Commentary: Chuck Noll underrated? His Steelers players sure think so.

The year was 1990. Steelers Hall of Famer Mel Blount was in the early stages of building his youth home for troubled boys in Buffalo Township, Washington County. There were plenty of obstacles to overcome. "Racist attitudes," Blount called them. "Narrow-mindedness" of the township supervisors. Pressure from the Ku Klux Clan. One day, a surprise visitor showed up to offer Blount his support — Chuck Noll. "He was still coaching at the time," Blount recalled recently. "He and his wife, Marianne, came out. Chuck was a man of few words, but he had a way that, when he said something, it was solid. He had such a way with people. He just said he was proud of what we were doing. That meant a lot to me, especially at that time. That was Chuck. All of us were blessed to have played for him." Blount eagerly came to the telephone to talk about Noll, who will be among those honored Saturday during the induction ceremony at the 60th anniversary of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Noll was enshrined in 1993 after leading the Steelers to four Super Bowl wins in the 1970s. Jack Ham and Joe Greene were among the 10 players who played for Noll that made the Hall of Fame. They, too, were glad to talk about their coach. "Chuck never got his just due. I don't think he gave a damn, but he never did," Ham said. "It's a shame he gets this rap that he won because he had all these great players." It seems almost inconceivable that Noll never won an AP Coach of the Year award. "There's no way we win those four Super Bowls without Chuck," Ham said. "When your head coach is smart, and your players believe he is smarter than the other guy across the field, you go into a game with a little bit more confidence. You're thinking, 'We have an advantage over that guy because we have Chuck.' That does a lot for a football team. We understood his personality. We bought into it." Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin — the only two coaches to follow Noll as Steelers coach since he retired after the 1991 season — have much different personalities than Noll. They are emotional. Noll was, to use Ham's description, "business-like." "He could have been the head of a corporation. He was so smart." Noll wasn't one to deliver Knute Rockne-like "win one for the Gipper" speeches, either. "I remember him saying, 'Nothing I'm going to tell the team five minutes before a game is going to make them play better,'" Ham said. "If you are prepared — and we always were prepared — he knew he didn't have to give those speeches." That doesn't mean Noll didn't have his moments. Greene, the first player the Steelers drafted — No. 4 overall — after Noll was hired before the 1969 season, mentioned two speeches Noll delivered. The first happened during Noll's first meeting with his new team. The Steelers had finished 2-11-1 in 1968, their fifth consecutive losing season. "Chuck said our goal is to win the Super Bowl," Greene said. "There was a slight chuckle in the room. One chuckle probably rang out a little louder than the others. That was our running back, Don Shy. He was laughing. ... "Don's time was not long with the Steelers." Noll's other memorable locker room talk happened on the Monday after the 1974 divisional round playoffs. The Steelers' 32-14 win against Buffalo didn't get much attention, and the football world was buzzing about Oakland's 28-26 win against two-time defending champion Miami. "He told us the people in Oakland are saying the Super Bowl was played yesterday," Greene said. "He said, 'Fellas, the Super Bowl won't be played until two weeks from now.' " That was just the start, according to Greene: "Chuck said everyone was saying the two best teams in the National Football League played yesterday. Everyone was talking about Oakland and Miami, of course. That's when Chuck said, 'The best team in the National Football League is sitting right here in this room.' " Effective? "You have no idea," Greene said. The Steelers beat the Raiders 24-13 in the AFC championship game in Oakland in what many believe was the greatest win in franchise history. The defense held the Raiders to 29 rushing yards on 21 carries. It intercepted Hall of Fame quarterback Ken Stabler three times, twice by Ham. The Steelers went on to beat Minnesota, 16-6, for the first of their four Super Bowl wins in six years. "What Chuck said that day was absolutely the best experience I ever felt in my 13 years of playing ball," Greene said. "From that moment on, the Raiders had no chance. They didn't. They really didn't." Added Blount, "Chuck saw things in us that we didn't see in ourselves. ... "Joe Greene will tell you Chuck allowed people to be who they were. He had boundaries, and we knew how to stay within those boundaries. We knew we had to produce. But Chuck just had a way of managing people and personalities. Think about all the personalities and big-time players that he had. We were all able to function in his system under his rules and really stay within his expectations and do it at a high level. It's incredible what we were able to do and how Chuck was able to manage all of us." Noll did his best work with Greene, his best player. Greene was rough early on. He ranted at officials when he didn't think they were stopping opponents from holding him. He threw a football into the stands in Philadelphia and stomped off the field. He kicked one opponent in the groin and punched another in the stomach in an attempt to get the holding to stop. "Chuck understood that my behavior was all about trying to win," Greene said. "It wasn't a selfish thing. It wasn't like I was trying to highlight myself. I'm really thankful that Chuck was smart enough to realize that. "I know I had a temperament that I wouldn't have responded to a screamer or a guy who hollered or cursed at me or at us. I wouldn't feel good about that. Chuck just had his way that, when he spoke to me about what I shouldn't do, that was it. It resonated with me. He was just a special man. Quiet, but very, very smart. He understood people. Yes, he did." Noll died in June 2014 at 82. In one way, it still baffles his former players that Noll is never mentioned with the same reverence that Don Shula, Bill Belichick, George Halas, and Vince Lombardi are as NFL coaches. But in another way, they get it. Noll never promoted himself. In all his years as Steelers coach, he did only one billboard for PNC Bank. He hated driving by it. "He thought the players should do the commercials," Blount said. "He didn't want to be competing with the players." "All he cared about was his team doing what he wanted it to do," Greene said. "He wasn't seeking the glory." Greene laughed. The final words here are his: "Those four Super Bowls were all the glory Chuck needed."