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Camp Stories: Of Skunks, Big Brother, Mayor Smurphy

By Ed Bouchette
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 8 years ago

Good morning,

A few more training camp stories from the past before we move on to the present on this 50th anniversary of the Steelers’ summers at Saint Vincent College:

--- Bill Cowher often has said he welcomed the newspaper strike in Pittsburgh in 1992 because it took some pressure off him and his team in his first season as Steelers coach. I like to think I still found ways to add to that pressure.

It did not take long either. One day in that training camp of 1992, I saw star inside linebacker Hardy Nickerson walking on campus with a wrap on one hand. He told me he had a broken bone, but that he would still practice and play.

The Post-Gazette may have been down but we weren’t out. We wrote stuff that the paper put out as faxes to all kinds of people, especially radio and TV outlets and the Associated Press. (The Pittsburgh Press went on strike, which stopped the PG from printing because they shared the same union pressmen, etc., who were on strike).

So I reported in that PG fax what I knew about Nickerson’s injury and word spread quickly. Cowher was incensed and the next day he chewed me out for putting Nickerson “in danger” because opponents now would target the linebacker’s hand! Never mind that everyone who saw the open practices at camp could see Nickerson’s bandaged hand and figure it out for themselves.

I believed Cowher was being too paranoid, or maybe he was just trying to put the media in its place early-on as head coach. It did not work. I told Cowher I thought it was ridiculous for a guard or tackle to try to go after Nickerson’s wounded hand. He told me I was naïve.

Nickerson went on to have a great 1992 season and then left in the NFL’s first true free agent class to join Tampa Bay.

--- Also in Cowher’s first camp with the Steelers, one of the Saint Vincent security guards pointed out to us that there was a small, undetectable camera lens over the doorway at Bonaventure Hall that monitored the goings and comings of everyone, including whether players were violating curfew.

Today, that news would not be surprising, but this was 1992 and there were still concerns about Big Brother. I thought little of it at the time, other than to make sure my hair was straight as I passed through the doorway. Rick Starr of the Valley News Dispatch, however, wrote it with all the Big Brother implications and all and virtually accused Cowher and the Steelers of violating everyone’s privacy.

Oh, did Cowher rip into Starr, making my Nickerson debate with him sound like afternoon tea in comparison. Cowher told the writer it was Saint Vincent that had installed the cameras for their own use, not the Steelers. Harrumph!

--- Chuck Noll steadfastly refused to allow the shotgun formation to be used at training camp, he was stubborn about it even though the shotgun was becoming popular in the league in the ‘80s and his quarterbacks would have liked to use it, especially once Bubby Brister arrived.

Jack Lambert, not long after his retirement following the 1984 season, joined one of the local TV stations as a commentator. One of his first reports at training camp was providing inside info that Noll finally would unveil the shotgun formation at Saint Vincent. Noll never did so either that summer or that season.

A few camps later, the Saint Vincent campus was invaded by skunks with distemper. Whenever one was spotted, a call went out either to the game commission or the state troopers, who would arrive and shoot it dead.

One afternoon while we were watching practice, someone noted that another skunk was shot that morning on the edge of the practice field with a .22 rifle.

“Why didn’t they use a shotgun?” I asked, figuring that weapon would have made it easier to hit the target.

Jim Kriek, the longtime sports editor of the Connellsville Courier with a wonderfully wry sense of humor, did not hesitate and replied, “Because Chuck won’t allow the shotgun in training camp!”

--- In the second half of the 1990s as the Steelers were trying to get a new stadium, they had some dispute about the land around it or who would develop the land, etc. The Steelers wanted to do something and Mayor Tom Murphy had other ideas.

Anyway, during that dispute I was watching a camp practice on the sideline with Dan Rooney. A football was kicked into the crowd on the hillside and the gent who caught it did not throw it back (I think he had children with him). A ballboy went into the crowd, reclaimed the football and returned it to the field to a smattering of boos from the fans.

Bill Cowher stopped practice, grabbed the football and climbed the hill to deliver it back to the fan who had caught it. The place erupted in cheers and Dan Rooney told me Cowher was so popular that he could beat “Smurphy” in a race for Pittsburgh mayor. Oooh, that was good in so many ways, including the fact that Tom Murphy was not a tall man.

I asked Dan Rooney if he meant what he said and that I’d like to write it. He told me to go ahead. I did and it naturally received plenty of attention.

The bottom line, though, was that Mayor Tom Murphy, in office until 2006, would became an important political ally to the Steelers in their ultimately successful attempts to build Heinz Field.

--- Merril Hoge, who is here in Latrobe this weekend with an ESPN crew that will broadcast from camp Monday, was one of the Steelers “stars” during a down time in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s under Chuck Noll. The Steelers were supposed to play a preseason game in Ireland in 1990 but after a lack of support for the game, it was switched to Montreal against the New England Patriots.

That June, the Steelers sent some representatives to Montreal to promote the game. One of those chosen to go was Hoge. This was in the easy days of flying, when you could even use a ticket under someone else’s name to fly in this country – but not internationally.

I had heard the ensuing story about what happened when Hoge arrived at the airport but I waited until training camp that summer to see if he would confirm it for me. He did and I wound up writing it. Here’s what happened:

Hoge arrived at the airport and when he checked in, they asked for his driver’s license. He said he did not bring it with him and why was that a problem. He was told while he did not need a license to fly in the U.S., he needed one to fly internationally.

Hoge said he was going to Montreal, and isn’t that in the U.S.?