The Pittsburgh Steelers are an American football franchise representing Pittsburgh. They are the seventh-oldest club in the National Football League (NFL), which they joined in . The only surviving NFL teams with a longer history are the Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals (then the Chicago Cardinals), Detroit Lions (then the Portsmouth Spartans), Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, and Washington Commanders (then the Boston Redskins). The Philadelphia Eagles joined the league concurrently with the Steelers in 1933.
The team was founded by Arthur J. "Art" Rooney. The Rooney family has held a controlling interest in the club for almost its entire history. Since its founding the team has captured six league championships and competed in more than a thousand games. In 2008 the Steelers became the first NFL team to capture six Super Bowl titles. Currently the club is fourth in total NFL Championships behind the Packers (13), Bears (9), and Giants (8). Eighteen Steelers players, coaches or administrators have been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Precursors
Art Rooney, who was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area, was an exceptional all-around athlete. Rooney was recruited to play football for Notre Dame, baseball for the Boston Red Sox; and invited to join the 1920 Olympic boxing team. His love of sports would lead to his becoming an organizer and promoter. This included the Hope-Harvey Football Club, a semi-professional American football team which he founded as a teenager.O'Brien (2001), p.32-33. "In a way, I guess that was the start of the Steelers. It grew from that", Rooney said.
The name "Hope-Harvey" was derived from the Hope Fire House, located in the heart of the Pittsburgh's North Side, which served as the team's locker room, and Dr. Harvey, a local physician, who was a sponsor and unofficial team doctor. The Hope-Harvey Majestics competed against other semi-pro or "sandlot" teams; a collection would be raised from the fans in attendance which would be split amongst the players. In addition to being the team's manager and coach, Art Rooney at times played quarterback for the team, which also included his younger brothers, Dan and Jim. Behind the Rooney boys, these teams met a fair amount of success, including at least two Western Pennsylvania Senior Independent Football Conference titles in the early 1930s.
The Hope-Harvey club, which would later come to be known as "Majestic Radio" (when they gained a sponsor) and later the "James P. Rooneys" (to promote the state legislative campaign of the team's quarterback, and Art Rooney's brother, Jimmy Rooney), played most of their home games at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. These Steeler precursors were composed primarily of players from the local colleges: Pitt, Duquesne and Carnegie Tech, all of which were major college programs of the day.
Although football was popular in Pittsburgh at the time, the city had no fully professional teams due to Pennsylvania's puritanical blue laws, which prohibited athletic competition on Sundays because it was the Sabbath. The teams of the National Football League, which was founded in 1920, played primarily on Sunday to avoid conflicts with college football games which were played on Saturday.
The early years: Decades of futility
In May 1933, in anticipation of the repeal of some of Pennsylvania's restrictive laws in the fall of that year, Rooney applied for a franchise with the NFL. His request was granted on May 19, 1933, and the Pittsburgh Professional Football Club, Inc. joined the NFL in exchange for a US$2,500 franchise fee (roughly $ in today's dollars). The new team was known as the Pirates in reference to their baseball club landlords at Forbes Field. Before settling on Forbes, Rooney considered playing at Greenlee Field, which housed the city's Negro league baseball club. Since the blue laws were not repealed until November's general election, the team was forced to play its first four home games on Wednesday nights.
Rooney's new team was a study in frustration for many years: between 1933 and 1971, they posted a winning record only eight times, with a further six seasons at .500, and made the playoffs just once, in 1947, when they were shut out by Philadelphia.
The 1930s: The Pirates years
In the early years of the franchise, the Pirates were not Rooney's only (or even his primary) focus. Even the office off the lobby of the Fort Pitt Hotel from which he ran the team was shared with the Rooney-McGinley Boxing Club, which promoted fights. He also spent a good amount of his time and energy handicapping and placing bets on horse racing, a lifelong hobby. Rooney once won an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 ($ to $ million today) in a single 1936 day of betting.O'Brien (2001), p.16. It actually was highly likely that the purchase of the Pittsburgh Steelers was made with horse race gambling winnings.Tom Bennett et al. (eds.), The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977; p. 200. However, this is becoming a de-emphasized part of the team's history, with the NFL trying to clear their name of such shady early beginnings.
Rooney's gambling winnings helped keep his struggling franchise afloat during an era when sports teams often collapsed. He recalled, “In those days, nobody got wealthy in sports. You had two thrills—winning on Sunday and making payroll on Monday.” The Great Depression made finances even tighter, with the team losing nearly $10,000 in 1934 ($235,000 today). Competing with established teams in bidding wars was difficult, leading Rooney to propose player signing limits, which eventually led to the creation of the NFL Draft in 1936. The Pirates saw little initial return with the draft system, however, as the team's first draft pick, William Shakespeare, would never play in the NFL.Mendelson (2006), p.22 The franchise would trade their first round pick multiple times in their first 30 years.
The Pirates' first uniforms were gold with black stripes and were adorned with the city crest. This color scheme was inspired by Pittsburgh's city flag. The stripes were created with felt overlays, and as such they had functional as well as aesthetic value in that they allowed the ball carrier to hold the ball more securely.
Rooney hired Forrest Douds as player-coach, a three-time All-American from Washington & Jefferson College and an All-Pro in the NFL. The Pittsburgh Pirates' inaugural game was a 23–2 loss to the New York GiantsWiebusch 2002, p. 95. in front of a crowd of about 20,000., with their first points coming from a safety when center John Oehler blocked a punt through the end zone. A week later, they earned their first victory, defeating the Chicago Cardinals 14–13, highlighted by Martin Kottler’s 99-yard interception return and 36-year-old Mose Kelsch’s game-winning extra point. In their sixth game, they tied an NFL record by combining with the Cincinnati Reds for 31 punts in a scoreless draw, a mark matched but never surpassed. The team's five home games drew around 57,000 fans, fewer than the Pitt-Duquesne college matchup that year. Finishing their inaugural season with a 3–6–2 record, Douds was not retained as coach but remained with the team for two more years as a player.
Rooney pursued Hunk Anderson, who had recently stepped down as head coach at Notre Dame, to replace Douds. After being rebuffed by Anderson in favor of a similar position at North Carolina State, Rooney went after Earle "Greasy" Neale. It speaks to the stature of the professional game relative to college football that Neale turned down the Pirates' offer in order to take an assistant coaching position at Yale University. Neale would later coach the Philadelphia Eagles to two NFL championships and earn a spot in the Hall of Fame. Luby DiMeolo, who had been rumored as the leading candidate for the Pirates coaching job prior to the team's first season, was eventually hired to replace Douds. He had been captain of the 1929 Pittsburgh Panthers football team on which Jimmy Rooney also starred. DiMeolo hired Jimmy Rooney as an assistant. Following a disappointing 2–10 season in 1934, DiMeolo was dismissed. Rooney attempted to lure football legend Red Grange, who had just retired as a player, to coach the team the following year. Grange eventually declined the offer in favor of an assistant coaching position with the Chicago Bears. Rooney settled instead on Duquesne coach Joe Bach.
Bach, notable as one of Notre Dame's "seven mules", who blocked for the team's famed "Four Horsemen", saw his team improve from two wins to a 4–8 record in his first season with the Pirates. In his second season in 1936, Bach's team was in contention for the NFL's Eastern Division title with a 6–3 record through nine games, but the season fell apart with losses in the final three games. Both Rooney and Bach blamed each other for the collapse, and although Bach had a verbal agreement to stay for 1937, he left to take the head coach position at Niagara University, for which Rooney released him from his commitment. Rooney later expressed regret for letting Bach leave.Rooney, Jr. & McHugh (2008), p. 36. The Bach era transitioned to that of Johnny Blood, who took over as player-coach in 1937. McNally, an eleven-year NFL veteran who had played for the Pirates in 1934, was known as one of the game's most colorful characters, and Rooney hired him to help increase ticket sales. However, after a 2–0 start, the team lost its next five games, finishing with a 4–7 record.
In 1938, the Pirates selected All-America quarterback Byron White from the University of Colorado with the fourth overall pick in the NFL draft, offering him a league-high salary of $15,000. White initially declined to continue his education through a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University but reconsidered and signed the deal after deferring his start at Oxford. He also received a share of the gate at exhibition games, bringing his total earnings to $15,800. White led the league in rushing with 567 yards but could not help the team improve, as the Pirates finished with a 2–9 record, including a season-ending six-game losing streak. After the season, White sailed to England and never returned to play for the Pirates, later becoming a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. In response to disappointing results, Rooney pursued legendary coach Jock Sutherland, offering him a salary higher than the $13,000 Sutherland earned at the University of Pittsburgh, but Sutherland declined, likely due to his disdain for professional football. As a result, Johnny Blood remained as head coach but retired as a player. The 1939 season began with another losing streak, and after a third consecutive loss, McNally resigned as coach. Despite his lackluster coaching record of 6–19 with the Pirates, McNally was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.
McNally was replaced by Walt Kiesling, who had been McNally's assistant coach for the previous two seasons. Their seventh season less than half played, the Pirates had just hired their fifth head coach. Kiesling was unable to salvage the season; the team ended 1939 with a worst yet mark of 1–9–1. The season's lone win came in the season's final game against the Philadelphia Eagles, with whom the Steelers shared the league cellar: the Eagles compiled an identical 1–9–1 record with their season's sole bright spot being an earlier triumph over the Steelers. The victory broke a winless streak that had extended to nearly 14 months.
Through the 1930s, the Pirates never finished higher than second place in their division, or with a record better than .500.
1940–1941: A new name and a "new" team