Cowher got the most out of his teams

By Darrell Laurant  |   Thursday, January 11, 2007  |  Comments( 5 )

Pittsburgh Steelers
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It just won't be the same. The Pittsburgh Steelers without Bill Cowher will be like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger; global warming without Al Gore.

The official line is that Cowher is leaving to spend more time with his family in Raleigh, N.C. The widely reported back story is that the 15-year veteran coach didn't get what he was asking from the Rooneys, who own the Steelers, and quit to take advantage of an NFL rule that invalidates any contract after a year on the sidelines.

So don't be surprised to see Cowher return in 2008, whether to the Carolina Panthers or someone else.

When and if that happens, however, it will seem strange watching him stalk someone else's sideline, his famous jaw thrust forward like the business end of a muskellunge, his eyes burning holes in players who don't come up to his standards. Cowher with another team will be as unnatural as Vince Lombardi leaving Green Bay for the Redskins.

For Bill Cowher was the Steelers, arguably more than any other coach in the NFL drapes his personality around his team. A product of the Pittsburgh suburb of Crafton, he was a no-nonsense, blue collar sort of guy who fit in perfectly back in his hometown. As a college player (North Carolina State), he was a linebacker. As a pro, he played mostly on special teams.

A pugnacious team, Pittsburgh needed a pugnacious coach. Cowher brooked no rebellion from anyone (one wonders how he and Terrell Owens would have gotten along), yet still seemed more a part of the locker room scene than an aloof management figure.

He wasn't necessarily a great X's and O's guy, but nobody could motivate a team like Cowher. It was, in large part, his sheer force of personality that pulled the 2005 Steelers back from the brink of playoff elimination and into the Super Bowl, which they won.

There were no real superstars on that squad, just a bunch of overachievers who mastered their particular cogs in the machine, in part because of fear of Cowher.

As Dan Pompeii of TheSportingNews.com wrote, Cowher "defined leadership in an era where many others weren't quite sure what leadership was."

Cowher's players were, by and large, as tough as he was. Ben Roethlisberger played a week after suffering a concussion, Joey Porter and Hines Ward and Jeff Hartings and others fought through nagging injuries all season.

Said Dan Rooney: "History will look back on Bill Cowher as one of the great head coaches of his time."

And that history might not be a closed book yet.
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