The following is excerpted from CHUCK NOLL: HIS LIFE’S WORK by Michael MacCambridge. Copyright © 2016 by Michael MacCambridge. Used by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press. All rights reserved.
A few weeks after the retirement, Chuck and Marianne were sitting on the Steelers’ private charter jet out of Pittsburgh headed down to Hilton Head. There was one other passenger—Bill Cowher, who’d recently been named to succeed Chuck as head coach. Cowher’s face was an open book: nose broken by too many tackles, thick mustache giving the appearance of a new cop on the beat, an energized conversationalist who occasionally emitted clouds of spittle when he was particularly excited.