| "I'll be glad to leave here. I feel like eating palm trees. I don't like this place. It's for people with arthritis. They come here to play golf and to die." - Steelers defensive tackle Ernie Holmes, before Super Bowl X, which was played in Miami
"Go and ask Henderson if I was dumb today." - Steelers quarterback and Super Bowl XIII MVP Terry Bradshaw, after the game. Before the game, Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson had called Bradshaw "dumb."
"They say that when
you're the champs, everybody will try to beat you. Well, I'm glad we're
champs, so bring 'em on, bring 'em all on. If we die, we ain't gonna die
running. It's gonna be a fight."(Joe Greene)
"You can't
take that ring away, and that's what it's all about. Money goes. You
can go to the bank and borrow money, but you can't go to the bank and
borrow a Super Bowl ring. That ring is like a crown and, not to boast,
we're gonna get it."(Joe Greene)
"He's the greatest
defensive tackle to ever play this game. It's an honor and a privilege
and all that other stuff to have my locker next to his for five years.
My rookie year, he was supposed to be finished and now he's the number
one defensive tackle in the game again. When he's inducted into the
Hall of Fame, I'm gonna be there. How Joe Greene plays is how the Steelers
play."(John Banaszak)
"The Steelers did
it again. They had a shot at every college player in the country except
three and managed to come up with a guy nobody ever heard of."(Disgruntled
fan after Joe Greene was drafted)
"We knew the fans
might complain, but all the reports we had on Joe indicated that he
was not only the finest defensive lineman of that year, but maybe the
best in a decade. Next to O.J., we had Joe figured as the surest bet
in the whole draft."(Art Rooney Jr.)
"That first day
[in Training Camp, 1969] he looked like the baddest thing that ever
walked on two legs. When it was my turn [against him in the blocking
drill], I made up my mind that this kid was not going to beat me. After
all, I had been in the league a helluva lot longer than he was. I dug
in and went to work, just like I was down on the goal line in a championship
game. I figured if this kid's playing it for all the marbles the way
he is I better do the same thing or else they'll be sweeping me off
the field with a whisk broom."(John Brown)
"Joe got kicked
out of three games that year [1969] as I recall. He got kicked out of
a game in New York for taking a late shot on Fran Tarkenton; he got
kicked out of a game in Minnesota for punching a lineman [Jim Vellone];
he got kicked out a game in Philadelphia for picking up the football
and throwing it into the upper deck. Hell, I don't know why they put
him out of a game for that. They should have given him some kind of
award. It might have been the best pass a guy on our club threw all
year."(Andy Russell)
"I never saw a
defensive man so totally dominate a game. Joe was like a one-man army.
It was almost boring for the rest of us because we had nothing to do
but watch. I caught myself applauding a couple times."(Andy Russell)
"I know that
I was part of something very unique in the history of the game... We
were the baddest dudes who ever did it on defense. Everyone else patterned
themselves after us, and because of the way we played they had to change
the rules. That tells you something about how bad we were."(Dwight White)
"The hardest I've
ever been hit in my life, both times were by Dwight. He's just rough,
like a bull in a china shop, and he'll tear up anything that's in his
way. It's like he's got tunnel vision and he zeros in on that one thing
and anything that gets in his way, too bad."(Joe Greene) "The
four of us together were something else. I don't think there was ever
a team like us, or any who could beat us. We had a sense about where
we were, what we did, how we could run plays with just a nod of the
head. We just complemented each other. We got on the cover of Time.
That was quite an achivement."(Ernie Holmes) "We
put a lot of pressure on our linebackers at that time, a lot of one-on-one
coverage. We asked him to cover running backs, and sometimes wide receivers,
all over the field. Jack handled it very well. There was a general consensus
that when a linebacker covered a running back, it was a mismatch. Jack
Ham disproved that theory."(Chuck Noll) "Of
all the teammates I played with, Jack Ham is the most deserving of being
in the Hall of Fame. He was the most consistently great player we had.
He did it week after week and year after year. Until he broke his foot
he was the outside linebacker that all others were measured by."(Jack
Lambert)
""My heavens, yes,
Jack Ham belongs in the Hall of Fame. The thing I remember about Jack?
You couldn't block him. You just couldn't block him. In a way, he made
it easy for us to come up with a game plan. We'd just run the other
way. We wanted no parts of him."(Bum Phillips) "He
knew every time we were going to pass because he was always looking
in our backfield. You teach your linebackers to play off the tight end's
eyes because the tight end will give the play away, but Jack was too
good for that. He'd look directly into the backfield and read the play
and still not be hooked by the tight end."(Bum Phillips) "I
never felt the individual honors measured up to the team stuff. If you're
asking how I'd like to be remembered, it's as a team player who helped
the Steelers win a few championships."(Jack Ham)
"When you watch
Jack(Ham) on film, you feel like standing up and applauding."(Andy Russell)
"It wasn't difficult
making plays on those teams. I had a Hall of Famer Joe in front of me
at left tackle and a guy who should be considered for the Hall of Fame
,L.C. Greenwood at left end. I didn't need a uniform with those guys
in front of me. I could have played in basketball shorts."(Jack Ham)
"Of all the
players I coached he's(Ham) the one I mention most when I'm out recruiting.
He's what every player in high school, college or the pros should strive
to become - a mean son of a buck on the field and a perfect gentleman
off the field. He is the epitome of the perfect football player."(George
Perles)
John Elway on Jack
Lambert.."He had no teethe,and he was slobbering all over himself.I'm
thinking,you can have your money back,just get me out of here.Let me
go be an accountant.I cant tell you how badly I wanted out of here"...Elways
first play from scrimmage in the NFL
Joe Geene..."They
say that when you're the champs,everybody will try to beat you.Well
I am glad we are the champs, so bring them on,bring them all on.If we
die.we aint gonna die running. Its going to be a fght"
Jack Lambert.."Yes
I get satisfaction out of hitting a guy and seeing him lay there a while"
|