I moved to New England in 1979, and have now spent the past 30 years, over half my life, “behind enemy lines.” I met the present day Mrs. Swiss the day after the '78 AAFCCG against Houston, she being a Massachusetts native seeking employment in the Shenandoah Valley where she would set up housekeeping with college friends.

After six months in the veritable zoo in which we were employed, she had had enough. Her mother cried on the phone, “I didn’t send you to college to work in a...

The Pittsburgh Steelers roared back to the top of the NFL in 1978, and in so doing entered the discussion of possibly being the greatest team of all time. These Steelers were aided by a rule change that their defensive prominence had yielded, that being a further restriction on contact with a receiver. Whereas the 1977 rule change, made it illegal to contact the receiver more than once, the new area of legal contact was now limited to 5 yards from the line of scrimmage. The result? For the first...

The Pittsburgh Steelers won their first Division Championship in 1972, and through the end of the decade won four Super Bowls, and had a run of eight consecutive playoff appearances. In only one of those years did the Black & Gold fail to register at least 10 wins. Nineteen seventy-seven brought rules changes, and the first hint of aging among long-time members of the two-time Super Bowl champs. Would this team rebound from a 9-win season, and an early exit from the playoffs?

The...

Nineteen seventy-six. Our nation’s Bicentennial. Democrats won back the White House, albeit for a single term.

Locally, the Lumber Company ceded control of the National League East to the Philadelphia Phillies for the next 3 seasons. The Pitt Panthers, behind Tony Dorsett and the quarterback duo of Robert Haygood and Matt Cavanaugh would claim a national championship.

Personally, I was prevented from graduating with my class from Lebanon Valley College as the...

After 40 years of futility, the Pittsburgh Steelers won their second consecutive Super Bowl in 1975. The Black & Gold were rarely challenged during the regular season, posting a 12-2 record, but the playoffs provided some anxious moments.

The Draft
The Steelers had seclected the cornerstone of their franchise in the person of Joe Greene in '69, along with L.C. Greenwood, Jon Kolb. "The Messiah," Terry Bradshaw, was chosen in '70, along with Ron Shanklin and Mel Blount. ...