Pittsburgh's LeBeau Earns Respect of Former Teammates and Current Players

Pittsburgh's LeBeau Earns Respect of Former Teammates and Current Players

PITTSBURGH -- There is no way to tell this by looking at him, because he has his full head of hair, only flecks of which are gray. His face is not unusually creased or jowled, and when there is time, just before practice, he sneaks off to the side of the field and does pushups. Vigorously. But Dick LeBeau played for the late Woody Hayes at Ohio State back when players served on both sides of the ball. He played in the NFL with men who are now both legendary and late, from Lane the defensive back (Dick "Night Train") to Layne the quarterback (Bobby), at a time when players held offseason jobs to support their families.

Since he broke in with the Detroit Lions in 1959, that franchise has churned through 15 head coaches and just hired a 16th, and the league has added 20 teams. When he began his coaching career as an assistant with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1973, only one of the players he is responsible for as the coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers' defense had even been born.

And yet there he was in the week leading up to the AFC championship game, in which the Steelers will host the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, talking as much about the future as he does about the past.

"You will find, my friend, when you become a septuagenarian," he said, "you'll say, 'Where the hell did it all go?' "

The better questions for LeBeau might be, "Where the hell is it all going, and when will it stop?" Add it all up, and he is 71. He played in the NFL for 14 years, has coached 36 more, and that's a grand total of a half-century. Hardly a question is asked of him that doesn't include a phrase such as "given all the quarterbacks you've seen" or "in 50 years of watching offenses . . . " And his credentials this season are unmatched, because the Steelers have the league's top-ranked defense -- in total yards, points allowed, pass defense and yards per play. As star safety Troy Polamalu said, "You can't get ranked higher than number one."

"We've been blessed," LeBeau said. "If our defense wasn't as good as they are, I probably wouldn't have the 50 years. You get good players, you're a pretty good coach. The players have kept me very interested in continuing to coach. These [players] are a special group, and because of their performance, I'm sure nobody's saying, 'Well, this is an old guy.' They're just saying, 'This is a veteran, experienced coach.' "

This is, though, a veteran, experienced coach with a few twists. The modern NFL is filled with driven, focused, sleep-at-the-office-lest-I-fall-behind climbers. The mind-set can lead to a corporate environment. LeBeau's players, though, speak openly of their love for him. He is not overly crass. He is not overly critical. He does not berate them, though he does not allow them to shirk their responsibilities.

"He's our heart, he really is," Polamalu said. "Things have changed, you know, [since] when he first came in. Football, to him -- he doesn't approach it as a business, which I've heard that other people do. He's just friends with people. He's the Godfather, I guess. He's the Marlon Brando of our team."

Which is one way of saying LeBeau's players would do whatever he asks of them, just as he once did whatever Hayes asked. When the Buckeyes won the national championship in 1957, LeBeau scored two touchdowns against Michigan as a running back and stood out as a defensive back. He latched on with the Lions two years later, teaming with Lane as a cornerback, maniacally studying the game.

"Dick was recognized widely by me and a lot of other corners as a coach still playing," said Lem Barney, a Hall of Fame cornerback whose first six seasons with the Lions also were LeBeau's last six as a player. "He was that intuitive about the game. He taught me what offensive coordinators were trying to do, what they were setting us up for."

LeBeau, though, wasn't an all-football-all-the-time player. He has, at various times in his life, been nearly a scratch golfer. He devours movies. "We called him Ricky Nelson," said Roger Brown, an all-pro tackle with the Lions in the 1960s. "Those good looks, that singing. We used to tell him he should go into the movies."

LeBeau, to this day, plays guitar, and he would croon for his Lions teammates. Barney remembers that he and fellow defensive back Mike Weger would doo-wop behind LeBeau's playing.