{"id":2459,"date":"2017-01-06T00:35:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T00:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/?p=2459"},"modified":"2017-01-09T23:23:01","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T23:23:01","slug":"god-bless-the-emperor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/?p=2459","title":{"rendered":"God Bless the Emperor!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today would have been Chuck Noll\u2019s 85th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday. In June of 2014, Charles Henry Noll, passed away and Steelers Nation mourned. But his legacy and the standard of excellence he established in Pittsburgh will live on forever. For 36 years the Pittsburgh Steelers wandered the NFL desert of mediocrity and were downright awful. That all changed on January 27, 1969 the Steelers hired Coach Noll and the standard in Pittsburgh would be changed forever.<\/p>\n

To say he was a \u201cGreat Coach\u201d would be like saying Picasso was a great painter, a dramatic understatement, the record should speak for itself. He was a man of great humility and never believed in \u2018hyping\u201d himself. He believed in treating football as a business and the lessons that can be learned translate much further than the playing field.<\/p>\n

He taught men to not only be better football players, he taught men to prepare themselves for their life\u2019s work and most of all be better people.<\/p>\n

I can write about a hundred of his best philosophies, but here are the five that I have\u00a0always tried to live by:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Be Yourself<\/strong>: Bill Austin was the coach prior to Noll. He came with a great pedigree, having learned at the right hand of NFL legend Vince Lombardi. He basically tried to emulate Lombardi in every way\u2026the issue was, he wasn\u2019t Lombardi. The Steelers remained terrible and eventually had to part ways with Austin to hire Noll. Coach Noll believed in being yourself, he amalgamated his coaching influences, which included football royalty, such as Paul Brown, Sid Gillman and Don Shula into his philosophies, but he never once tried to be anyone but who he was. He was a teacher at heart, never demonstrative and always well prepared. \n

    When he finally left the Steelers after two plus decades of success, his advice to his successor Bill Cowher, \u201cBe Yourself, do your best, and I am sure you are going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

     <\/li>\n

  2. Servant Leadership<\/strong>: Coach Noll believed his job was to prepare everyone for their \u201cLife\u2019s Work\u201d and he lived that principal every day. He was very secure in who he was and what he could do for his team and players. At the heart of who he was, was a teacher. He believed in making the people around him better. It wasn\u2019t with false bravado; it was with strong fundamental instruction. He didn\u2019t feel it was his job to motivate people, he felt it was his job to take motivated people and make them better! <\/li>\n
  3. Establish a standard and hold people accountable<\/strong>: The Steelers standard quite frankly was losing. Chuck Noll established a change in philosophy and believed in developing his own players. He didn\u2019t want someone else\u2019s headache. There was a process to success and that process while needing adjustment had a core to it, that had to be maintained. There was also a factor of accountability to maintain the standard and \u201cdo your job\u201d. \u00a0That is a philosophy and a strategy that the Steelers still employ to this day.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Surround yourself with the right people<\/strong>: The story has been told many times and in varying degrees, I will borrow Rocky Bleier\u2019s version of the story.: \n

      \u201cI\u2019ve been your head coach for the past five months, and I\u2019ve watched every film of every practice of every game that you\u2019ve played in over the past three years, and I can tell you why\u00a0you’ve been losing\u2014you\u2019re just not any good. You have no talent, you have no authority, and you can\u2019t cover, and you have no discipline. By the time this training camp is over, most of you will not be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      By the way he did, the majority of the players on that team were gone by the Steelers first Super Bowl victory. He had a habit of being blunt, but he knew what type of players he wanted, he drafted them accordingly and built not only the Steelers Dynasty, but he left a foundation for Coach Cowher to lead the Steelers to an AFC Championship.<\/p>\n

       <\/li>\n

    2. The Thrill is in the Doing<\/strong>: For Chuck Noll, winning the Super Bowl a record four times should have been the penultimate moment of his professional life. But somehow it wasn\u2019t. For Coach Noll it was always about the journey. His passion was taking a group of players and molding them into a team, that is what he thrived on. Victories were a byproduct of hard work, preparation and determination. He wanted to build a winner and toil in the football laboratory of his mind. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to enjoy it for just a short time, and then get on to next year,\u201d said Noll. He was passionate about his job and when he realized he couldn\u2019t do it anymore, he walked away, with his head held high!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Chuck Noll probably summed up his career better than anyone at his farewell press conference, quoting Emerson;<\/p>\n

      \u201cYour actions speak so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying,’ and I’d like to keep it that way.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

      We could hear you Coach!<\/p>\n

      Sources:\u00a0http:\/\/articles.baltimoresun.com\/1991-12-27\/sports\/1991361079_1_chuck-noll-ralph-waldo-emerson-rooney<\/a><\/p>\n

      http:\/\/community.seattletimes.nwsource.com\/archive\/?date=19911227&slug=1325342<\/a><\/p>\n

      http:\/\/mmqb.si.com\/2014\/06\/17\/chuck-noll-pittsburgh-steelers-coach-the-teacher<\/a><\/p>\n

      MacCambridge, Michael.\u00a0Chuck Noll: His Life’s Work<\/em>. Pittsburgh, PA: U of Pittsburgh, 2016. Print.<\/p>\n

      Five \u201cBusiness \u201cQuotes by Chuck Noll:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \u201cChampions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.\u201d<\/li>\n
      2. \u201cGood things come to those who hustle\u201d<\/li>\n
      3. \u201cPressure is something you feel when you do not know what you are doing.\u201d<\/li>\n
      4. \u201cIf you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does them day in and day out.\u201d<\/li>\n
      5. \u201cThe thrill isn’t in the winning, it’s in the doing.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Quotes about Chuck Noll:<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. \u00a0“Coach (Chuck) Noll was tremendous in regards to talking about your life. Not just football. We had to accomplish things, but you had to get ready for life, you had to figure out what you were going to be all about as a person..’ \u2013 Hall of Fame Coach Tony Dungy<\/li>\n
        2. “Chuck was just the ultimate leader. He had truth and belief in what he was saying, and over time all of those things he said were validated, the things about winning football games and being a solid citizen.” \u2014 Hall of Fame defensive tackle Joe Greene.<\/li>\n
        3. \u201cHe made me mentally strong, which I wasn’t. And he instilled in me a great work ethic.” \u2014 Hall of Fame quarterback\u00a0Terry Bradshaw.<\/li>\n
        4. \u201cChuck Noll is building one hell of a football team up in Pittsburgh.\u201d \u2013 NFL Legend Vince Lombardi<\/li>\n
        5. \u201cHe was the greatest man I ever knew.\u201d \u2013 BWG Hall of Famer Merrill Hoge<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

           <\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

          Sources:\u00a0http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/2014\/06\/14\/quotes-about-former-steelers-coach-chuck-noll\/10524575\/<\/a><\/p>\n

          http:\/\/stillcurtain.com\/2011\/04\/20\/say-what-top-ten-steelers-quotes-of-all-time\/<\/a><\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Today would have been Chuck Noll\u2019s 85th\u00a0birthday. In June of 2014, Charles Henry Noll, passed away and Steelers Nation mourned. But his legacy and the standard of excellence he established in Pittsburgh will live on forever. For 36 years the Pittsburgh Steelers wandered the NFL desert of mediocrity and were downright awful. That all changed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bwg-gr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2459"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2461,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions\/2461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}