Steelers' Noll Calls It Quits -- Coach Resigns After 23 Years

PITTSBURGH - Chuck Noll, who revived a moribund franchise and became the only coach to win four Super Bowls, retired today after 23 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

After weeks of speculation, the end came quickly. Noll and Steeler President Dan Rooney adjourned to Rooney's office before noon , and the announcement came less than two hours later.

The search for the 15th head coach in Steeler history will begin immediately. The only member of Noll's staff likely to be considered is defensive line coach Joe Greene, a Hall of Fame defensive lineman who has been in coaching for only five years.

If Rooney goes outside the organization, he can choose from several men with head coaching experience, because Noll becomes the sixth head coach to retire or be fired since the 1991 season began.

Rooney is expected to pursue a coach who preaches conservative fundamentals and building through the draft. Rooney is unlikely to go after the year's top coaching candidate, two-time Super Bowl champion Bill Parcells, but Chuck Knox, who is likely to quit or be fired in Seattle, has a temperament and personality that would seem in tune with Noll and Rooney.

Noll, who turns 60 on Jan. 5, leaves with a regular-season record of 193-148-1 and a postseason record of 16-8, including a perfect 4-0 Super Bowl record in a six-year span, a feat never accomplished before or since.

But Noll went only 93-91 since winning his final Super Bowl after the 1979 season and 51-60 since last winning the American Football Conference Central Division in 1984. Since that title, the Steelers qualified for the playoffs only once, in 1989, and finished one victory shy of the playoffs in 1987, 1990 and 1991.

Before Noll's arrival, the Steeler franchise, born in 1933, had gone to only two playoff games and lost 105 more games than it had won.

Named coach on Jan. 27, 1969, Noll won his first game and lost the other 13 that first year, then went 5-9 the second and 6-8 the third. But Noll turned the team around by 1972. The Steelers went 11-3 and won the first of what would be nine American Football Conference Central Division titles in the next 13 years. They won Super Bowls following the 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1979 seasons.

Ironically, he won his only coaching honors in 1989 when he rallied a team that lost its first two games by a combined 92-10, and took it to the playoffs with a 9-7 record. He was named AFC Coach of the Year by the Professional Football Writers of America.

Less than two years later, he called it a career.

HOW CHUCK NOLL RANKS

Only four NFL coaches have won more games than Pittsburgh's Chuck Noll. Here are the league's career leaders in victories:

COACH/TEAMS W L T

George Halas / Bears 325 151 31 .

Don Shula / Colts, Dolphins 305 145 6 .

Tom Landry / Cowboys 270 178 6 .

Lambeau / Packers, Cards, Redskins 229 134 22 .

Chuck Noll / Steelers 209 156 1 .

Chuck Knox / Rams, Bills, Seahawks 171 114 1 .