PITTSBURGH – Andy Russell, the standout linebacker who was an integral part of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ evolution from perennial underdog to champion, has died. He was 82.
The team confirmed the death Saturday, with no cause or location disclosed.
A 16th-round pick in the 1963 draft, Russell won two Super Bowl titles during a 12-season NFL career, interrupted by a stint of a couple of years in the military.
Russell spent 10 years as team captain and was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection. His teammates voted Russell the club’s Most Valuable Player in 1971, a campaign in which the roster included members who ended up in the Hall of Fame, such as Joe Greene, Mel Blount, Jack Ham and Terry Bradshaw.
“Andy was part of the foundation of the great Steelers teams of the 1970s,” team president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “He was one of the few players retained by Coach Chuck Noll on the team after he became our coach in 1969. Andy was a team captain, and his leadership was a critical part of Coach Noll’s development of the 1970s Steelers, which paved the way to four Super Bowl championships.”
As smart as he was tough, Russell and his No. 34 were among the few things worth salvaging on a series of Steelers teams that finished near the bottom of the league during the early part of his career.
That changed in 1969, when Noll took over as head coach.
Noll “said, ‘You guys are good people, you’re going to be good citizens. Unfortunately you can’t run fast enough and you can’t jump high enough and I’m going to have to replace most of you,'” Russell recalled in 2006, in an issue of Pittsburgh Quarterly.
Russell was not among those replaced. He became a cornerstone of the defense that helped the franchise win the Super Bowl four times during the 1970s. Without prominence, he had a resume that his peers consider Hall of Fame worthy.