Background and career
William Laird Cowher (; born May 8, 1957) is an American former professional football linebacker and coach who served as the head coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons. He began his coaching career as an assistant under Marty Schottenheimer for the Cleveland Browns and Kansas City Chiefs, serving as the latter's defensive coordinator from 1989 to 1991. In 1992, Cowher was named head coach of the Steelers, a position he held until his retirement following the 2006 season. After retiring, Cowher joined The NFL Today as a studio analyst. Under Cowher, the Steelers won eight division titles, two AFC Championship Games, and Super Bowl XL. Cowher's Super Bowl victory marked the first championship title for the franchise in over two decades and the first not to be won by Chuck Noll, his predecessor. The Steelers appeared in the postseason 10 times with Cowher, including six consecutive appearances from his 1992 hiring to 1997, which made him the second NFL head coach to reach the playoffs during each of his first six seasons after Paul Brown. Cowher was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2020.
Cowher was born and raised in Crafton, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Growing up, he lived only about 5 miles (8.0 km) from Three Rivers Stadium. Cowher is the son of the late Laird and Dorothy Cowher. His father attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh's Bluff neighborhood, where he was briefly a classmate with eventual Steelers owner Dan Rooney. Cowher has two brothers, Dale and Doug. The Cowher family resided on Hawthorne Avenue, in Crafton, while Cowher grew up.
While attending Carlynton High School, Cowher excelled in football, basketball, and track. As a senior, he was named "Most Athletic" and captain of the Cougars football team. Despite his efforts on the field, Cowher was not offered many scholarships as a football player due to being deemed "undersized" for the linebacker position. When Cowher graduated in 1975, he committed to North Carolina State University, one of the few schools that offered him a scholarship. During his time at NC State, Cowher was a three-year starting linebacker for the Wolfpack. He currently owns the school record for most tackles in a single season with 195. As a senior, Cowher was voted to be a team captain and was named the team's Most Valuable Player (MVP). He graduated from NC State in 1979, receiving a bachelor's degree in education while also preparing for the 1979 NFL Draft. Cowher's college performance was motivated by making games “personal”. He would often re-read his rejection letters from schools he would play against. Cowher's strategy of playing angry and internalizing personal connections against his opponents would later influence his aggressive coaching style. Cowher once compared himself to Freddy Krueger, stating that he wanted to be his opponents' "worst nightmare".
Cowher went undrafted in the 1979 NFL draft. He began his NFL career as a linebacker with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1979, but signed with the Cleveland Browns the following year. Cowher played three seasons from 1980 to 1982 in Cleveland, making him a member of the Kardiac Kids, before being traded back to the Eagles, where he played two more years from 1983 to 1984. His tenure in Philadelphia included tackling a young Jeff Fisher (who later became the head coach of the Tennessee Titans and St. Louis Rams) when playing against the Chicago Bears, causing Fisher to break his leg. The two would later be rival head coaches and friends in the AFC Central division, and Fisher has credited his injury at the hands of Cowher with having the unintended consequence of propelling him into coaching. Cowher primarily played special teams during his playing career; subsequently, he placed emphasis on special teams during his coaching career. Cowher credits being a "bubble player" during his playing career with influencing his coaching career, feeling that such players work the hardest for a roster spot (and sometimes still get cut, hence the term "bubble player"), and thus make better head coaches than those with successful playing careers.
Cowher began his coaching career in 1985 at age 28 under Marty Schottenheimer with the Cleveland Browns. Cowher, who had played under Schottenheimer in Cleveland when Schottenheimer was the team's defensive coordinator, stated that he took a coaching position despite taking a significant pay cut from what he would have made as a player with the Eagles in 1985 because he saw his fortunes as a player limited and saw more of a future as a coach. Cowher was the Browns' special teams coach in 1985–86 and secondary coach in 1987–88, during which he formed a bond with New York Giants defensive coordinator Bill Belichick and helped Belichick learn how to coach defensive backs while teaching Cowher how to coach linebackers. Belichick was impressed enough with Cowher that he and Giants head coach Bill Parcells offered to make Cowher the Giants defensive backs coach following Schottenheimer's sudden departure from Cleveland in 1988, but Cowher opted to remain loyal to Schottenheimer. Following Schottenheimer to the Kansas City Chiefs in 1989, Cowher was named defensive coordinator, becoming close with legendary Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas. He interviewed with the Browns for their head coaching vacancy in 1991 before losing out to close friend Belichick; it is believed that Cowher's young age at the time played a factor in losing out to Belichick. Cowher was a finalist for the Cincinnati Bengals head coaching position in 1991 following the dismissal of Sam Wyche, but was passed over in favor of Dave Shula.
Cowher became the 15th head coach in Steelers history when he succeeded Chuck Noll on January 21, 1992 – but only the team's second head coach since the NFL merger in 1970, beating out fellow Pittsburgh native and Pitt alumnus (and eventual Pitt head coach) Dave Wannstedt (Wannstedt instead became the coach of the Chicago Bears the following season). Cowher continued a trend for the Steelers hiring coaches in their 30s that dates back to Joe Bach who began coaching the Steelers in 1935 when they were still named the Pittsburgh Pirates. Under Cowher, the Steelers showed an immediate improvement from the disappointing 7–9 season the year before, going 11–5 and earning home-field advantage in the AFC after the Steelers had missed the playoffs six times out of the previous seven years. His first season as a head coach came to an end in the AFC Divisional round on January 9, 1993, against the Buffalo Bills in which the Steelers would lose 24–3.
