Tuesdays. 3pm. Mr. Greene’s house.
That was the standing time and location that I sat with one of the most iconic figures in sports history to discuss his life for our book, “Built By Football”. Mr. Greene happened to be “Mean” Joe Greene, one of the greatest Pittsburgh Steelers and NFL players of all time. I jokingly referred to it as my version of Mitch Albom’s book, Tuesdays with Morrie, except mine was Tuesdays with “Mean” Joe.
We met every week for about four months. I was 39 and Mr. Greene was 71 at the time, but he was still every bit of 6’5”, well over 250 pounds, and imposing. I was lifting heavy back then, proud that I’d built myself up to about 210 at 5’11” and yet, when I first met him I felt like a little kid. When we shook, his hand swallowed mine whole, like he was palming a Hot Wheels car.
I am from Boston and Joe grew up in a small town in Texas. I peaked as a high school punter and back-up fullback, while he peaked as arguably the greatest defensive lineman ever. Our ages. Our backgrounds. Our dimensions. None of them were similar, but we had a lot in common, talking for hours, with the chit-chat often bleeding into our official “autobiography interview” time.
Over iced tea in his family room, with his NFL Hall of Fame bust looking on, we’d sit across from each other on thick, comfortable couches and we’d talk about anything and everything. Life, basketball (especially Bill Russell and the Celtics), mentoring, teaching, parenting, and of course, the NFL and the Steelers. It was an absolute career highlight that I will cherish forever.
As my kids have gotten older and I’ve gotten deeper into my career, I’ve found myself retelling pieces of his story to my kids or to friends regularly. While you know about Mean Joe because of his 4 Super Bowl wins and Hall of Fame status, you don’t know what it took to get there.
In fact, that was one of the main tenets of our agreement to write his autobiography together. He didn’t want to talk about the Steelers Super Bowls anymore. They’d been analyzed and discussed in documentaries a million times.
Our book was going to be about the road he took to get there. The things he hadn’t talked about. The good stuff.
With the NFL season rolling, I thought it would be cool to share four of the biggest lessons on success, failure, and winning I picked up from our time together:
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ONE
Success Can Come from Anywhere
You can’t get more “off the radar” sports-wise than Joe Greene’s pre-college football career. He was not a phenom or young stud on the field by any stretch. Quite the opposite.
He was bullied mercilessly as a freshman; so much so that he used to hide out in closets after school to avoid the bullies and then he’d race home along a series of back roads and alleys to avoid getting beat up every day.
When he finally started playing football, to put it kindly, he was terrible and in his own words, had a bad attitude. He became a starter as a senior, but none of the major programs looked at him. Not Oklahoma. Not Texas. Not Texas A&M.
Nobody expected much from him when he finally decided to play at North Texas. But despite never playing in a bowl game, he was an All-American and got drafted by the Steelers. Not bad. Never count yourself out.
TWO
Failure is Only a Moment in Time
99% of NFL fans remember “Mean” Joe Greene as perhaps the most dominating member of the most dominating defense in NFL history. Only die-hard Steelers fans remember that Pittsburgh was 1-13 Greene’s rookie year and that he was miserable.
He hated the cold, the steel smoke in the sky, and, most of all, hated losing. He could have dwelled on that first season and forced his way out or caused problems (like most modern athletes), but he stuck around and worked harder than ever…and we all know how that turned out.
THREE
Credit Others First; Yourself Last.
While we wrote Mr. Greene’s book, I can tell you that he talked about legendary Coach Chuck Noll and his teammates far more than he talked about himself. He mentions over and over again that the one thing that kept him going during his early miserable time in Pittsburgh was his belief in Coach Noll and his belief in the men going to battle on the field with him.
Throughout the book Joe heaps praise on his high school coaches and college coaches and specific teammates who got him through tough times. That’s probably why those teammates were all willing and eager to write forewords for his book. He was a team-first guy.
FOUR
Take Time to Enjoy Achievement
“I enjoyed that win all the way until the first day of training camp the next year.” – “Mean” Joe Greene, referring to the months after the Steelers’ first Super Bowl win.
Greene literally saw Pittsburgh rise from one of the worst teams in the NFL to the best. He was there at rock bottom and was a key reason they reached the mountaintop. He put in the blood, sweat and tackles to make it happen. When he finally won that title, he let himself enjoy what he called the “euphoria” of winning.
I love this last one so much.
Any guy out there who has worked long and hard towards a goal understands that when you reach it, you don’t know how to act. Sometimes, there’s a “now what?” feeling. It’s important to understand that in the short term (maybe it’s a few days, weeks, or months), it’s okay for the answer to the “now what?” question to simply be: enjoy the euphoria of winning.
Yes, it won’t last forever. Yes, you’ll need a new challenge and a new goal.
But what the hell is the point of dedicating your life to achieving something if you aren’t going to give yourself permission to bask in the success for a while?
I could have listed twenty things I learned from Mr. Greene. But these are the ones I come back to with my kids over and over.
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Jon Finkel
Editor-in-Chief, Midlife Male
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