple of years after he was done playing in the NBA. I told him it was Brett Keisel. Armen told me that he could play in the NBA. I told him that’s a big stretch! But he said no – he’s 6’6″, ran like a deer, could dribble and shoot with both hands. He was really talented!
Any funny moments from those games?
There was one game in the 70’s – we’d do Globetrotter type skits sometimes – pull down the shorts of guys at the foul line, that kind of thing to make fans laugh. Well, Marv Kellum did that to one guy – gave a quick pull of some guys shorts and they fell right to the floor – and the guy was wearing a jock strap – nothing else. He had to scramble and pull up his pants but he was butt-naked, mostly!
Joey Porter – he ripped the entire backboard down on a dunk. And Max Starks – once he came in flip flops and still dunked twice!
And Antwaan Randle El was a great basketball player – he played under Knight in Indiana. One game he threw a perfect lob pass to a guy who just couldn’t handle it – let’s just say that guy wasn’t so great. Well, Deshea Townsend looked at me and said “You got to know your personnel!”
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