By John Turney 
Steve Massey’s Revolution: The Transformation of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL is a meticulously researched and engaging exploration of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ rise to dominance in the 1970s, a period that not only defined the franchise but also reshaped professional football. Published on August 14, 2025, Massey offers a detailed account of how the Steelers, between 1969 and 1974, laid the groundwork for a dynasty that would leave a huge mark on the NFL.
Massey’s central thesis is that the Steelers’ success was no accident but the result of deliberate, innovative strategies that revolutionized team-building and gameplay. It is contrasted with the lack of success of the earlier Steelers eras.
The book highlights key developments, such as the adoption of specified weight training, the creation of defensive schemes like the Cover 2 and Stunt 4-3, the establishment of the BLESTO draft combine, and the strategic recruitment from Historically Black Colleges. These innovations, combined with the cultivation of Hall of Fame talent and coaching, transformed the Steelers into a multi-championship powerhouse, winning four Super Bowls in the 1970s, the first, Super Bowl IX, is featured prominently.
Drawing from an impressive array of sources—with nearly 1,500 reference notes (1,477 to be exact), including player and front-office interviews (including Interviews with Art Rooney Jr, Dan Pastorini, Louis Lipps, Jim Cheyunski, J.R. Wilburn, Gordon Gravelle, Bruce Van Dyke, Terry Hanratty); historical newspapers, and NFL biographies and other books and texts—Massey constructs a game-by-game roadmap of the Steelers’ journey to Super Bowl win(s).
There is a logical and chronological approach that is one of the book’s strengths, offering readers a vivid sense of the incremental steps that built a dynasty. It's a personal preference but it’s a format I like.
The author’s ability to weave together technical details, such as defensive alignments, with human stories, like the impact of a single player’s rule-changing performance, makes the narrative both informative and compelling.
The book excels in contextualizing the Steelers’ transformation within the broader evolution of the NFL. Massey illustrates how their innovations influenced league-wide practices, from scouting to training regimens.
Overall, Revolution is a must-read for Steelers fans and students of football history will also like it. The amount of research and clear passion for the subject make this book a definitive account of how a once-struggling franchise redefined excellence in the NFL. It’s a testament to the power of vision, strategy, and execution in achieving greatness.
I am not in love with the cover: plain black with gold lettering, but it does make a statement—simple and dominant. So it serves a purpose. It consists of 405 pages of text plus 75 pages of endnotes.
It is an impressive book, covering a great topic in a great era and is well-covered. It is well worth the purchase; it's a great read.
About the author:
Steve Massey grew up in the 1970s and became a Steelers fan and has followed the team throughout his life. He graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a degree in history and retired from teaching seven years ago. His passion is especially when it includes sports, specifically the NFL. This book is the product of six years of research and writing.
This is his second book about the NFL; the first one was "Starless: The 1947 Steelers", which was also excellent.
Any references to the steroid use by the Steelers linemen?
ReplyDeleteSeveral responses and all of them dodged your question. Unfortunately anabolic steroid (important to distinguish anabolic steroid from a steroid like cortisone) use in the NFL gets a pass. Odd since several well known players likely wouldn't have had the careers they had without them. Saying "you need coaching to get the most out of them" is a dodge.
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ReplyDeleteThanks John, it does sound like an excellent read.
If young, tough players out of college are going to use steroids properly, they need to listen to their coaches to get the most out of them, so specific weight-training and regimens helped turn a laughing-stock team into a powerhouse. Hopefully Dick Haley gets scouting credit in this book along with Nunn.
The Steelers were smart not worrying about older veterans and trade targets that wouldnt buy into what they were wanting but the younger players did and the future was now with every draft. Youth movement or not, the Vikings and Cowboys had their chances to beat them but werent prepared for their physical style of play. Bad game plans as well.
They were also using what Noll learned with the Chargers ... strength matters
DeleteAs they say the winners write the history and Pittsburgh won alot in the 70's. But some of this is Steeler propaganda.
ReplyDeletePittsburgh was not a pioneer at scouting and drafting HBCU players. In fact a quick scan of Paul Brown's Bengals 1968-74 shows 21 drafted players by Cincy from HBCUs 14 for Pittsburgh over that time.
Being that Noll was a disciple of Brown I wouldn't be surprised if that's where he got the idea from.
BW ...
DeleteThe Chiefs with Lloyd Wells went after these players as well ...
You can read the first 7 chapters of the book for free at the Kindle preview at Amazon ...give it a shot!
DeleteI would like to address a couple of things you say in your post. My book does give rightful credit to Lloyd Wells of the Kansas City Chiefs as the first HBCU-exclusive scout. I provide prominent details on Paul Brown's use of black players, such as Marion Motley, as early as the 1940s and 1950s. You are absolutely right about Brown's progressive outlook. The Bengals-Steelers rivalry is given in-depth coverage, and that includes the relationship between Noll and Brown.
Additionally, I talk about Lombardi's willingness to bring in players from HBCUs. I include Sid Gillman's Chargers as being influential on Noll (he was DC), and Hank Stram's Redwoods came from black schools as well.
It was not "Noll's idea" to use Bill Nunn to scout HBCU players. Noll was hired in January 1969. Bill Nunn was scouting part-time from 1967 and full-time in 1968 for the Steelers. The Rooneys brought him in as an exclusive scout two years before Noll. Nunn’s role is underplayed in the book, comparatively speaking. My focus was a bit more towards BLESTO scouts, who are not as well known.
I also point out in the book that players from HBCUs were in the pros before Nunn and Wells made their impact. Gillman, Noll, Lombardi, Stram, and Don Shula had two things in common. One, they were all willing to bring in talent from any school. Two, they won championships.
There are several topics besides the draft. I do not give the Steelers credit for inventing all of them but I do give them credit for refining the ones they didn’t create.
I hope my book isn’t propaganda but I will admit I’m an unabashed Steelers fan.
Steve
You can read the first 7 chapters of the book for free at the Kindle preview at Amazon ...give it a shot!
DeleteI would like to address a couple of things you say in your post. My book does give rightful credit to Lloyd Wells of the Kansas City Chiefs as the first HBCU-exclusive scout. I provide prominent details on Paul Brown's use of black players, such as Marion Motley, as early as the 1940s and 1950s. You are absolutely right about Brown's progressive outlook. The Bengals-Steelers rivalry is given in-depth coverage, and that includes the relationship between Noll and Brown.
Additionally, I talk about Lombardi's willingness to bring in players from HBCUs. I include Sid Gillman's Chargers as being influential on Noll (he was DC), and Hank Stram's Redwoods came from black schools as well.
It was not "Noll's idea" to use Bill Nunn to scout HBCU players. Noll was hired in January 1969. Bill Nunn was scouting part-time from 1967 and full-time in 1968 for the Steelers. The Rooneys brought him in as an exclusive scout two years before Noll. Nunn’s role is underplayed in the book, comparatively speaking. My focus was a bit more towards BLESTO scouts, who are not as well known.
I also point out in the book that players from HBCUs were in the pros before Nunn and Wells made their impact. Gillman, Noll, Lombardi, Stram, and Don Shula had two things in common. One, they were all willing to bring in talent from any school. Two, they won championships.
There are several topics besides the draft. I do not give the Steelers credit for inventing all of them but I do give them credit for refining the ones they didn’t create.
I hope my book isn’t propaganda but I will admit I’m an unabashed Steelers fan.
Steve
When I referred to 'Steeler propaganda ' I was reacting more to the ESPN talking head types who like to push that narrative about HBCUs etc. Your book seems well researched so I'll have to check it out.
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DeleteThanks Steve ... I plan to buy the book but being a Steelers fan and historian, do you believe Dick Haley or Art Rooney Jr, deserve to be in the HOF?
What players do you believe are deserving that havent made it? Why is LT Jon Kolb so overlooked or underrated as a player?
Thanks and no worries on the propaganda thing. I get it. The last thing I wanted to do was another rehash of the Steelers' dynasty years. First, there are so many good ones, and second, I couldn’t compete with the talent that wrote them. It was why I chose the specific period of ’69 to ’74. The BLESTO story, the specialization of weight training, the 4-3 stack and cover two, etc, haven’t been covered in a one volume format specific to the early years. I thought it was an interesting topic. I decided to self publish because I didn’t want the book to be sliced up by an editor.
DeleteBTW, I did not delve into the topic of steroids and perhaps I should have. It’s there and we all know about it. I did read Steve Courson’s book and I had a lot of passages, though nothing specifically on steroids. It wasn’t meant to be a whitewash, I just didn’t include it.
I truly appreciate you buying the book…Steve
Great questions. The first player I interviewed for the book was Terry Hanratty, and when Kolb’s name came up, Terry immediately said Kolb belongs in the Hall of Fame. Kolb was not only an especially strong player, but he also coached the team later as Noll’s assistant. I was not aware of Kolb’s importance until I did the research. The 1969 draft was incredibly important, and he and Jim Clack became starters by 1972.
DeleteArt Rooney Jr. told me that one of the Hall of Fame voters once told him that two Rooneys were enough. I hate that because he was so much a part of BLESTO's formation. I can not make too much of an assessment on Haley because his role really develops in full after the time period. Jack Butler was the CEO (for lack of a better term) in those first years (starting in 1963). Steve
"BTW, I did not delve into the topic of steroids and perhaps I should have. It’s there and we all know about it. I did read Steve Courson’s book and I had a lot of passages, though nothing specifically on steroids. It wasn’t meant to be a whitewash, I just didn’t include it."
DeleteIf I may, was not incl steroids perhaps a result of being a Steelers fan? The desire to see childhood heroes as still heroes? Like Giants fans (I'm a Giants fan that wants to see warts and all) refusing to acknowledge or minimize LT's drug use? Granted cocaine isn't an anabolic.
In Skip Bayless's book God's Coach, there's a passage where Randy White says his steroid usage was in response to seeing "the arms with rolled up sleeves of the Steelers offensive linemen."
While steroid usage was absolutely not just by the Steelers of the 70s, I think it could be discussed.
I think it’s a fair point about my fandom weighing on my mind subconsciously. I looked back at the chapter, and it’s probably something I will address in there soon. One of the benefits of self-publishing is the ability to revise. As I said, I used Courson’s book, and maybe it was a disservice to him. I know from “Their Life’s Work” that he was ostracized by many of the Steelers after he left.
ReplyDeleteI’d like to read the Bayless book. On a side note, I did reach out to Thomas Henderson for an interview, but we weren’t able to make that happen.
Another topic I did not cover was CTE. This one I thought of quite a bit, but finally decided not to write about it. I didn’t feel qualified enough to address it. Maybe that, too, was swept under the rug without enough consideration.
I appreciate the feedback. It helps make me a better writer, I think. Steve
Thank you for replying. It really does make a difference when an author/SME converses.
DeleteFor me, the fan I was in the 80s allowed me to buy LT “curing addiction with golf” I guess. I’m not that fan anymore. I also have seen how histories can incl the not so heroic aspects of people/athletes. Although that’s a more modern thing.
Bayless incl a passage where Bob Ward told Bayless of his own personal anabolic experiences. Btw, the Bayless as author of that book sure isn’t the current asshole on media of today.
Yes, I think a book on the 70s Steelers which incl Cowboys input (good work trying to get Henderson) is a good idea. The 2 teams of that era.
Good point about the power of self publishing.
On a side note, would you rate the 1978 Cowboys as slightly better than the Steelers except at WR?
I got Jim Cheyunski and as mentioned Dan Pastorini too. Both were helpful and in the game by game summaries, I have several newspapers from opponents cities.
ReplyDeleteVery close on the 1978 match-up. The Steelers got breaks in that game. The Jackie Smith drop, the questionable interference call on Barnes (I think it was him). The Randy White fumble. I get it when you talk about LT. My maturation as a fan is recognizing how great other teams were and admiring their players.
ReplyDeleteI also missed out on seeing some of the teams, like the Rams. Glad they are on YouTube
“My maturation as a fan is recognizing how great other teams were and admiring their players.“
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