PITTSBURGH -- Chuck Noll, the Hall of Fame coach who won a record four Super Bowl titles with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Friday night at his home.
Green Air Max 2018 . He was 82. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner said Noll died of natural causes. Noll transformed the Steelers from a long-standing joke into one of the NFLs pre-eminent powers, becoming the only coach to win four Super Bowls. He was a demanding figure who did not make close friends with his players, yet was a successful and motivating leader. The Steelers won the four Super Bowls over six seasons (1974, 1975, 1978 and 1979), an unprecedented run that made Pittsburgh one of the NFLs marquee franchises, one that breathed life into a struggling, blue-collar city. "He was one of the great coaches of the game," Steelers owner Dan Rooney once said. "He ranks up there with (George) Halas, (Tom) Landry and (Curly) Lambeau." Nolls 16-8 record in post-season play remains one of the best in league history. He retired in 1991 with a 209-156-1 record in 23 seasons, after inheriting a team that had never won a post-season game. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993. Noll worked so well with Steelers President Rooney that the team never felt the need to have a general manager. When he retired, and was replaced by Bill Cowher, only four other coaches or managers in modern U.S. pro sports history had run their teams longer than Noll had. "Chuck Noll is the best thing that happened to the Rooneys since they got on the boat (to America) in Ireland," Art Rooney II, the former Steelers personnel chief and the son of the team founder, once said. A former messenger guard for his hometown Cleveland Browns who earned the nicknamed Knute Knowledge -- as in Knute Rockne -- Noll was an assistant with the San Diego Chargers and Baltimore Colts for nine seasons. Then he accepted what seemed a dead-end job in January 1969 as coach of the NFLs least-successful organization. Art Rooney Sr. often hired friends and cronies as coaches, and only two of the Steelers first 13 coaches had winning records. At the time Noll took over, the franchise was 105 games below .500 in its history. Noll, hired only after Penn States Joe Paterno turned down a $350,000, five-year offer, was different from any Steelers coach before him. He immediately brought intelligence, toughness, stability, confidence, character and a can-do mindset to a franchise accustomed to constant upheaval and ever-changing personnel. Asked at his first news conference if his goal was to make the Steelers respectable, Noll said, "Respectability? Who wants to be respectable? Thats spoken like a true loser." Perhaps not the most colorful coach behind the microphone, Noll could often be counted on for memorable, motivational one-liners that became rallying cries. Phrases like "A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning," and "Before you can win a game, you have to not lose it," and "The thrill isnt in the winning, its in the doing," spoke volumes about what Noll was trying to accomplish. They went over well in a football-crazed region of Pennsylvania. The day after Noll was hired, the Steelers drafted defensive lineman Joe Greene. He was the first of the nine Hall of Famers selected during the Noll era. Four of the others were drafted within Nolls first four seasons: Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount, Jack Ham and Franco Harris. Four more arrived in the first five rounds of the 1974 draft: Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth and Mike Webster. And the 1971 draft, though it produced only one Hall of Famer (Ham), generated seven starters. While the Steelers surprisingly won their opener under Noll in 1969, beating Detroit, they lost their final 13 games that season, and their first three in 1970. By then, some were questioning Nolls hiring. The Steelers turnaround began in earnest in 1970, the year they moved into the AFC after the NFL and AFL merged. They drafted Bradshaw with the No. 1 pick, moved into Three Rivers Stadium after years of being a secondhand tenant of Pitt Stadium and Forbes Field. They won five of eight during one stretch. By 1972, the year Harris arrived to give them the ground game Noll sought, they were championship contenders with an 11-3 record and a weve-turned-the-corner attitude. Noll had long since run off underachievers and pushed the Rooneys to bring in the players he wanted. "Hell argue a point with you and keep yelling, No, this is right, youre wrong," Dan Rooney said. "Sometimes you have to say, This is the way were going to do it." The first traditional playoff game in Steelers history on Dec. 23, 1972, also signalled what was to come. The Steelers were in control of the John Madden-coached Raiders most of the game, until quarterback Ken Stabler scored in the final two minutes to put Oakland up 7-6. With the Steelers down to fourth-and-10 on their side of the field, Bradshaw lofted a pass downfield intended for Frenchy Fuqua. As Fuqua and safety Jack Tatum converged on the ball, it bounded high in the air for what looked to be a certain incompletion. Instead, Harris, trailing on the play, caught the ball nearly at his shoe tops and raced into the end zone for an improbable touchdown. The play would quickly become known as the "Immaculate Reception." Nolls Steelers did not win the Super Bowl that season -- they lost to unbeaten Miami on a fake punt in the AFC title game. But, with their roster completed by their remarkable 1974 draft, they finally became NFL champions and did it three more times by January 1980. Still, Nolls best team might have been in 1976, when the Steelers rebounded from a 1-4 start to go 10-4 -- even with Bradshaw injured and out most of the season -- by playing the greatest stretch of defence in NFL history. The Steel Curtain shut out five of their final nine opponents while yielding only 28 points. At one point, they didnt allow a touchdown for 22 quarters. However, Harris and Rocky Bleier, 1,000-yard rushers that season, were injured in a playoff game against Baltimore. Without a running game, they lost the AFC title to Oakland. A year later, Noll wound up in a federal court trial. He accused Raiders defensive back George Atkinson, who had levelled Swann with a brutal hit the season before, of being part of the NFLs "criminal element." Noll prevailed, but there were hard feelings when, under oath, he included Blount as also being part of that criminal element. The Steelers went 9-5 that season, but rebounded to win the championship in the 1978 and 1979 seasons. When all the talent began to retire, the championships ended. Great drafts gave way to poor ones. The Steelers won only two playoff games and no conference championships in Nolls final 12 seasons, missing the post-season eight times. Noll never was much of a yeller or screamer, though he had his moments. He confronted Oilers coach Jerry Glanville at midfield and warned him about the teams borderline-legal blocking techniques. "He didnt feel like it was his job to motivate," Bleier said. "It was his job to take motivated people and give them a direction and get the job done." When he retired, Noll always said he would never coach another team and he didnt. In 2007, the football field at St. Vincent College, the Steelers longtime training camp home in Latrobe, was named for Noll, even though he played at and graduated from Dayton. Born in Cleveland, Noll attended Benedictine High School, where he played running back and tackle, winning All-State honours, before gaining a scholarship to play for the Flyers. He was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburghs biggest, most traditional rival, in 1953. At 27, he retired as a player from the Browns in 1959.
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Air Max 2018 Clearance.C. -- The shot that would have beaten No. ST. LOUIS -- After the morning skate, captain Jamie Benn vowed that the Dallas Stars would play to honour ill teammate Rich Peverley. With the forward following the Stars game against the St. Louis Blues from a hospital bed back in Dallas, Benn put his team over the top. Stars coach Lindy Ruff said Peverley, who is sidelined because of a heart issue that caused him to collapse on the bench on Monday, was well aware his teammates beat the Blues 3-2 in overtime on Tuesday night. "I texted him right after the game and he responded," Ruff said. "He was happy. He said Keep rolling. I just said at the end, See you tomorrow." Benn scored 3:42 into overtime to end the Blues five-game winning streak. St. Louis is first overall in the NHL standings. "Obviously, (Monday) night was a scary situation but today is a new day," Benn said. "We were thinking about Rich back home, but I thought we did a great job getting mentally ready for this game. "Were still in a big playoff push and we found a way to get two points." Defencemen Alex Pietrangelo and Roman Polak ended lengthy goal droughts for the Blues, who lost for the first time in five games with new goalie Ryan Miller. They might have run into an inspired team. "Youve got to give them credit. Theyve been through a lot in the last 24 hours," Blues forward Steve Ott said. "Its pretty honourable for them to come out and play like that." Colton Sceviour, one of two call-ups by the Stars with Peverley out indefinitely and teammate Alex Chiasson also hospitalized due to emotional distress after his teammates "cardiac event," scored on a power play in the first period. Miller robbed the other call-up, Chris Mueller, with a glove save from point-blank range with 2:16 to go in the third. But he couldnt cross the crease in time to corral a shot from the right circle by Benn that gave Dallas its fourth win in five games. "I kind of knew he got lost up there, but no one was on the back side the way the play developed," Miller said. "I just didnt get my whole body over in time." The Stars hoome game against Columbus was postponed Monday night after Peverley fell ill.
Cheap Air Max 2018 China. Peverley remained hospitalized in stable condition on Tuesday while undergoing tests. "I told them, You can look for a reason to lose or you can find a way to win," Ruff said. "I said we need to find a way to win and we need to win it for a couple of our teammates." Benn has scored in three straight games and has seven points in a five-game streak. The Blues are 18-0-2 against the Central Division, breaking the franchise record of 19 consecutive games with a point in divisional play set in 1968-69. During the five-game winning streak, they never allowed more than two goals. After settling for one point, coach Ken Hitchcock saw only negatives. "I dont think were playing very smart," Hitchcock said. "Were not putting pucks in deep, were not getting on the grind, were turning way too many pucks over. "Players are going to have to dig in and start playing the right way." Polak tied it at 2 at 5:01 of the third period with his first goal in 37 games and fourth overall. He sent a drive through traffic that got past goalie Tim Thomas. Pietrangelo, who earlier this season became the first Blues defenceman to score 40 points in his first three seasons, snapped a 20-game goal drought in the first period. Pietrangelo had 11 assists since his previous goal on Jan. 10 at Vancouver. Antoine Roussel scored on a breakaway earlier in the period to put the Stars ahead, sending the puck slowly trickling between Millers pads. Roussel got free after David Backes flubbed a cross-ice pass near the blue line in the offensive zone. Sceviour, among the leading scorers in the AHL for the Texas Stars, scored his fourth goal in eight games this season against a team that had killed 33 of 35 power-play chances the previous 11 games. NOTES: Blues D Jay Bouwmeester played in his 700th consecutive regular-season game, the longest active streak in major sports. ... The Blues fell to 36-1-5 when scoring first. ... Roussel had one assist the previous four games. ... Polak has four goals, tying his career best for a season. ' ' '
