As I and the rest of my Pittsburgh Steelers teammates prepared that week in late December 1974, we knew one thing: The road to the Super Bowl in the AFC went through Oakland. To achieve your dreams as a team, you had to slay the Oakland Raiders. They were the barometer of what it took to be a championship team.
I never had a desire to hurt anybody. I have at certain times had violent urges, but I don't think I ever have hurt anybody. Tried to a couple times, but I don't think I have. Yeah, guess I have. In high school. I was dirty then. Kick 'em. I might not've hurt 'em, though, they might've just been afraid of me.
If you're talking about nuclear physics, I have to defer to the next guy. But if you're talking about football, I don't have to take a back seat to anyone.
Over a 10-season stretch from 1967 to 1976, eight Super Bowl champions either were the Raiders or had to beat the Raiders in the playoffs. The Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Colts, Miami, the Steelers each of the first two times... we all had to deal with the Raiders.
The kind of role I play is like an offensive lineman; doing a good job but not being noticed. I feel sorry for myself sometimes. But as long as the end result is there, I can dig it.
I came to the Steelers after four years of high school and four years of college, and now I look on my stay here as 13 years of postgraduate work; I think I'm ready for the world.
In all my years of being with Pittsburgh, I never encountered a player taking a contract dispute into the season and letting that dispute affect the way he played.
Winning the Super Bowl was obviously a great one, but the joy I felt of going to the Super Bowl, it was what I felt about the Pittsburgh Steelers and where we came from, the history of us to that point.
Even when I was playing, I never thought much about the individual honors. I wanted to go to the Super Bowl.
The Steelers have influenced everything I've done as an adult.
The scary thing is that players have a one-upsmanship about money; they sign a contract and they like it until someone signs a bigger one and now they don't like it. I don't like that. I don't begrudge anyone money, but it disrupts the football team.
The people that I was working with made it all good for me - made it important to me - made it special. I will miss everyone in the Steelers organization.
I do play football no-holds-barred. Any edge I can get, I'll take. I'd grab a face mask only in a fit of anger. Uncontrolled anger is damn near insane.
A black man - I say a black man, we got no corner on the market, but every day in some form or fashion you got to prove you're a man. But you want to keep the life-and-death situations down. I can get beat. But there's getting beat and there's getting stomped.
My first season with Pittsburgh was 1969. We were still in the old NFL. My second year, we moved to the AFC when the leagues merged. I went to the Pro Bowl that season, and there must have been nine Raiders and nine Chiefs. I got to know all those guys.
I don't think about becoming a head coach. I really don't. I'm not oblivious of people who mention it. When you are in any business, people expect to aspire to the top. I guess everyone is supposed to aspire to being the man at the top of the heap. But I never have.
I believe in being positive.
I'm not a theatrics guy who does things for effect. Whatever comes out is what I feel. It just comes out.
I'm probably the only guy in the country who can say he's worked under Chuck Noll and Don Shula.
For a football coach, there's nothing that matches the pain of a team not playing up to its capabilities.
