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Authors: Tony Dungy, Nathan Whitaker
Tags: Biographies
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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
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
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