“One for the Thumb” – Pittsburgh Steelers motto, 1981

WordsMatterBlog was designed to analyze the meaning and impact of quotations on U.S. history and national affairs. For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you know that my definition of “national affairs” includes the television show “Mad Men” and sports.  New episodes of “Mad Men” will not arrive until at least the Summer and the Super Bowl is in two days, so this post is about sports, specifically Super Bowl XLV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers.

When I thought about what quotation I would write relating to this game, I quickly recalled two; one from each team. The first was legendary Green Bay Packers’ coach Vince Lombardi’s famous attributed line, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” But I wrote about that two weeks ago before the Packers ousted the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship Game, so that was out.

The other is a beloved motto from the glorious past of the Steelers: “One For the Thumb.” It was the rallying cry of the Steelers back in 1981 as the aging core of a four-time Super Bowl championship squad made one last push for a fifth ring. Pittsburgh fell short that season, finishing 8-8 and failing to qualify for the playoffs. It marked the beginning of what was for them a relative dry patch that would last until the 1992 season. Since then the Steelers–the epitome of professional sports stability, with only three coaches since the Johnson Administration–have qualified for the playoffs 13 times in 19 seasons. They also earned that One for the Thumb with a win in Super Bowl XL as well as another for the the ring finger on their other hand with the Super Bowl XLIII title.

The Steelers teams of the 1970s are the greatest in the history of the National Football League. They won all four of their Super Bowl appearances (IX, X, XIII, and XIV) covering six seasons. They have an astounding ten members of those teams in Pro Football Hall of Fame: Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Ham, Mel Blount, Jack Lambert, Mike Webster, “Mean” Joe Greene, and coach Chuck Noll. Bradshaw is probably the most renowned of these men by virtue of his exposure making and laughing at bad jokes and non-jokes as part of the Fox NFL Sunday studio team. But Greene may have been the most iconic of this memorable bunch, largely because of his starring role in one of the most celebrated commercials of its time, an ad for Coke that all football fans over the age of 35 remember vividly.

With the great history of these prestigious teams established through quotations, my attention now turns to making a prediciton for the game. Granted, it is not a large sample size–and the predictions have not been especially ambitious–but my sports prognostication on this site have panned out pretty well. I wrote that the New Orleans Saints would beat the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV 31-27. New Orleans won 31-17. I predicted the Packers would beat the Bears on the road in this years NFC Championship and they did. Last Summer, after LeBron James broke the collective hearts of Cleveland, Ohio by announcing that he was “taking his talents to South Beach,” I criticized Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s weird and childish response, which included a GUARANTEE [sic] that his team would win a championship before James does in Miami, by noting, “I’d be shocked if the Cavaliers win more games in the next two seasons combined than Miami wins next year.” The Cavaliers are currently 8-41 and with a loss tonight in Memphis, they will tie the NBA record for most consecutive losses in a single season (23.)

To the Super Bowl prediction: Steely McBeam (yes, he’s on Twitter) will be Steely McBummed. The Packers are hungrier and hotter than Pittsburgh and they have already adjusted to the unusually high number of injuries to key players they have suffered throughout the season, while the Steelers will try to repel Green Bay’s intense pass rush with a makeshift offensive line anchored by a backup center starting for only the fifth time in his brief career. By late Sunday night, the spirits of Wisconsinites will be warmer than a melted log of Velveeta. Packers 20 Steelers 10.

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