TIM PEELER: Billy Cowher -- 'He's One of Ours'

Feb. 5, 2006

BY TIM PEELER

RALEIGH - Bill Cowher's passion helped NC State win more than a few football games in his career as an undersized linebacker, but there is one in particular that will always stand out to those who played with him.

It was Dec. 23, 1978, just before the Wolfpack played Pittsburgh in the Tangerine Bowl, the perfect exit for Cowher's final game for Bo Rein's team. The Wolfpack was the underdog in the game, but Cowher, a native of Crafton, Pa., just outside of Pittsburgh, was not about to let the hometown school that declined to recruit him ruin his final game.

So he gave a passionate pre-game speech - X-rated, according to Wolfpack football coach Chuck Amato, who was the defensive coordinator at the time - that certainly had some effect in the Wolfpack's 30-17 victory over Pittsburgh, which two years later won the national championship.

""I'd be happy to repeat [the speech],'' Cowher said three years ago before the Wolfpack and Panthers played again in the 2003 Tangerine Bowl, ""but I don't think you could print any of it. It was one of those things that came from emotion. It was my last game as a senior and we were playing Pittsburgh, which is where I am from.

""It got pretty emotional.''

Emotion and passion have defined Cowher throughout his career as a college and NFL player, and during his 14-year tenure as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Today, for the second time in his career, Cowher will lead the Steelers in the Super Bowl, playing against the Seattle Seahawks at Ford Field in Detroit.

Cowher still has that same passion now, whether he's delivering that square-jawed scowl that looks so menacing on television or he's rooting for one of this three basketball-playing, teenaged daughters: Meagan, who plays at Princeton, and Lauren and Lindsay, who are teammates at Fox Chapel High in Pittsburgh.

And, even though he's Pittsburgh through-and-through, there will always be a huge part of his heart devoted to the Wolfpack. He's a long-time donor to the Wolfpack Club and he comes through Raleigh several times a year, whether he's here to scout players on Pro Timing Day, to drop off one or all of his three daughters at Kay Yow's basketball camp or on his way to the family's beach house on Bald Head Island.

"On a scale of one to 10, I would say his interest in what happens at NC State is a 10," said senior associate athletics director David Horning, a teammate of Cowher's for three years with the Wolfpack and a long-time friend. "He comes by whenever he can, to check on the progress we have made. He's one of ours."

Cowher still has plenty of friends around NC State. He and Horning are still close, as are he and Amato, who still refers to him as "Billy."

"He has really worked hard to get where is," Amato said. "He has taken advantage of it."

Cowher and his wife, former Wolfpack women's basketball player Kaye Young Cowher, remain close to Yow, though they didn't send her a ticket to this year's Super Bowl, the way they did in 1996. Yow attended that game between the Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys in Arizona, but today she and her team have a game at Florida State.

NC State Director of Student-Athlete Welfare D.D. Hoggard was a freshman during the one year that Cowher was a graduate assistant at NC State and was signed by the Cleveland Browns to play special teams under Cowher, who was hired by Marty Schottenheimer immediately after his playing career was over to be the Browns special teams' coach. "He was a great linebacker," said Hoggard, who handles housing and spiritual development for Wolfpack student-athletes. "He always had that fire in him. You always knew that he was going to be successful, in some form or fashion in football, or whatever he chose to do.

"The passion he had as a player, it carried over in coaching." And he still has a rooting interest for the Wolfpack. Two years ago, Cowher was at dinner with Amato, Horning and Ben Bedini, a long-time friend of Amato's and a consultant for the Wolfpack football program. They watched Herb Sendek and the men's basketball team win an ACC game at Clemson, and Cowher gave Sendek a congratulatory call.

It was a thrill for Sendek, a Pittsburgh native who grew up listening to Steeler games on the radio. Though he's never been to a regular-season or playoff game, Sendek still ranks among one of Raleigh's most prominent Steeler fans.

"He's always nice enough to stop by," said Sendek, who will lead his team in a traditional Super Bowl Sunday matchup against Maryland at 2 p.m. at the RBC Center. "I have had a chance to sit down and talk with him a couple of times, mostly about coaching. I have asked him some questions and we have talked."

So, for the old friends Cowher made while he was in school and the ones he has made since he left, there is little doubt about who to root for in Super Bowl XL, even though former Wolfpack offensive lineman Sean Locklear, who played under Amato, has been a starter all year for the Seahawks. They'll be on the side of Iron City beer, chipped ham and the Terrible Towel, over a grande latte from Starbucks and sushi. "I'll be rooting like mad for the Steelers to win," Amato said. "I'll be rooting for Bill."

Or, as some around NC State still know him, Billy.

You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

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