No one spent more time with the Pittsburgh Steelers than Dick Hoak, who saw the best and worst of one of the NFL’s most storied franchises.
Hoak, who died Wednesday at 86, was with the Steelers organization for all but one season from 1961 through 2007.
Drafted out of Penn State, he was a Steelers running back from 1961-70. Hoak gained 5,417 yards from scrimmage. He scored 33 touchdowns and passed for four more.
What he didn’t do was win. The Steelers not only never made the playoffs when he was a player, but they seldom even flirted with winning seasons.
“When I was playing, the first year or two, we weren’t a bad football team,” Hoak told the Windsor Star in an interview at the Super Bowl in 2006. “After that, the team was going downhill.
“We traded all our draft choices away for experienced players.”
Hoak Became a Steelers Coach
Following his retirement as a player, Hoak entered the teaching profession. Soon, he would take his teaching skills back to the gridiron.
In 1972, Chuck Noll, Hoak’s last head coach as a Steelers player, offered him a position as the team’s running back coach. He jumped at the opportunity.
Filling that role through the 2007 season, Hoak was part of the glory years of the Steelers, winning five Super Bowls - four on Noll’s staff and one as an assistant to Bill Cowher. Hoak was the only holdover on the Steelers’ staff when Cowher took over as head coach from Noll.
Two of the running backs Hoak coached, Franco Harris and Jerome Bettis, were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“When [Chuck] Noll came in, he said, ‘We’re going to build a team through the draft,’ which we did,” Hoak said.
“That’s what turned it around."