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1984, the Year of the Bull

By Joe Lafferty,
Author of Justin Time, A memoir of Faith and Fight for Life.

When you get cancer as a kid everybody looks at you differently. I was only eight years old but I knew pity in other’s faces. They didn’t mean it but childhood cancer in the early 80’s, even in Pittsburgh, was rare. It was non Hodgkin’s lymphoma and it came with a 70% chance of survival. Great odds if you’re betting $5 bills at the Rivers Casino but when it’s the life and death of your kid, those odds suck.

Continue reading “The Year of the Bull – Remembering Bill Fralic”

Staking Out Your “Terrytory”

My girlfriend whom I had been dating for quite some time, lived out by the Greater Pittsburgh Airport. I had been recuperating from my automobile accident at the time and still living in Pittsburgh, but I would frequently visit her. Terry Bradshaw, the Steeler’s number one pick in 1970, just happened to rent an apartment his rookie season in the very same complex as hers.  One day she excitingly mentioned that she had met Terry Bradshaw at her apartment complex, and that he had invited her over to his apartment to watch “game films” some evening at her convenience. Naturally, I hit the roof when she informed me.

Continue reading “In His Own Words: Larry Gagner”

WHEN DID THE 70s BEGIN?

Having been born in 1970 I am a child of the 70s. I was watching a documentary the other day about the Kennedy assassination and a comment was made that the 1950s didn’t end and the 60s didn’t begin until the Kennedy assassination in 1963.  It changed our country’s history, and future!  That was one of those statements that struck a chord with me that resonates with a lot of other major events that have happened in our country’s history.  Kind of like the 1930s didn’t end, and the 1940s didn’t begin, until WWII started in 1941.  The 70s didn’t end until the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981, but most importantly the 1960s did not end and the 70s did not begin until 1972.

Continue reading “Vintage Steelers: Speaking of the Raiders”

Video: 1992 Week 3 Highlights: Pittsburgh @ San Diego. Pittsburgh has a big 4th quarter, helping it to beat San Diego 23-6. Adrian Cooper and Dwight Stone catch touchdown passes (the irony here is that Cooper later ended up in jail for stealing money from clients as a stockbroker, and Stone became a police officer after his time in the NFL).

Lloyd and Little both had interceptions.

Continue reading “Video Highlights: 1992 week 3 Pittsburgh @ San Diego”

Poor James Washington is getting hammered on Twitter this year. The expectations are very high for the first year wide receiver, but his output isn’t what everyone was hoping for. So, that got me thinking. What would’ve been tweeted about Chuck Noll his first few years. He would’ve been butchered. One win and thirteen losses in his first year would’ve definitely led to tens of thousands of tweets…daily. Even though the Steelers were lovable losers for the previous decades we still would have carved him up. Five wins in his next season may have lessened the beating, but we’ll never know. In Chuck’s third season he had six wins. Who keeps their jobs as a NFL head coach after only twelve wins in his first three seasons? Lynn Swann only had eleven catches in his first year. Stallworth only had sixteen catches his first year. What would the tweets have looked like in 1974? Oh. And to think what would have been tweeted about poor Terry Bradshaw. Oh my. You know he would’ve been on social media too. Think about these Hall of Famers and the what if’s if we had social media back in the day. Poor Bradshaw.

Continue reading “Social Media and Today’s Game”

Video Highlight; 1992 week 2 NYJ @ Pittsburgh

Barry Foster and Larry Griffin star in the Steelers 26-10 win:

Continue reading “Video: 1992 week 2 NYJ @ Pittsburgh”

I was fortunate enough to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1966-1969. I worked in the world after that for about thirty-four years (just added it up) from December of 1969 to June of 2003. I was a member of many teams after Pittsburgh: Sanford Rose & Associates, City of Akron Human Relations Commission, Kent State University and Penn State University (from which I retired in 2003) and many more service and leadership development organizations as a volunteer leader.

Continue reading “In His Own Words: William Asbury”