The Jester’s Quart

Jan. 27, 2006

The Jester’s Quart: Cowhering in Fear

"A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning."

Vince Lombardi? George Halas? Brett Favre?

Billie Jean King, actually. Amazing that a tennis pro knows more about the value of victory than the majority of football pundits.

We hear it all the time when the discussion turns to sports history; when debate is focused on a certain player or coach and his place within the context of that history. We hear how winning -- despite being the undeniable objective of every team that wasn't the 1983-84 Pittsburgh Penguins -- shouldn't be the determining factor when it comes to immortality. Ignore that Ernie Banks never earned a ring. Forget that Charles Barkley couldn't outshine his peers for a championship. Place Dan Marino on the same altar as Elway and Montana, even if he blew his only shot at the Lombardi Trophy.

Notice how they don't call it the Bud Grant Trophy or the Marv Levy Trophy? Both of those guys frequented the Super Bowl more often than Vinny did; it's just that Lombardi actually won the thing. Twice.

As we approach Super Bowl XL, we focus our attention on a pair of very different coaches. Seattle's Mike Holmgren won Super Bowl XXXI and looks like one of your dad's drinking buddies. Pittsburgh's Bill Cowher lost Super Bowl XXX and looks like the physical education teacher who made you cry in the ninth grade locker room.

Should Holmgren win this championship game, his place in NFL history is cemented: he will become the first coach to win the Super Bowl with two different franchises. That's something even Bill Parcells hasn't been able to do, despite hopping from team to team more than Kent Graham in the last 10 seasons. If Holmgren wins, the Pro Football Hall of Fame should be chiseling his bust moments after Hasselbeck tells us which Disney park he'll be attending.

Some believe Cowher has already qualified for the Hall of Fame based on his 14 years as Steelers coach. And by "some" I mean the two random knuckleheads I heard on ESPN Radio last weekend who treated the notion that Cowher was a Hall of Famer with the same blasé attitude one might have upon hearing Britney Spears was barefoot while pregnant. (I'm fairly certain one of the aforementioned knuckleheads was Sean Salisbury, whose NFL job stability made Kent Graham's look like Troy Aikman's.)

Did I miss the memo where Cowher's election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame was switched from "possible" to "impending?" Doesn't he have to -- and please stop me if is this outrageous notion offends your rational sensibilities as a God-fearing citizen - actually accomplish something, anything, worthy of enshrinement?

Through the 2005 season, Cowher is 141-82-1 in the regular season, 10-9 in the postseason with a loss in the Super Bowl thanks to Neil O'Donnell. He has a .603 winning percentage, which is better than Chuck Noll's (.564) over 23 seasons with Pittsburgh.

Of course, Noll was 16-8 in the postseason and won four Super Bowls. Which means Cowher shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. As Noll.

Cowher has to win this game against Seattle, or another Bowl down the line, to merit a spot in the Hall of Fame. There are currently 20 coaches in Canton, with John Madden (a two-time Bowl winner) among the finalists for 2006. The majority of the coaches that were on the sidelines during the Super Bowl era have rings. Those who do not are, by and large, special cases:

George Allen never had a losing season, has the second-best winning percentage among coaches in NFL history, and was a defensive innovator.

Sid Gillman was...Sid Gillman. Unless I missed that time when Cowher invented throwing the deep ball, I'm pretty sure there's no comparison here.

The two Super Bowl era coaches in the Hall of Fame without a Bowl victory are both complete anomalies. Bud Grant won 10 of 11 division titles from 1968-1978 and made four Super Bowls. Marv Levy also made four Bowls -- in a row -- with the Buffalo Bills, who were first in the AFC in winning percentage for nearly a decade.

That Levy is in Canton leaves the door open for Cowher more than any other coach's enshrinement, especially if the Steelers make another Bowl following this one (should they lose). Since Cowher took over in Pittsburgh, the Steelers have been in six conference championship games, winning twice. They've made the postseason in 10 of his 14 seasons. There's no denying that Cowher will leave, when he leaves, as one of professional football's most successful coaches for wins and losses.

But is that enough?

Admittedly, I'm as much the Canton Nazi as I am the Cooperstown Nazi (as you'll see in my new book, "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History," which in a shameful plug I will remind you is available on Amazon.com as we speak). The Cooperstown Nazi is, like Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, a cantankerous curmudgeon who does not put up with substandard behavior or failure to meet certain protocols. If you can't be named amongst the truly immortal names in your chosen profession without straining credibility or common sense...then NO PLAQUE FOR YOU!

Same goes for football. If Cowher ends up losing this game against Seattle and then fails to win a Super Bowl before handing over the Steelers to whomever coaches them for the following two decades, is he elite? Is he immortal? Can you put him next to Noll, Lombardi, Landry and Gibbs without wondering if the ringless belongs next to the Lords of the Rings?

Face it: until he wins the Super Bowl, the only reason Bill Cowher should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is so we can find out what the official sculptor does with that chin.

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Published on the web and www.SportsFanMagazine.com since 1997, "The Jester's Quart" is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book “Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History” will be published in Spring 2006. Email Wyshynski at jestersquart@hotmail.com.