All Good Things Must Come to an End

Cue the goodbyes.

First to Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium, which passes into history today with the final Steeler game after 31 seasons in the once-so-modern stadium at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers.

A new facility--replete with suites and club lounges and natural grass instead of artificial turf--rises next door.

Sunday’s farewell will be to Jerry Rice, playing his final home game as a San Francisco 49er before finishing his career elsewhere--barring an unforeseen change of heart by the 38-year-old receiver or General Manager Bill Walsh, whose eye is on the salary cap.

Still ahead: Goodbye to Denver’s Mile High Stadium, the piecemeal palace born as a small baseball stadium in 1948 only to grow by fits and starts into a 76,098-seat stadium that has been filled for every game since 1970.

The unfinished heir to Mile High sits alongside, and so does a clamor among fans who want to keep the Mile High name on the new stadium instead of giving way to a corporate sponsor.

And what of Troy Aikman? His latest concussion probably spells the end of his career with no chance for a final, emotion-packed game at Texas Stadium.

With a $7-million bonus due Aikman by March 7 to retain his rights, Dallas owner Jerry Jones and Aikman must decide whether he’ll play again, then search for a strategy to avoid what would be a dreadful salary-cap hit if he retires or is released.

Give Aikman time, said agent Leigh Steinberg, who counseled Steve Young through a similar process and called Aikman’s accumulated concussions “deeply troubling.”

“Two weeks ago, he was starting,” Steinberg said. “To expect some rapid assessment, as opposed to a gradual disengagement, is not realistic.

“He’s been an intense competitor since Pop Warner and now all these years in the NFL. We can understand the first priority is his long-term health, and Troy rationally understands that the critical thing is to be able to enjoy life after football. Yet he needs to go through a decision-making process that allows him time to unwind.

“[Warren] Moon retires this year, and it starts looking like the end of an era--Steve, Warren, Troy.”

So, as Proverbs says, “to every thing there is a season. . . . “ This one is ending.

At Three Rivers today, Jack Ham, Mel Blount, Franco Harris, Jack Lambert and Mike Webster will be honorary captains for the game against the Washington Redskins.

ESPN Classic will show a three-hour special on the history of the stadium.

In February, it will be demolished.

To many people, Three Rivers Stadium is just another circular multipurpose stadium, a relic of 1970s sensibility.

But four Super Bowl championship Steeler teams, two World Series champion Pirate teams and Pittsburgh’s hardy fans made it something special in its time.

“You tell me. Is there any more beautiful sight of a stadium then when you come in through Fort Pitt, say about 9 p.m., and the lights are lit up?” said Joe Greene, famous as Mean Joe Greene and a Coke pitchman during his days as as part of the Steel Curtain defense. “You tell me something better than that.”

Greene won’t be at Three Rivers because he is an assistant coach with the Arizona Cardinals. Just as well, he said.

“I have a tendency to get emotional about things near and dear to me,” he said. “I don’t think I want to see it.

“I guess what I think about is just seeing that sign on the corner as we came out, ‘You’re in Steeler Country.’ That always had an impact on me.”

Three Rivers was the site of seven AFC title games. Four sent the Steelers to the Super Bowl.

But there is no more memorable moment--perhaps not in all of NFL history--than Harris’ Immaculate Reception to defeat the Oakland Raiders in the 1972 playoffs.

Terry Bradshaw’s last-minute, fourth-down pass to Frenchy Fuqua was deflected--whether it was off Fuqua or the Raiders’ Jack Tatum is still a matter of great dispute--but Harris caught it off the tops of his shoes and ran 60 yards for the winning touchdown.

“By the time I turned around, Jack is jumping up and down, a sinister smile on his face,” Fuqua said. “I watched the smile turn to a frown.

“I rolled over looked downfield, and I couldn’t see anything but hundreds of fans on the field. I looked to my bench and everyone’s running to the end zone. I asked what happened, they told me, ‘I don’t know. I think Franco got it.’ ”

The controversy that still lingers is whether the ball deflected off Fuqua. Under NFL rules at the time, the pass was incomplete if it deflected off an offensive player.

Fuqua won’t say.

“What happened on that play was truly immaculate,” he said. “Read between the lines when I say that.

“I’ve never really been one to hold a secret. Now I’ve become obsessed with it. I’ve been offered certain amounts of money to tell what happened. But there’s something about having something you know [that] no one else knows. That includes [former Raider coach] John Madden.

“It’s Frenchy’s secret, and I’m taking it to the grave with me.”

It’s Three Rivers’ secret too, and if there is a reason the people who played there and watched games there have such an affection for a place that seems so nondescript to others, it’s because the Steelers’ rise began with the stadium.

They were 1-13 the season before they moved into then state-of-the-art Three Rivers in 1970--the year they drafted Bradshaw.

“I think it was a catalyst that brought together fans and players and coaches and the city, and it was a special place,” said Chuck Noll, coach of the great Steeler teams.

The next emotional farewell will be for Mile High Stadium, home of two Super Bowl champions, and host to five AFC title games and untold snow games and John Elway comebacks.

The Broncos’ final regular-season home game is Dec. 23 against the 49ers.

But at 10-4, they still have a chance to play at home in the playoffs.

They’ll be trying to keep Mile High open late.