July 22, 2021 • 20 mins
On this episode, Ryan Recker explores the history of Steelers training camp. From its humble beginnings in 1933 to the proud tradition it has become today for Steelers fans all around the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, here we go, Here we go, Here we go.
Welcome to Behind the Grind First and Tim Football. If
you ain't in, get out. On this episode, Ryan Wrecker
explores the history of Steelers training camp from its humble
beginnings in three to the proud tradition it has become
today for Steelers fans all around the world. Thanks for
(00:20):
joining us, I'm Ryan Wrecker. As we approached training camp
two thousand twenty one, we know that for the second
straight year, COVID nineteen protocols have prevented the Steelers from
holding camp at their long time home St. Vincent College
in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The team will instead host camp at
the U p M. C Rooney Sports Complex as well
(00:41):
as Heinz Field. Steelers training camp has had a long
and very interesting history, with many stops prior to St.
Vincent College, and coming up, we will bring you a
unique perspective on Steelers camps of the past through the
memories of four men wonderful storytellers who collectively have seen
(01:02):
every Steelers training camp since nineteen sixty. But before we
take a walk down memory lane, Mike Pursuit of Steelers
dot Com, who has covered the team for more than
three decades captures the essence of the St. Vincent experience. St.
Vincent to me, has taken on a whole life of
its own, and it's part of that story is to people, right,
(01:23):
we all run into people that my brother lives in Virginia,
comes up every year for a day because he wants
to say, oh, twenty two looks good. You know, where's
the third round pick? You know that everybody wants to
be scouts last general manager for a day at practice.
And the close proximity to the players. I think that
the way that campus is set up and people can
hang outside the locker room, go down to the field
(01:46):
area and you can get autographs or pictures or get
him to sign your ball whatever. Uh, it's remarkable how
and the players really, to me, are remarkably accepting of that,
and they participate enthusiastically in that decades before St. Vincent,
all the way back in nineteen thirty three, the Steelers
first training camp home was more Field in Pittsburgh's Brookline neighborhood. Then,
(02:11):
over the next thirty years, the team would take camp
to ten different locations, with visits to other parts of
Pennsylvania and even other states like West Virginia, New York,
and Rhode Island. In fact, the first part of their
nineteen sixty six camp was spent at the University of
Rhode Island in Kingston before they settled into St. Vincent
(02:33):
for good later that summer. Here again, as Mike Pursuta,
who extensively researched and wrote a column on the pre St.
Vincent days, including that stop in Rhode Island from nineteen
sixty four through nineteen sixty six, I didn't recall coming
across any stories where people were coming from Texas or
Arizona to go watch the Steelers have training camp in
(02:54):
Rhode Island. They they bounced around for a while until
they got it right. I think they got it right
at Saint Vincent and that the longevity would would bear
that out. But you know, it used to be an
automatic in the NFL world, before zillion dollar practice facilities
and and all the comforts of home at home, where
you went away a to get in shape and be
(03:18):
to start bonding and becoming a team and building that
camaraderie and also figuring out who you wanted on your team.
It's always fascinated me how you pick up an operation
and move it now. Obviously it wasn't as sophisticated back then.
I'm sure that they didn't bring near these many weights
and training tools and medical machines and things of that nature.
(03:41):
But to just pick up and go away for X
number of weeks and then come back, it's it's not
something a lot of businesses do right. Former Steelers executive
and director of Communications Joe Gordon offers his insight a
why owner arn't Rooney Sr. The Chief move training camp
around too, is so many different locations, economics, uh where
(04:03):
wherever he could get a fairly reasonable deal from the standpoint,
Also the availability of facilities that if you were bringing
in those days, they probably didn't have near the number
of players that we used to bring the camp and
in sixty nine or sixty seven, sixteen six, so you
(04:24):
have you had fifty or sixty or seventy players, you
had to have facilities, particularly dormitories dying the room, that
could accommodate that many people. So it was catching catch
can in the chief he was kind of a nomad
any It was all over the place. So and probably
(04:46):
these uh cities or these towns approached him said why
don't you bring in your football team here next summer.
So he was receptive to that. But one stand got
involved in we moved to Saint Vincent. It was incredible.
Gordon joined the Stealer's organization in nineteen sixty nine, a
(05:09):
significant year in the franchise's history with the arrivals of
Chuck Nolah's head coach and number one draft pick Joe Green.
For Gordon, that first camp under Nole's direction was an
eye opener. The Mayo was a revelation because I could't
believe it. Number one, we had about a hundred players
up there. Now there's restrictions. I think, what is it eight?
(05:33):
I think you're only allowed to have eight and training
camp And it was like a grayund bus station with
guys coming in and out. Uh. There was always a
van partner here in the players dormitory. Thank some guys
to the airport pick up other guys who bring them back.
But you had roughly a hundred players and you had
(05:57):
two day drills in full pan, and they knocked the
heck out of each other. It was brutal. If you
could survive that, you could survive anything. Gordon also recalls
a rather candid Chuck Noel, addressing the team for the
first time, he said, I've looked at the films of
past couple of seasons and there there's a reason why
(06:20):
you guys lose. Said, you're not very good football players.
He told them this the first meeting, and he said,
but we're gonna change that. Noel's powerful promise that change
was on the way was complimented by a powerful performance
by rookie Joe Green. Bob Labriola of Steelers dot Com
describes Green's first training camp practice a transformative moment. Right
(06:45):
then Chuck was gonna see, He's gonna test this guy.
They lined up in the Oklahoma drill, so Joe Green
was in there for the defense, and Chuck proceeded to
go down his offensive line with the most veteran starting
players that he had, and Joe Green kicked every one
(07:08):
of their asses, I mean, one after another after another,
and Andy Russell said, you know, after the first couple
and the bookie's lucky or you know, and they he said,
we just started to look at each other like, oh
my god, what is this. And so that was probably
the most dramatic and significant development in terms of the
(07:30):
Steelers changing over from you know what they weren't for
the first almost forty years of their existence to the
kind of franchise it is now. A change in culture
was in motion, and by seventy two the Steelers were
a playoff team. The immaculate reception and subsequent appearance in
the a f C Championship Game captivated the fan base
(07:54):
like never before. In training camp at St. Vincent became
a mussy event. Here again is Joe Gordon. After semity two,
it was incredible training camps. The number of people tan
jwelve thousand, Remember I said, two of days. So there'd
be groups sitting up on the hill with their their beer,
(08:17):
their kegs of beer. Uh, and they'd be they'd be
yelling down on the field at the players and they
knew it reached the point where it was happening. Training camp.
The traffic would get jammed on Rute thirty. They'd be
parking on the side of the road the entrance to
(08:38):
Saint Vince and off of Rute thirty that double park
on the sides of the road. Uh. St. Vince had
opened up one of those corn fields for parking and everything.
And uh, it was just hard to believe how much
emotion and interest there was at that long time Steelers
beat writer in Hall of Famer, Bouchette remembers those parking
(09:01):
problems quite well. The state police would call our paper
and asked us if we'd put out a warning people
not to park along Route thirty because they were going
to tell the cars away. There was no It was
just that full, you know, it was lined up, people
lined up on Route thirty like there was an air
show or something, you know, at the airport. Um. It
(09:27):
was crazy. Buchette covered his first Stealer's camp in V
four and happened upon a story. Even before he entered
the St. Vincent campus four they were on strike Ryan veterans.
And the first day I pulled up at St. Vincent
along that long road that let in, Jackham was there
(09:48):
with a picket sign and there were West Penn Power
was on strike two and there was some West Pen
Power workers joining him at the picket sign. That was
my I said, I'm writing this. So I wrote that star.
I was twenty two years old, you know, And I
remember I got a note from Joe Gordon congratulating me
on on the story. They didn't know that West Pen
(10:11):
guys were out there joining their players at the picket line.
So that was my my first introduction the training camp
was a news story along those lines and those days.
For Bouchette and other reporters. The unofficial start of training
camp came in the form of a media gathering with
Joe Green. At every training camp that he played, Joe
(10:34):
Green would give the State of the Steelers on the
first day he got there, and it was I don't
know if there's any photos from there, and people would
gather around him outside the locker room outside the dorm st.
Or Bonaventure dorm there um right out the front door,
(10:55):
and Joe would people throw questions at him and Joe
would stand aaron, you know, just give. We called it
the State of the Steelers because it kind of set
the tone for that season. As Joe Green set the
tone for the upcoming season, the tone for camp in
the summer sun at St. Vincent was set by none
other than Chuck nor Chuck's training cancer tough. We got it,
(11:19):
thought they were tough. I mean back then they had
two days all the time, and then you know, these
players lived in dorms without air conditioning. You know, classic
they'd all bring every time they'd reported the training campus.
Newspapers the next day would be filled with pictures of
guys plugging fans and with the dorm, you know, and
so would TV. That was the thing, you know, the
(11:41):
players reporting back, and they all had their fans. Um.
But but Chuck lived in that dorm too. On eventual
hall no air conditioning, no air conditioning, no problem for
one Steeler. Bob Labriolo recalls a rather resourceful Bubby Brister.
People talk about great players in Steelers history. Well, in
(12:04):
my mind, Bubby Brister will go down is one of
the greatest players in Steelers history because he is the
guy and his father, Um was in the fabrication business
or something. And those windows in that dorm, they were
the kind that candn't open up that, you know, those
old school windows and pull them out. What Bubby did
(12:25):
was he measured that entire um apparatus and he brought
it to his dad, who prefabbed a thing where Bubby
came up with a power drill and we're like six
or eight um big screws or bullets or something in
that to hold that whole frame up. He came up
(12:48):
and put those out and put his thing up, put
that in and then it could handle a wall air conditioner. Okay,
So if you don't think that that was a significant
development the Altman in the history of St. Vincent College,
I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. One of
the trademarks of a Chuck Old training camp, the Oklahoma
(13:09):
drills at Bouchette, had a front row seat for all
the action. You would line up Franco Harrison the backfield
and Mike Webster snap in the ball or whoever was
blocking and U they'd have two blockers, Guarden a center
and Franco running the ball, k a defensive player. I
(13:29):
so many times and we'd all gather around and let
us just gather around again a circle and talking about
the news media, and this would go on. I saw
many times, I mean the stars would go up. The stars.
Jack Lambert would be there going up against Mike Webster
with Frankle Harris in the backfield and it was live
tack on. It was. It was pretty intense, intense for
(13:51):
the players and for the fans. Once again, Joe Gordon
fans when they knew that where going to the drill
was always on one corner of the three practice fields
up and there where the halls are. The fans would
go absolutely ape. What was going in their favorite matchup
(14:14):
was Lambert and Webster and the coaches. They knew how
the fans, but the emotion that was involved not only
with the fans, who with the players. The offensive players
would be rooting for the blocker, the defensive players would
be rooting for the defensive player, and they'd be yelling
and scraping of players. Say, it was really for me,
(14:39):
absolutely a revelation. I couldn't believe how tough it was
at St. Vincent. Gordon occasionally got to see a softer
side of Chuck Noll away from football, like in the
summer of nine when Noel conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
and what was a tribute to the chief Art Rooney Sr.
(15:00):
Who died the previous summer. They set up this bandstand
on the field and uh, I don't know how it originated.
Chuck was gonna but we have. We invited families up, players, families, coaches,
family up for that, and uh, he was up there
and he was in his glory. I think he may
(15:23):
be enjoyed that more than anything he ever did in
his life, because he was a symphony. Buff and Mary
Ann would go to the symphony here, so that opportunity
to conduct the world class symphony was one of the
highlights of his life and certainly one of the highlights
of training camp at St. Vincent. Noel had numerous interests
(15:47):
outside of football, but at his core his passion was teaching,
and St. Vincent was his classroom for twenty three summers,
and in the summer of two thousand seven, the place
where he taught so many players was named in his honor,
Chuck Noldfield. Every time of the year teaching, it happened
(16:09):
more than once after practice to be down on the
field with some offensive linemen going through drills and coaching
him and the guy who was a player and no
chance to make the team. It's been that or fifteen
minutes down there. I think naming the field after him
is most appropriate and uh well deserving. Look without him,
(16:38):
you know, went four super bowls in Saint Vincent College
hasn't become the center of pro football every summer. Bill
Cower began overseeing camp practices on that field in the summer,
and Bouchett reflects on a memorable Camp Cower moment. It
was his first or second training camp, I'm not sure which.
(17:02):
They had a kicking drill and there was a ton
of people there and behind the goal one goal post
was a hill of people, but it was packed with fans.
And one of the kickers kicked one into the crowd
(17:23):
and one of the ball boys went up to retrieve
the football, and the fan gave it to him, and
he ran down and Ker saw that. He said to
the ball boys, give me that football, and he gave
him the football, and Carl went up into the crowd
and gave the football back to the fans. And I
was sitting there along the sideline with Dan Rooney watching this.
(17:44):
Rooney goes he could run for mayor right now, probably win.
He was a popular with the fans. Cower has joined
his predecessor Chuck Noel as a Hall of Famer, and
perhaps one day Coward success Sir Mike Tomlin will also
get the call. It's a kind very few have had
(18:05):
as close of a look at the training camps of
these three Super Bowl winning coaches. Then Bob Labriola, who
notes their similarities The Steelers go away because um, the
Rooney family believes in that kind of atmosphere for camp.
And also because each of those three coaches that you
(18:25):
just mentioned believed in that as well. So there's that
that's that's a similarity. They all believe in a physical
approach to the sport, often at entales, winning by attrition
in game days. And while each of them were able
to do certain things or prohibited from doing certain things
(18:46):
based on the rules of the era, they all believed
in that. You know, and you would look at Mike
Tomlin's tenure and say, boy, camp is it's a country
club now because you know a lot of two days anymore,
that is just not permitted. Uh, the players saved the initiative.
How that has changed, as I mentioned, no more of
(19:07):
homer drills. But Mike Tomlin, I believe, I'm not absolutely positive,
but I believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers under Tomlin are
the only team that does live tackling every day or
pretty much every day. Well. St. Vincent has changed over
the years with upgrades and expansion, it's throwback charm still
(19:28):
remains and still links the present day Steelers with the
legends of the past. Here again, Mike pursued him. You know,
there's a there's a famous book written by a guy
named Roy Blount Jr. About the Steelers. It was a
chronicle of the seventy three season, the year after the
Immaculate Reception. Roy was a phenomenal writer for Sports Illustrated
(19:49):
and they wanted an NFL book, so they got him
to be kind of an insider embedded for a year.
And it's called About Three brickshy Alone, And there are
pictures in there of training camp and Terry Bradshaw and
Roy Girella and Joe Green and it's the campus has
changed a lot, but it's still the same campus. It's almost. Uh,
those fields are the Yankee Stadium at least what the
(20:10):
old Yankee Stadium was to the Yankees. That's that's the
Steelers Yankee Stadium. I mean it all pretty much everything
worth chronically. That's kind of the epicenter of Steeler's history
in a way. I hope you've enjoyed this look back
at the history of Steelers training Camp through the memories
of those who offered such a unique perspective on everything
(20:32):
from the camp locations to the legends whose storied careers
began being carved at training camp. Thanks for listening. I'm
Ryan Record
Oh, here we go, Here we go, Here we go.
Welcome to Behind the Grind First and Tim Football. If
you ain't in, get out. On this episode, Ryan Wrecker
explores the history of Steelers training camp from its humble
beginnings in three to the proud tradition it has become
today for Steelers fans all around the world. Thanks for
(00:20):
joining us, I'm Ryan Wrecker. As we approached training camp
two thousand twenty one, we know that for the second
straight year, COVID nineteen protocols have prevented the Steelers from
holding camp at their long time home St. Vincent College
in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The team will instead host camp at
the U p M. C Rooney Sports Complex as well
(00:41):
as Heinz Field. Steelers training camp has had a long
and very interesting history, with many stops prior to St.
Vincent College, and coming up, we will bring you a
unique perspective on Steelers camps of the past through the
memories of four men wonderful storytellers who collectively have seen
(01:02):
every Steelers training camp since nineteen sixty. But before we
take a walk down memory lane, Mike Pursuit of Steelers
dot Com, who has covered the team for more than
three decades captures the essence of the St. Vincent experience. St.
Vincent to me, has taken on a whole life of
its own, and it's part of that story is to people, right,
(01:23):
we all run into people that my brother lives in Virginia,
comes up every year for a day because he wants
to say, oh, twenty two looks good. You know, where's
the third round pick? You know that everybody wants to
be scouts last general manager for a day at practice.
And the close proximity to the players. I think that
the way that campus is set up and people can
hang outside the locker room, go down to the field
(01:46):
area and you can get autographs or pictures or get
him to sign your ball whatever. Uh, it's remarkable how
and the players really, to me, are remarkably accepting of that,
and they participate enthusiastically in that decades before St. Vincent,
all the way back in nineteen thirty three, the Steelers
first training camp home was more Field in Pittsburgh's Brookline neighborhood. Then,
(02:11):
over the next thirty years, the team would take camp
to ten different locations, with visits to other parts of
Pennsylvania and even other states like West Virginia, New York,
and Rhode Island. In fact, the first part of their
nineteen sixty six camp was spent at the University of
Rhode Island in Kingston before they settled into St. Vincent
(02:33):
for good later that summer. Here again, as Mike Pursuta,
who extensively researched and wrote a column on the pre St.
Vincent days, including that stop in Rhode Island from nineteen
sixty four through nineteen sixty six, I didn't recall coming
across any stories where people were coming from Texas or
Arizona to go watch the Steelers have training camp in
(02:54):
Rhode Island. They they bounced around for a while until
they got it right. I think they got it right
at Saint Vincent and that the longevity would would bear
that out. But you know, it used to be an
automatic in the NFL world, before zillion dollar practice facilities
and and all the comforts of home at home, where
you went away a to get in shape and be
(03:18):
to start bonding and becoming a team and building that
camaraderie and also figuring out who you wanted on your team.
It's always fascinated me how you pick up an operation
and move it now. Obviously it wasn't as sophisticated back then.
I'm sure that they didn't bring near these many weights
and training tools and medical machines and things of that nature.
(03:41):
But to just pick up and go away for X
number of weeks and then come back, it's it's not
something a lot of businesses do right. Former Steelers executive
and director of Communications Joe Gordon offers his insight a
why owner arn't Rooney Sr. The Chief move training camp
around too, is so many different locations, economics, uh where
(04:03):
wherever he could get a fairly reasonable deal from the standpoint,
Also the availability of facilities that if you were bringing
in those days, they probably didn't have near the number
of players that we used to bring the camp and
in sixty nine or sixty seven, sixteen six, so you
(04:24):
have you had fifty or sixty or seventy players, you
had to have facilities, particularly dormitories dying the room, that
could accommodate that many people. So it was catching catch
can in the chief he was kind of a nomad
any It was all over the place. So and probably
(04:46):
these uh cities or these towns approached him said why
don't you bring in your football team here next summer.
So he was receptive to that. But one stand got
involved in we moved to Saint Vincent. It was incredible.
Gordon joined the Stealer's organization in nineteen sixty nine, a
(05:09):
significant year in the franchise's history with the arrivals of
Chuck Nolah's head coach and number one draft pick Joe Green.
For Gordon, that first camp under Nole's direction was an
eye opener. The Mayo was a revelation because I could't
believe it. Number one, we had about a hundred players
up there. Now there's restrictions. I think, what is it eight?
(05:33):
I think you're only allowed to have eight and training
camp And it was like a grayund bus station with
guys coming in and out. Uh. There was always a
van partner here in the players dormitory. Thank some guys
to the airport pick up other guys who bring them back.
But you had roughly a hundred players and you had
(05:57):
two day drills in full pan, and they knocked the
heck out of each other. It was brutal. If you
could survive that, you could survive anything. Gordon also recalls
a rather candid Chuck Noel, addressing the team for the
first time, he said, I've looked at the films of
past couple of seasons and there there's a reason why
(06:20):
you guys lose. Said, you're not very good football players.
He told them this the first meeting, and he said,
but we're gonna change that. Noel's powerful promise that change
was on the way was complimented by a powerful performance
by rookie Joe Green. Bob Labriola of Steelers dot Com
describes Green's first training camp practice a transformative moment. Right
(06:45):
then Chuck was gonna see, He's gonna test this guy.
They lined up in the Oklahoma drill, so Joe Green
was in there for the defense, and Chuck proceeded to
go down his offensive line with the most veteran starting
players that he had, and Joe Green kicked every one
(07:08):
of their asses, I mean, one after another after another,
and Andy Russell said, you know, after the first couple
and the bookie's lucky or you know, and they he said,
we just started to look at each other like, oh
my god, what is this. And so that was probably
the most dramatic and significant development in terms of the
(07:30):
Steelers changing over from you know what they weren't for
the first almost forty years of their existence to the
kind of franchise it is now. A change in culture
was in motion, and by seventy two the Steelers were
a playoff team. The immaculate reception and subsequent appearance in
the a f C Championship Game captivated the fan base
(07:54):
like never before. In training camp at St. Vincent became
a mussy event. Here again is Joe Gordon. After semity two,
it was incredible training camps. The number of people tan
jwelve thousand, Remember I said, two of days. So there'd
be groups sitting up on the hill with their their beer,
(08:17):
their kegs of beer. Uh, and they'd be they'd be
yelling down on the field at the players and they
knew it reached the point where it was happening. Training camp.
The traffic would get jammed on Rute thirty. They'd be
parking on the side of the road the entrance to
(08:38):
Saint Vince and off of Rute thirty that double park
on the sides of the road. Uh. St. Vince had
opened up one of those corn fields for parking and everything.
And uh, it was just hard to believe how much
emotion and interest there was at that long time Steelers
beat writer in Hall of Famer, Bouchette remembers those parking
(09:01):
problems quite well. The state police would call our paper
and asked us if we'd put out a warning people
not to park along Route thirty because they were going
to tell the cars away. There was no It was
just that full, you know, it was lined up, people
lined up on Route thirty like there was an air
show or something, you know, at the airport. Um. It
(09:27):
was crazy. Buchette covered his first Stealer's camp in V
four and happened upon a story. Even before he entered
the St. Vincent campus four they were on strike Ryan veterans.
And the first day I pulled up at St. Vincent
along that long road that let in, Jackham was there
(09:48):
with a picket sign and there were West Penn Power
was on strike two and there was some West Pen
Power workers joining him at the picket sign. That was
my I said, I'm writing this. So I wrote that star.
I was twenty two years old, you know, And I
remember I got a note from Joe Gordon congratulating me
on on the story. They didn't know that West Pen
(10:11):
guys were out there joining their players at the picket line.
So that was my my first introduction the training camp
was a news story along those lines and those days.
For Bouchette and other reporters. The unofficial start of training
camp came in the form of a media gathering with
Joe Green. At every training camp that he played, Joe
(10:34):
Green would give the State of the Steelers on the
first day he got there, and it was I don't
know if there's any photos from there, and people would
gather around him outside the locker room outside the dorm st.
Or Bonaventure dorm there um right out the front door,
(10:55):
and Joe would people throw questions at him and Joe
would stand aaron, you know, just give. We called it
the State of the Steelers because it kind of set
the tone for that season. As Joe Green set the
tone for the upcoming season, the tone for camp in
the summer sun at St. Vincent was set by none
other than Chuck nor Chuck's training cancer tough. We got it,
(11:19):
thought they were tough. I mean back then they had
two days all the time, and then you know, these
players lived in dorms without air conditioning. You know, classic
they'd all bring every time they'd reported the training campus.
Newspapers the next day would be filled with pictures of
guys plugging fans and with the dorm, you know, and
so would TV. That was the thing, you know, the
(11:41):
players reporting back, and they all had their fans. Um.
But but Chuck lived in that dorm too. On eventual
hall no air conditioning, no air conditioning, no problem for
one Steeler. Bob Labriolo recalls a rather resourceful Bubby Brister.
People talk about great players in Steelers history. Well, in
(12:04):
my mind, Bubby Brister will go down is one of
the greatest players in Steelers history because he is the
guy and his father, Um was in the fabrication business
or something. And those windows in that dorm, they were
the kind that candn't open up that, you know, those
old school windows and pull them out. What Bubby did
(12:25):
was he measured that entire um apparatus and he brought
it to his dad, who prefabbed a thing where Bubby
came up with a power drill and we're like six
or eight um big screws or bullets or something in
that to hold that whole frame up. He came up
(12:48):
and put those out and put his thing up, put
that in and then it could handle a wall air conditioner. Okay,
So if you don't think that that was a significant
development the Altman in the history of St. Vincent College,
I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. One of
the trademarks of a Chuck Old training camp, the Oklahoma
(13:09):
drills at Bouchette, had a front row seat for all
the action. You would line up Franco Harrison the backfield
and Mike Webster snap in the ball or whoever was
blocking and U they'd have two blockers, Guarden a center
and Franco running the ball, k a defensive player. I
(13:29):
so many times and we'd all gather around and let
us just gather around again a circle and talking about
the news media, and this would go on. I saw
many times, I mean the stars would go up. The stars.
Jack Lambert would be there going up against Mike Webster
with Frankle Harris in the backfield and it was live
tack on. It was. It was pretty intense, intense for
(13:51):
the players and for the fans. Once again, Joe Gordon
fans when they knew that where going to the drill
was always on one corner of the three practice fields
up and there where the halls are. The fans would
go absolutely ape. What was going in their favorite matchup
(14:14):
was Lambert and Webster and the coaches. They knew how
the fans, but the emotion that was involved not only
with the fans, who with the players. The offensive players
would be rooting for the blocker, the defensive players would
be rooting for the defensive player, and they'd be yelling
and scraping of players. Say, it was really for me,
(14:39):
absolutely a revelation. I couldn't believe how tough it was
at St. Vincent. Gordon occasionally got to see a softer
side of Chuck Noll away from football, like in the
summer of nine when Noel conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
and what was a tribute to the chief Art Rooney Sr.
(15:00):
Who died the previous summer. They set up this bandstand
on the field and uh, I don't know how it originated.
Chuck was gonna but we have. We invited families up, players, families, coaches,
family up for that, and uh, he was up there
and he was in his glory. I think he may
(15:23):
be enjoyed that more than anything he ever did in
his life, because he was a symphony. Buff and Mary
Ann would go to the symphony here, so that opportunity
to conduct the world class symphony was one of the
highlights of his life and certainly one of the highlights
of training camp at St. Vincent. Noel had numerous interests
(15:47):
outside of football, but at his core his passion was teaching,
and St. Vincent was his classroom for twenty three summers,
and in the summer of two thousand seven, the place
where he taught so many players was named in his honor,
Chuck Noldfield. Every time of the year teaching, it happened
(16:09):
more than once after practice to be down on the
field with some offensive linemen going through drills and coaching
him and the guy who was a player and no
chance to make the team. It's been that or fifteen
minutes down there. I think naming the field after him
is most appropriate and uh well deserving. Look without him,
(16:38):
you know, went four super bowls in Saint Vincent College
hasn't become the center of pro football every summer. Bill
Cower began overseeing camp practices on that field in the summer,
and Bouchett reflects on a memorable Camp Cower moment. It
was his first or second training camp, I'm not sure which.
(17:02):
They had a kicking drill and there was a ton
of people there and behind the goal one goal post
was a hill of people, but it was packed with fans.
And one of the kickers kicked one into the crowd
(17:23):
and one of the ball boys went up to retrieve
the football, and the fan gave it to him, and
he ran down and Ker saw that. He said to
the ball boys, give me that football, and he gave
him the football, and Carl went up into the crowd
and gave the football back to the fans. And I
was sitting there along the sideline with Dan Rooney watching this.
(17:44):
Rooney goes he could run for mayor right now, probably win.
He was a popular with the fans. Cower has joined
his predecessor Chuck Noel as a Hall of Famer, and
perhaps one day Coward success Sir Mike Tomlin will also
get the call. It's a kind very few have had
(18:05):
as close of a look at the training camps of
these three Super Bowl winning coaches. Then Bob Labriola, who
notes their similarities The Steelers go away because um, the
Rooney family believes in that kind of atmosphere for camp.
And also because each of those three coaches that you
(18:25):
just mentioned believed in that as well. So there's that
that's that's a similarity. They all believe in a physical
approach to the sport, often at entales, winning by attrition
in game days. And while each of them were able
to do certain things or prohibited from doing certain things
(18:46):
based on the rules of the era, they all believed
in that. You know, and you would look at Mike
Tomlin's tenure and say, boy, camp is it's a country
club now because you know a lot of two days anymore,
that is just not permitted. Uh, the players saved the initiative.
How that has changed, as I mentioned, no more of
(19:07):
homer drills. But Mike Tomlin, I believe, I'm not absolutely positive,
but I believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers under Tomlin are
the only team that does live tackling every day or
pretty much every day. Well. St. Vincent has changed over
the years with upgrades and expansion, it's throwback charm still
(19:28):
remains and still links the present day Steelers with the
legends of the past. Here again, Mike pursued him. You know,
there's a there's a famous book written by a guy
named Roy Blount Jr. About the Steelers. It was a
chronicle of the seventy three season, the year after the
Immaculate Reception. Roy was a phenomenal writer for Sports Illustrated
(19:49):
and they wanted an NFL book, so they got him
to be kind of an insider embedded for a year.
And it's called About Three brickshy Alone, And there are
pictures in there of training camp and Terry Bradshaw and
Roy Girella and Joe Green and it's the campus has
changed a lot, but it's still the same campus. It's almost. Uh,
those fields are the Yankee Stadium at least what the
(20:10):
old Yankee Stadium was to the Yankees. That's that's the
Steelers Yankee Stadium. I mean it all pretty much everything
worth chronically. That's kind of the epicenter of Steeler's history
in a way. I hope you've enjoyed this look back
at the history of Steelers training Camp through the memories
of those who offered such a unique perspective on everything
(20:32):
from the camp locations to the legends whose storied careers
began being carved at training camp. Thanks for listening. I'm
Ryan Record
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