Chuck Finder
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

C-c-c-c-cold winter game days.

Monumental struggles against the team with the patch-wearing symbol and the despised Silver and Black.

Stevie Wonder. The Steel Curtain. Dee-fense. Individual moments.

"Whatever it takes." A plywood springboard.

Three Rivers Stadium's singular moment came at the end of its third football season, amid Pittsburgh's first professional football playoff game in a quarter century and only its second ever.

The Immaculate Reception, Dec. 23, 1972, Steelers over Raiders, is a day that lives in American sports history.

The thing is, the Steelers proceeded to play 18 more playoff games in the old concrete bowl at the confluence, on their way to 10 AFC championship games, five Super Bowls and four world championship rings.

Two-hundred fifty-five times the Steelers called home that cookie-cutter stadium at the wet corner of the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers.

Entering this grand-finale Saturday date with the Washington Redskins, the home club emerged the victor 181 of those 255 times for a 70.9 winning percentage.

That winning percentage is a fitting number because the Steelers were truly the team of the '70s.

They went on a remarkable eight-of-nine run in home playoff games during the decade in which they came to be known as the Super Steelers -- winning four world championships between that magical 1972 season and 1979.

If you narrow their window of opportunity even further, the Steelers won their first title after the 1974 season and their fourth after 1979, a pretty fair 4-for-6 batting average.

The only NFL teams to come as close in compiling championships were Dallas with three in four years in the 1990s and San Francisco with four in nine years spanning 1982-90.

Thirty years of black-and-gold memories close after Sunday's Redskins-Steelers game.

Beyond football, the stadium served well as a home also to two world-champion Pirates clubs (1971 and 1979), two baseball All-Star games, nine National League Championship Series, countless concerts and bushels of western Pennsylvania high-school football championship games.

Yet it exits with pro football, the game on which its place in sports history was forged.

Thirty Three-Rivers years.

"Doesn't seem like it's been around long enough to tear it down," former receiver John Stallworth said.

You bet there were some other Steeler stories from the old bowl.

Stallworth (1974-1987): "Favorite memory? Gosh. Oakland Raiders, 1975, my second year, championship game, final seconds of the game. I was able to come up with a touchdown, left corner of the north end zone (for a 16-10 triumph). We went on to our second Super Bowl. That jumps out.

"I guess a close second -- and my memories are more from a personal standpoint -- is the Denver game going toward the third Super Bowl (a 33-10 victory in 1978). I caught 10 passes that playoff game and established a new

record at that time.

"On the downside, a memory -- but not a pleasurable one -- is, after one of the strike years (1987) I came back and caught my 500th pass. The guys I caught my other 499 with were not there. Not as happy a moment as I would have liked it to have been."

Safety Donnie Shell (1974-1987): "Oakland in '75, my second year. It was so cold that day, when the saliva left your mouth, it stayed on your facemask -- it froze. I thought that was remarkable. I never saw anything like that, coming from the South.

"The most memorable thing to me was how loud the fans were. One game, we could hardly hear the signals -- we played Houston or Cleveland. The other team was complaining, and it got so loud we could hardly hear our calls and communicate our signals. That really sent chills down your arms when you were playing. The fans, that's what made it special."

Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Ham (1971-1982): "We were playing the Browns, our biggest rivals. We were losing at halftime by 10 or 17 points. That second half, we came back (for a 35-31 victory in 1977). The crowd that day was absolutely amazing.

"I pride myself on not letting the crowd being a factor. But that day, they helped us win the game. Even in the locker room, you could hear them: 'Dee-fense.' To be able to hear the crowd when you were just coming out of the locker room, with how far back (underneath the stands) it is. . . that's something."

Hall of Fame defensive tackle Joe Greene (1969-1981): The Rooney family and Coach Chuck Noll and the organization and then the players -- in that order -- made the Steelers super.

"But that stadium and the fans had their equal share in that. It all went together. The most important thing for a football player is having a positive attitude about coming to work. It was always a good crowd. Unless they got angry at Terry (Bradshaw), then they were mad.

"One ballgame I recall, I don't know if it was so much the fans or what we were doing on the field, but. . . back in '71, we played the Chargers. We had three goal-line stands, and we won the ballgame (21-17). The phrase was always there when we won championships, but after that ballgame, Chuck said it first: 'Whatever it takes.'

"The Immaculate Reception had to be the signature game of the stadium. Next was the 1979 championship game against Houston, Mike Renfro's disputed catch [waved off by officials in an eventual 27-13 Steelers victory].

"And, for me, the last one . . . the last one. It was a sad one for me. Our team played the Bengals, we weren't doing well, we were out of the playoffs.(The Steelers lost that Sunday and the next to finish 8-8.)

"I knew that was my last game. My wife came down and we took a picture on the field. We still have that picture."

Former linebacker Andy Russell (1963, 1966-1976): "I remember The Chief [Hall of Fame owner Art Rooney] calling me in 1968 and telling me to come over for a photo op. He and I put a shovel around in some ugly field in the North Side, which is now Three Rivers Stadium.

"That was a tremendous place to work out. I'd go over in the offseason and work out by myself. I have this memory running wind sprints on the field, and Stevie Wonder was in town to do a concert that night.

"He had this huge stage behind home plate. He's up there practicing all by himself and we were the only two people in the stadium. I was running. He was playing. And he doesn't know I'm there because he's blind.

"I always get kidded mercilessly about my 93-yard fumble recovery against Baltimore in the 1975 playoffs, where I set the NFL record for the most-elapsed time in a single play. I picked the ball up and the field tilted; I was running uphill.

"All those guys had wonderful lines: (Late center Ray) Mansfield said NBC cut to a commercial and came back in time to see me run into the end zone. (Jack) Ham said they almost called a delay-of-game penalty on me.

"Actually, it was late in the game and I thought it was smart to run the clock out -- being a smart player."

Fullback John "Frenchy" Fuqua (1970-76): "I played the first football game there, against my old team -- the New York Giants. It was our first exhibition there. I had a chance to run a Statue of Liberty. Think I went about 32 yards on it. (The Steelers won, 21-6.)

"The artificial turf, I remember coming in and thinking, 'Oh boy, this stuff makes me so much faster.' We practiced a couple of days on it, and I said, 'I love this.' The pitching mound had plywood underneath it. All of us knew it.

"If you had to be tackled, it was a great place to be tackled. If you wanted a first down, it had a little spring in it so you could jump on it and get some extra yardage.

"The Immaculate Reception. . . . Every time I come to the stadium, I walk in there and my son (John Jr.) asks, 'Hey, Dad, is that where Tatum knocked your head off?'

"I tell him, 'You should go back and see how Bradshaw, Franco and I practiced that play.'

"So many memories I'm going to have from that place. I'm going to miss it."

Indeed, tears of reminiscence will be wiped by Terrible Towels this weekend.

Chuck Finder, a native of suburban Pittsburgh and a sports writer there the past 15 years, also has a personal favorite Three Rivers memory.

He was in the stands for "The Ice Bowl II," the 1978 AFC championship game in which the Steelers slushed past Houston in a cold, stormy turf battle.

He was sitting under cover in the upper deck -- freezing rain ultimately forcing his two companions to join him for a relatively dry second half. With the Steelers backed up to their own goal line late in the game, Houston tackled Rocky Bleier for a meaningless safety.

It was meaningful, however, to one of his friends -- who began leaping and screaming and calling great attention to himself. Seems that friend, a part-time stockboy, won his grocery-store pool thanks to that rare 34-5 final score.