Jul 16, 2021 5 min read

In a small way, McDonald native Marty Schottenheimer will be going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame Saturday, Aug. 7.

That will be the day former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher is finally inducted – as part of the 2020 Centennial Class – and Cowher is quick to credit two people most when it comes to his enshrinement.

Dan Rooney is one. Schottenheimer is the other.

“I learned a lot from Marty Schottenheimer. He’s a special guy,” Cowher said of his coaching mentor this week.

Schottenheimer, like Rooney, is regrettably no longer with us. He passed away Feb. 8 at the age of 77.

But like Rooney, he would have been quite proud of the fact Cowher is entering the hall.

It was Schottenheimer, after all, who pushed Cowher toward coaching.

Cowher had been released in 1979 at the end of training camp by the Eagles and returned to North Carolina State to finish his degree while also serving as a graduate assistant.

The following year, he figured he’d give the NFL one more chance, signing with the Browns. Cleveland had a new coaching staff coming in, most notably a new defensive coordinator in Schottenheimer.

“They had just brought in a new defensive coordinator named Marty Schottenheimer, who was introducing the 3-4 defense,” Cowher recalled. “I thought I might have a chance if I can show I can grasp things and pick things up, maybe play a couple of different positions, I could maybe have a role on that team. I did. That’s how I got the job. I was a pretty good special teams player. I got on through that. I was a linebacker who could play different positions.”

Cowher left the Browns after the 1982 season, returning to the Eagles. But he was released by Philadelphia after the 1984 season and was wondering what his next move would be.

Schottenheimer, who had been named Cleveland’s head coach, called. He wanted Cowher to be his special teams coordinator at the ripe old age of 28.

“The one thing I learned from Marty playing for him and then subsequently coaching for him was about preparation. Everything was about preparation, leaving no stone unturned,” Cowher said. “Maybe sometimes the practices were harder than the games, putting your team in difficult situations and seeing how it responds. I learned so much about strategizing from Marty because he was all about preparation, making sure we had something that was sound and catered to the team we were playing. I learned a lot of those things just watching him organize a practice, watching him organize a training camp with the progression of installation that you do.

“To this day, when I was coaching, we’d talk and he’d say, ‘Wow, you’re doing that?’ I’d say, ‘Coach, I got it from you.’ He would tinker and go around and come back to it. I never tinkered. If it wasn’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The two remained close. Cowher followed Schottenheimer to Kansas City after the 1988 season, turning down an offer to join Bill Parcells’ staff with the Giants.

Schottenheimer made him his defensive coordinator. Three years later, Cowher was recruited to be the man to replace Chuck Noll as head coach of the Steelers at the tender age of 34. Part of that recruitment process came at the behest of Schottenheimer, who vouched for his young assistant coach to Rooney.

I can recall talking to South Fayette High School graduate Jonathan Hayes, a former Chiefs tight end, when he was a player with the Steelers early in Cowher’s tenure. Hayes said that hearing Cowher speak to the team was much like listening to Schottenheimer.

They used many of the same phrases and had the same mentality.

“I was very blessed,” Cowher said. “I had one mentor from a coaching perspective. That was Marty Schottenheimer. He talked me out of playing. I went from playing in 1984, when I was special teams captain with the Philadelphia Eagles, I came back to the Cleveland Browns and I became special teams coach. I was coaching guys I had been playing with the previous years. It was a very natural progression for me.”

One made possible by Schottenheimer, who saw something special in Cowher.

Schottenheimer, whose 200 career wins are seventh-most in NFL history, might never get into to the Hall of Fame – though he certainly belongs there. For all of his success, his failures in the postseason – he owned five playoff wins – continue to dog him.

But he was a darn good coach. And an even better person.

“He’ll be a guy I talk a lot about Saturday night, him and Dan Rooney both,” Cowher said. “They won’t be there in person, but they will be there in spirit.”

It will be a special moment and a special night, one for which McDonald and Fort Cherry High School can be very proud.

Dale Lolley covers the Steelers for DKPittsburghsports.com and writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.