FOND FAREWELL

Terry Bradshaw, as naive and impressionable as any NFL rookie could be, walked into the Pittsburgh Steelers’ brand new quarters in Three Rivers Stadium in 1970 and gazed eagerly around.

The spacious locker room, the stalls that were more than a nail in the wall, the training room with--get this--a huge whirlpool? They were all too much for this small-college kid and the struggling franchise he played for.

Excitedly, he walked up to a blackboard and wrote a single word, one that rarely had been used to describe the Steelers in their 38-season existence.

“Winners.”

With that one-word message delivered by a player who would not live up to his own prediction for four more years, the Steelers officially moved into their new house, one they expected to call home for ever and ever.

Not quite.

Earlier this fall, the Pirates couldn’t wait to vacate Three Rivers Stadium and its unappealing decor, its distorted sight lines and ugly artificial turf. But when the Steelers defeated the Washington Redskins, 24-3, Saturday in the stadium’s last game, there were tears in the eyes of more than a few Pittsburghers, and not just because of the blustery weather.

“It will be sad to see it come down,” Steeler President Dan Rooney said. “I don’t want to get sentimental, but it will be a sad occasion.”

Bradshaw never realized how right he would be.

Pittsburgh was known nationally as the “City of Champions” in the 1970s, and Three Rivers--a name derived from its location where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio River--was the stadium of champions. In its first 10 years of existence, about the time similar circular concrete stadiums were built in Atlanta, St. Louis and Cincinnati, Three Rivers was home to four Super Bowl champions and two World Series champions, plus 13 division champions (the Steelers won seven, the Pirates six). In college football, Pittsburgh defeated Penn State at Three Rivers en route to its 1976 college football national championship.

Three Rivers “was the catalyst that brought everything together,” former Steeler Coach Chuck Noll said. “I remember coming into the players’ locker room at our first game there and their eyes sparkled, they just exuded a great deal of enthusiasm. It was very much a factor in our success.”

To Rooney, those who trash Three Rivers and all the unfashionable things it now stands for-- multipurpose uniformity rather than unique individuality, fake grass--should remember where the Pirates and Steelers were before moving there.

Nowhere.

Forbes Field was small and baseball-friendly--until fans tried to squeeze into uncomfortable seats, or waited in long restroom or concession lines. Even if the game was good, the one-hour wait to exit a traffic-clogged university neighborhood never was.

The Steeler facilities were worse. After years of sharing Forbes Field with the Pirates, they moved into Pitt Stadium in the 1960s, but again weren’t the primary occupant. They didn’t have their own locker room, and the field often was chewed up if Pitt had played the previous day.

Practice conditions were primitive in South Park, a county-run facility that lacked the comforts players now take for granted--hot water, lockers, carpeting. The circus sometimes performed there, leaving behind a stench that players practiced in for weeks.

But when they moved into Three Rivers to play and practice, the Steelers finally had a level playing field, even if they weren’t the only team using it.

Fortified by a run of draft picks such as Bradshaw and Mean Joe Greene and led by a coach, Noll, who refused to live in the franchise’s unsuccessful past, the Steelers went 11-3 and made the playoffs in 1972. Some called it a miracle.

Actually, the miracle was about to happen.

In the final minute of a playoff game against Oakland, rookie Franco Harris made a shoetop grab of a fourth-down pass that had ricocheted wildly when the Raiders’ Jack Tatum and the Steelers’ Frenchy Fuqua collided, and scored the most improbable touchdown in NFL history.

The imperfect play--the Raiders still argue the ball deflected from one teammate to another, against the rules at the time--immediately gained a perfect nickname.

The Immaculate Reception gave Three Rivers an identity, one forged by talented teams that rarely lost there and their imaginative fans, who formed Franco’s Italian Army, wore gorilla suits for kicker Roy Gerela, and coined “Steel Curtain” for the defense.

“The Immaculate Reception put us on a different plane, and it brought all the fans together,” Rooney said. “The biggest thing Three Rivers did for us, it gave us a sense that this place was it. It was a very special place.”

Three Rivers was more than one amazing catch for the Steelers.

The Raiders still think the Steelers intentionally iced the field before the AFC title game in January 1976. The Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee without ever paying back the Steelers for two AFC title game losses there. Seven Steelers--including Bradshaw--paved their path to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Three Rivers’ turf.

Now, all that’s left is when Three Rivers comes tumbling down Feb. 18, imploded so as not to disrupt the new Steeler stadium next door or the nearly completed Pirate ballpark across the street.

Its death may be premature. Unlike similar stadiums in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, Three Rivers was well-maintained and never allowed to deteriorate. A new restaurant was added a couple of years ago, a facelift for the 1994 major league All-Star game brightened it up. Now, in a few months, it will be a pile of rubble, its assets--seats and scoreboards--scattered among smaller stadiums nationwide.

Then, only memories will remain from a stadium that never was truly loved but never truly hated.

“You can’t help but feel the history here,” the Steelers’ Lee Flowers said. “I think everybody will be a little bit sad. We’re looking forward to the new stadium, but everybody realizes what we’re losing, too.”

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Three Rivers Run Deep

Some Pittsburgh Steeler memories at Three Rivers Stadium over its 30 years:

* Dec. 23, 1972--Perhaps the most famous play in pro football history gives the Steelers an improbable victory. Rookie running back Franco Harris snatches a fourth-down, deflected pass from Terry Bradshaw off his shoetops and runs for a touchdown in the final minute that allows the Steelers to defeat the Oakland Raiders, 13-7, for the first playoff victory in franchise history. Later that night, a fan calls Steeler broadcaster Myron Cope and suggests a fitting nickname for the play for the ages: the Immaculate Reception.

* Jan. 4, 1976--During a cold, windy night, the tarpaulin covering the artificial turf tears, leaving the playing field a sheet of ice for the Steelers’ 16-10 victory over Oakland in the AFC championship game. Afterward, Raider Coach John Madden questions if the Steelers intentionally allowed the field to freeze to benefit their running game. Steeler linebacker Jack Ham said, “Home field advantage never meant more.”

* Jan. 7, 1979--Bradshaw picks apart Houston’s pass defense on a rain-soaked field as the Steelers win the AFC championship game, 34-5.

* Jan. 6, 1980--With the help of a debated call that cost Houston’s Mike Renfro an apparent touchdown reception, the Steelers defeat the Oilers, 27-13, in the AFC championship game. The Steelers go on to win their fourth Super Bowl in six seasons.

* Oct. 7, 1990--A statue honoring Steeler founder Art Rooney is dedicated.

* Jan. 14, 1996--The Steelers survive Jim Harbaugh’s last-play desperation pass to defeat the Indianapolis Colts, 16-14, in the AFC championship game.

* Dec. 16, 2000--The Steelers, with no chance to play host to a playoff game, defeat the Washington Redskins, 24-3, in the final game at Three Rivers.