Quiet Strength (7 page)

It was the summer of 1977, and I still hadn’t made the team.

In those days, the relationship of the football clubs and the media was different. Local reporters traveled on the team charter to games. I vividly recall Dwight White, our Pro Bowl defensive end, sitting in the back of the plane, blowing cigar smoke rings while talking with Vito Stellino, one of Pittsburgh’s beat writers at the time. Vito always had good information, in part because he was good at what he did and in part because he sat in the back of the plane with Dwight White.

After training camp, we stayed at the historic William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. Coach Noll made the rookie room assignments alphabetically, so my roommate was linebacker Robin Cole, the first-round draft choice from the University of New Mexico. I had met Robin at a college all-star game our senior year, so we were pretty good friends by then.

We played our last preseason game on a Friday night and had the weekend off until Monday’s team meeting. The last cut would be made on Saturday or Sunday, whenever the coaching staff made their decision. On Saturday morning, I picked up a paper and immediately turned to Vito Stellino’s article detailing which guys were going to get cut. My name was on Vito’s list. I figured that if the story was in the paper, Vito must have gotten his information from the coaches, Dwight, or some other “reliable source.”

I decided not to leave the hotel all weekend. I didn’t want to miss that phone call. The last thing I wanted was to walk into Monday morning’s team meeting and get cut in front of a roomful of guys. Meanwhile, my roommate, Robin, was gone for much of the weekend. He was relaxing—coming and going from the hotel with the confident swagger of a first-round draft pick.

For the second time in four months, I sat for two solid days beside a phone that never rang. I kept calling down to the front desk. “Are you sure there aren’t any calls for my room?”

Monday rolled around. It was a hot, steamy September morning in Pittsburgh. I drove to the facility with Robin, sneaking into the back of the locker room so nobody could see me. They had left my stuff in my locker. I was just about to take my personal belongings when I saw my name plate on my locker—it was still there. Suddenly I realized,
I’ve made the team.
I played it cool, making sure everything was hung up neatly, acting as if I had just been doing a bit of rearranging.

I don’t think Coach Noll even realizes what an important lesson I learned that weekend. It was an unforgettable and excruciating experience, that entire weekend of sitting and waiting. To this day, I make sure to tell our guys exactly when cuts are coming, and I try to give them a one-hour time window to stay by their phones.

Early in that first season, the issue of drinking and drugs—something I thought I’d already dealt with—finally came to a climax for me. During my first road trip as a Steeler, everyone was given two beers as we boarded the flight home after the game. I certainly wasn’t prepared for this, and I wasn’t sure what I should do.

I definitely wanted to fit in and be like everyone else. But I also knew that if I drank the beer, I probably wouldn’t be able to drive once we landed in Pittsburgh. Fortunately, I saw a few of the other guys give their beer away, and that little nudge of positive peer pressure helped me not to give in to something I didn’t really want to do.

That year, 1977, I had a fair amount of playing time at the safety position, and I ended up intercepting three passes for the season. One of those interceptions came in a game that was remarkable, at least from my point of view.

Back in May, when I had been anxiously sitting by my phone during the
NFL
draft, the Steelers had selected a quarterback named Cliff Stoudt from Youngstown State University in the fifth round. Now, in an October game at Houston, both starting quarterback Terry Bradshaw and backup Mike Kruczek were knocked out of the game with injuries. Cliff was on the inactive roster that day, so I was brought in at quarterback to finish up the fourth quarter.

I played terribly. I fumbled a snap, and Rocky Bleier and I fumbled a handoff. I didn’t realize the backs took the ball differently at Pittsburgh than they had done in college. To make matters worse, I threw two interceptions near the end of our 27–10 loss. In the process, I became the last player in
NFL
history to intercept a pass
and
throw an interception in the same game.

I felt awful about my performance because I knew I had cost us the game. Despite my disappointment, however, I realized that I had done something very few people would ever do. I took snaps from Mike Webster, handed off to Franco Harris, and threw passes to Lynn Swann and John Stallworth—all during a regular-season
NFL
game. If I had practiced with the offense at all, the fumbles wouldn’t have occurred. However, I once again began focusing on how I could continue to improve as an
NFL
safety.

Monday was an off-day for players, but that day, while I was watching TV, the phone rang. It was Coach Noll’s secretary; the coach wanted to see me right away.

When I arrived in his office, Coach Noll updated me on the situation: Bradshaw was getting his wrist X-rayed, and Kruczek would be out for an extended period of time. They were in the process of trying to locate Neil Graff, a quarterback who had been with us during training camp and was now somewhere in Canada on a hunting trip. In the meantime, Coach Noll told me to attend the quarterbacks meeting that afternoon.

I immediately wondered about Cliff Stoudt. After all, Coach Noll had drafted him, not me. Cliff might have struggled in the preseason, but I had been playing defense and hadn’t practiced one minute at quarterback.

Coach Noll answered before I could even ask my question. As always, his assessment was brief and to the point: “We have some questions at quarterback right now. As the week goes on, we’ll have a better idea about Terry, Neil, and Cliff. We’ll see who gives us the best chance to win. If you do, you’re going to play. If we have another option that gives us a better chance, you’ll go back to safety.”

After the quarterbacks meeting, I raced home and began calling my buddies. “I might be starting on Monday Night Football against Cincinnati …
at quarterback.
”

The next day they did locate Neil Graff, and Terry Bradshaw checked out healthy enough to play with a cast. I was back at safety. But even so, in the days and years to follow, I drew great satisfaction from knowing that Coach Noll had had confidence that I could go in and play quarterback—and direct all of those future Hall of Famers.

Some people had suggested to me that I wasn’t drafted as a quarterback because of my race. At first, I didn’t agree; I just figured that playing quarterback in the
NFL
was completely different from playing in college. But after talking with coaches and scouts that first year, I grew less certain. A number of them said they had passed on me in the draft because of quantifiable characteristics such as my height and arm strength. Later in the season, however, when we played guys like Bob Griese, Joe Ferguson, and Fran Tarkenton, I would deliberately walk by, look them in the eye, and measure my height against theirs. I was as tall as each one of them. I began to wonder if race had indeed played a role. To make matters worse, when I saw the backup QBs … now
that
was really frustrating. A lot of them just weren’t very good. I continued to wonder.

During that week in the middle of the 1977 season, I realized that quarterbacking in the
NFL
was ultimately no different from playing quarterback at any other level. I believe I could have done it, given the opportunity. But I didn’t get that opportunity, and whether it was because of my race or because of some legitimate factor, it was time to move on.

In the following off-season, I was able to work out regularly at the stadium. I added about eight pounds to my frame, reaching 188 pounds. Back then, the Steelers and the Pirates shared Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium, so I tried to schedule my off-season workouts—which fell during the Pirates’ regular season—for the middle of the day. I often wrapped up my workout and headed next door to the Pirates clubhouse just in time to see guys like John Candelaria, Bert Blyleven, Dave Parker, Phil Garner, Rennie Stennett, and Omar Moreno.

The Pirates clubhouse was noisy, worlds apart from the silence and anxiety of a football locker room on game day. The baseball players were frying chicken and playing cards, yelling back and forth, answering mail, and listening to radios. In the middle of the bedlam, I saw my first Spanish-language Bible as Manny Sanguillen sat in his locker—as I learned he always did—quietly reading.

The next season, when the Pirates had added Bill Madlock and Tim Foli and were on their way to a World Series win with their “We Are Family” theme, I asked Willie Stargell about the noisy atmosphere in the clubhouse on game day. “Isn’t it a little distracting?”

Willie flashed that broad smile of his and then laughed as he decided the question was funnier than he first thought. He looked at the wiry, twenty-four-year-old Steeler in front of him and spoke thoughtfully. “I’ve been playing baseball for a long time, Tony. When I look over in your locker room on game day, I can’t believe how tight everybody is. As for me, every time I’ve ever heard the umpire get ready to start a game, he always says, ‘Play ball!’ I’ve never once heard him say, ‘Work ball!’ I think that’s something you football guys have forgotten.”

I filed that away, not realizing how often I would draw on that thought later when I had teams of my own to guide through a pregame setting.

I had gained those eight pounds by lifting and running and preparing in ways I had never had to as a quarterback. I was headed into the 1978 training camp with a year of playing defense under my belt. I was still watching as much film as possible and absorbing everything I could from Woody Widenhofer and the guys on the defense. Physically and mentally, I knew it was going to be a much better year for me.

But then I started dragging a little, feeling a little tired as camp approached. I headed over to camp a couple of days early, and the team doctor checked me out. Mononucleosis. If you had known me and my dating habits back then, you’d know that mono isn’t always the kissing disease. I was focused on my career as much as anything, but I was also pretty shy. I did know a few girls, and I enjoyed being around them, but before I got too involved with someone, I wanted to be sure she was someone I could see myself marrying. Because of that, I never really had a serious girlfriend. I was probably looking for someone like my mom. Up to then, I hadn’t found her.

The doctor put me on antibiotics, just in case I had some other infection in addition to mono, and told me he would check on me every few days. I would be allowed to take the field when my white blood cell count dropped back to normal levels.

I started to improve quickly, but day after day … after day after day … my white blood cell count was still too high. After missing three weeks (preseason lasted just about forever back then), I was really frustrated and was getting difficult to be around.

Late one evening in our room, I told Donnie Shell, “I don’t know that I’m going to make this team. By the time I get back, my conditioning level will be down, and there are other new guys who are looking to do what I did last year—take somebody’s spot. This is just not going according to plan.”

“Tony, I think you’re at a crossroads,” Donnie said. “You know what life is all about. You profess to be a Christian, and you tell everybody that God has first place in your life. Now, when your career looks like it’s teetering, we’re getting a chance to see what
really
is in first place for you.”

I thought about that all day and then came back to the conversation with Donnie.

“You’re probably right,” I told him. “I feel like I’ve been learning from you guys and growing, and I’m feeling better about my faith and thinking that I trust the Lord. I’m trying to understand what you guys have. But all of a sudden, I come to a crisis point, and I begin to panic. My thoughts turn to ‘What am
I
going to do?’”

Donnie paused and measured me squarely. “All the Lord is trying to do is find out what’s in first place in your life, and right now, it looks like football is.” I immediately knew Donnie was right, and I felt convicted. I think that was the point at which I really began to understand what it means to be a Christian, and I began making an effort to start changing and growing as a person. It was the first time I was able to look at football as something that God was allowing me to do, not something that should define me. I couldn’t take my identity from this sport; I had to consciously make sure that God was in first place. Now that I’m older and have gone through many much more difficult crises than those three weeks of mono, I look back at that time as key to my maturity as a Christian.

Several days later, I still wasn’t better, but I had begun to simply pray that whether I sat out the entire year, came back immediately, or was cut, I would keep God first. About two weeks later, as we were getting ready for our first preseason game, I was finally able to start practicing again.

It was one of those miracle years. I was healthy, and it seemed like every time I took the field, the ball was headed my way. We went 14–2 and won the Super Bowl over Dallas, 35–31. I led the team in interceptions and was tied for tenth in the
NFL
. I was one interception behind Herm Edwards, who would coach with me years later (though I think he would gladly trade that interception for being able to fish as well as I can).

Despite all the good things that occurred that year, I can still look back and say that 1978 was the first season in my life in which sports weren’t the most important thing to me. I finally realized that how I lived on earth was just as important as my salvation. God had me here for a reason, and it wasn’t just to play ball. It was then that the words of Matthew 16:26 really started to sink in:
“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”