Super building blocks

DETROIT — The Pittsburgh Steelers weren’t supposed to be able to do this. In a rent-a-player era of eight-figure signing bonuses, the Steelers’ build-from-within strategy was supposed to be passe.

Yet here they are, 13 years into the unrestricted free agency age, playing against the Seattle Seahawks tonight in Super Bowl XL. The small-market Steelers have the NFL’s best regular-season record over that span while competing with deep-pocketed franchises like the Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos.

Pittsburgh has yet to win a title during that time, but there’s no doubt “The Steeler Way” works. It’s a philosophy more ingrained in Pittsburgh than the power-running attack or the aggressive “Blitzburgh” defense.

Following the tradition of an organization that built its four-time Super Bowl (1974, 1975, 1978, 1979) champions by choosing nine Hall of Famers in the draft from 1969 to 1974, 19 of its 22 current starters never have been part of another organization.

“We do have a certain way we do things,” Steelers owner Dan Rooney said. “We do lose some players to free agency, but maybe we want to lose some of those. It’s very easy for people to say ’you need to do it this way’ or ’you need to change.’ That’s when you have to stand up and stick with the way you do things.”

In a league in which three coaches who took their teams to the playoffs in 2004 were fired a season later, Rooney could have been excused for dumping coach Bill Cowher after the Steelers went 22-26 from 1998 to 2000. Cowher led Pittsburgh to Super Bowl XXX, but he also had a 5-6 playoff record and hadn’t reached the postseason in three years.

Instead, Rooney extended his coach’s contract. In the five years since, the Steelers have had four winning seasons, reached three AFC Championships and now a Super Bowl.

“You are going to have some down years, and the Rooneys have been very supportive,” said Cowher, who is the longest-tenured coach in the league after 14 seasons. “I’m very appreciative of that. If you look around the league, that’s not always the case.”

Indeed, 10 of 32 teams changed coaches last month, raising the total to 106 such moves since Cowher was hired in January 1992. Even more amazing, Cowher succeeded Chuck Noll, whose tenure dated to 1969. So in the past 37 seasons, the Steelers have had just two coaches.

To put it another way, Pittsburgh has made one coaching change since Neil Armstrong took that first small step on the moon.

Last season, everyone wanted to be the New England Patriots, who had won three of the past four Super Bowls with a mix of free agents and draft picks. Suddenly it’s hip to be the old-fashioned Steelers, whose 73-year-old owner lives again in the modest house in which he was raised and who drives himself to work.

“Look at the Steelers,” Seahawks president of football operations Tim Ruskell raved. “The continuity, the consistency at the top with the ownership. Two coaches since 1969. What a model for all of us to follow and say, ’That’s the way to do it.’ Get good people, get them working together, have a system and a philosophy that you stick with even on the downturn. Don’t panic. It will come back up. You have to be patient. That’s the only chance you have for long-term success.”

No coach knows more about the long term than Dick Hoak, who has been coaching Pittsburgh’s running backs for 34 years after playing with the team for 10 seasons.

“If there is such a thing as ’The Steeler Way,’ it’s building a team through the draft and looking for the right people character-wise who are going to fit into the system, hard-working guys,” Hoak said.

The Rooneys — Dan inherited the team from his father, Art, and his son, team president Art Jr., will succeed him one day — also inspire a genuine family feeling among their players that is rare in today’s “show me the money” sports world.

Hoak recalled that in 1968 when he wound up fourth in the NFL in rushing for a 2-11-1 team, first Art Rooney and then Dan Rooney gave him substantial checks to thank him for a job well done. And when Hoak was hospitalized for 10 days in 1970 with what would be a career-ending concussion, Art Rooney visited him in the hospital twice a day.

More than 35 years later, that same togetherness still permeates the Steelers. While senior Seahawk Mack Strong admits he hardly knows owner Paul Allen, Rooney is in the Steelers’ locker room and lunch line every day. Rooney, who has children with diabetes, checks on guard Kendall Simmons, a diabetic, every day.

Thursday, when his stars were being interviewed by the Super Bowl media horde, Rooney sat nearby scanning the papers and chatting with two of the little-used players no one cared to interview.

That, too, is “The Steeler Way.”