RetroSimba

In high school at suburban St. Louis and in college at the University of Missouri, Andy Russell helped make every football team he played for a winner and was at his best in the most important games.

A hometown standout would seem a natural choice for the St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, Russell played his entire NFL career as an outside linebacker with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He was named to the Pro Bowl seven times in 12 seasons and was captain of the Steel Curtain defense that transformed the franchise into Super Bowl champions.

In his rookie season in 1963, Russell stung the Cardinals, intercepting a pass in a Steelers win.

Executive’s son

Charles Andrew “Andy” Russell was born in Detroit and lived in Chicago and New York before his family moved to the St. Louis suburb of Ladue. His father’s job as an executive with Monsanto, the chemical company, required the relocations.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Andy Russell said his father William “was an immigrant who came to the United States from Scotland in 1922 at age 11. He was proud of making his way in this new world. It’s a million miles from the tenements of Glasgow to the top ranks of Monsanto.”

Andy Russell became an accomplished fullback on the Ladue Horton Watkins High School football team. Nicknamed “The Horse” because of his power and ability to stiff-arm tacklers, Russell led the team to an 8-0 record his senior season in 1958.

He chose Missouri from among 25 college scholarship offers because, in part, “I was impressed particularly with the members of the faculty whom I met,” Russell told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

As Russell entered college, his father got promoted to lead Monsanto’s overseas division. Andy’s parents moved to Brussels, Belgium (and later Geneva, Switzerland), and Monsanto provided Andy with roundtrip airfare each summer during his college years to join them in Europe, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Missouri Tiger

In Russell’s three varsity seasons (1960-62) as a fullback and linebacker for head coach Dan Devine, Missouri was 25-4-3, including victories against Navy in the Orange Bowl and Georgia Tech in the Bluebonnet Bowl.

As a junior in 1961, Russell was Missouri’s leading rusher, but defense was where he excelled the most. At linebacker, he played “aggressively and with intuition, diagnosing running plays and wheeling back to knock down and intercept passes,” columnist Bob Broeg noted in the Post-Dispatch.

Playing before 71,218 spectators, including President-elect John F. Kennedy, in the Orange Bowl, Russell intercepted two passes from Navy quarterback Hal Spooner.

In Missouri’s 10-0 victory versus Oklahoma State in 1961, Russell scored the lone touchdown, intercepting a pass and returning it 47 yards for the score. The next year, he picked off two passes to help Missouri beat Nebraska, 16-7.

In his final game for Missouri at the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, Russell made two interceptions and nine tackles. He also threw the key block to spring Bill Tobin on a 77-yard touchdown run.

As the St. Louis Globe-Democrat noted, Russell “always seems to rise to the occasion in important games.”

Join the club

During a visit to St. Louis, William Russell took Andy to a Cardinals football game and was disheartened by the brutality he witnessed on the field. According to Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, the father said, “Son, promise me one thing: You will never play pro football.” Andy replied, “Don’t worry.”

Andy Russell planned to start a business career in St. Louis after he graduated. He also was facing a stint in the Army because he had completed the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program at Missouri.

“I never even considered pro football,” Russell said to The Pittsburgh Press. “I can honestly say the thought never occurred to me.”

During his senior year, when NFL teams sent Russell questionnaires that included a query on whether he wanted to play pro football, Russell checked the box marked “no.” According to the Associated Press, the only team that didn’t mail him a survey was the Steelers. So they didn’t know he was uninterested.

The Steelers had traded their top seven spots in the 1963 NFL draft and didn’t have a pick until the eighth round. When their turn came in the 16th round, the Steelers selected Russell, then sent scout Will Walls to meet with him. Walls “gave me a real sales talk on the (team’s) shortage of linebackers,” Russell recalled to the Post-Gazette. “That convinced me that I had a chance.”

After graduating from Missouri in June 1963 with a degree in economics, Russell signed with the Steelers. According to the Associated Press, he got a $12,000 contract and $3,000 signing bonus. Russell planned to play one season for the money, then pursue a graduate degree. At the Steelers’ suggestion, he asked the Army for a delay in fulfilling his ROTC commitment and it was granted.

Making the grade

The 1963 Steelers were loaded with characters. “That was a fun team,” Russell recalled to the Post-Gazette. “They used to drink a lot of ‘fluids’ to ward off colds. I had played for Dan Devine at Missouri and things were so disciplined that you couldn’t even cough in a meeting. At my first meeting with the Steelers, you could barely see the blackboard through all the cigarette smoke. Some guys would snore in the back of the room and others would argue with the coaches on whether or not plays would work.”

Russell said to Jim Murray, “We were a wildly reckless team … We were about as disciplined as a litter of puppies.”

The Steelers accepted Russell because of how well he played in training camp. Defensive coordinator Buster Ramsey told United Press International, “You don’t often see a rookie work into a system that quickly. He has speed and lateral movement and should develop into one of the best linebackers in the league.”

Early in the season, when linebackers John Reger and Bob Schmitz got injured, Russell stepped in and impressed. On Sept. 29, 1963, facing the Cardinals at Pittsburgh, Russell intercepted a Charley Johnson pass, helping the Steelers to a 23-10 victory. Game stats

“The Cardinals had little success with rookie Andy Russell, even though they picked on the St. Louis youngster time and again,” The Pittsburgh Press reported. “His best play was an interception of a pass intended for fullback Joe Childress. The Cardinals tried to play it cute. On the preceding play, they tried the same over-the-middle pass to fullback Mal Hammack, but Russell broke it up at the last instant. Figuring the rookie wouldn’t expect the same play immediately, Childress came in with orders to come right back with the same thing, but Russell wasn’t guessing. He played his man and wound up with the ball.”

Russell was the Steelers’ only rookie regular in 1963. He started in 13 of 14 games, according to pro-football-reference.com.

Rags to riches

In January 1964, Russell was ordered to begin a two-year tour of duty as an Army lieutenant. He spent most of that time at a base in Stuttgart, Germany, where he played football for a service team, and missed the 1964 and 1965 NFL seasons.

Discharged in January 1966, Russell enrolled in graduate school at Missouri before going to Steelers training camp in the summer. He picked up where he left off, returning to the Steelers’ starting unit.

On Nov. 13, 1966, in a game against the Cardinals at Pittsburgh, Russell blocked a Jackie Smith punt, recovered the ball and returned it 14 yards for a touchdown, putting the Steelers ahead to stay. Boxscore

“We normally don’t attempt to block a punt,” Russell told the Post-Dispatch, “but we had seen in films that they left an opening in their line. When they set up the same way on a punt just before the one we blocked, we decided to try it. The punt hit me right in the face, then it was bouncing on the ground. I picked it up, got a good block and ran it in.”

In 1967, Russell was named Steelers defensive captain (a title he held for 10 years) and earned a master’s degree in business administration at Missouri.

Russell played for losing teams from 1966 to 1971 before experiencing a turnaround under head coach Chuck Noll. From 1974-76, the Steelers’ linebacking unit of Jack Ham, Jack Lambert and Russell was considered “the best in football,” Baltimore Colts running back Lydell Mitchell told the Post-Gazette.

The Steelers were NFL champions in 1974 and 1975, beating the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowls those seasons.

Russell played in 168 consecutive regular-season games for the Steelers. Video He was 35 when he stopped playing and opened an investment securities firm in Pittsburgh. Russell also did extensive charitable work there.

Adventure seeker

According to the Post-Gazette, Russell became “the ultimate mountain man,” summiting all 54 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. He also climbed Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

Russell and former Steelers center Ray Mansfield completed the Hunter’s Island Route, a 145-mile canoe adventure through the Canadian wilderness.

“I had always been curious about the limits of physical endurance,” Russell told Neil Amdur of the New York Times. “After football games, I was so exhausted that I used to get this tremendous feeling of peace, as if I had used every bone in my body. I always wondered whether it was possible to achieve this same feeling somewhere else.”

Golden Richards was a NFL glamour boy with a glittery name and the look to match. A blonde mane flowed from beneath his helmet when he streaked down the field. As columnist Jim Murray noted, “He’s so golden from his hair on down that he glows in the daylight. He’s perfect for the part of Sir Galahad.”

Richards could play, too. Few were faster than he was. A Dallas Cowboys receiver, Richards had sure hands, the strength to catch in a crowd and the ability to haul in long passes over the shoulder.

He got both his first NFL reception and first touchdown catch against the St. Louis Cardinals. Later, as an established starter, Richards made a game-winning touchdown grab at St. Louis. For his career, the foe he had the most catches against (19) were the Cardinals.

In his first five seasons with Dallas, Richards took part in nine playoff games, including two Super Bowls. The glory came at a terrible price. Richards suffered injuries, became addicted to prescription painkillers and struggled with alcohol abuse.

Burnishing bright

John Golden Richards was born on Dec. 31, 1950, in Salt Lake City. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, his parents gave him the distinctive middle name because they thought a baby born on New Year’s Eve must be extra special. Everyone called him Golden.

Richards’ specialness came through in athletics. He participated in five sports _ baseball, basketball, football, tennis and track _ at Granite High School in Salt Lake City. As a senior in 1969, Richards ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds and cleared 24 feet in the long jump at the Golden West Invitational in Sacramento.

Colleges recruited him for track, but Richards preferred football. The only football offers he got were from Air Force, Brigham Young University (BYU), Utah, Utah State and Westminster College, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Richards, a Mormon, planned to bypass BYU and go with Utah because of the football program’s strong passing game. “Next thing, I was called into my bishop’s office, and he told me he wanted me to go to BYU, or else he would call me on (a Latter-day Saints) mission,” Richards said to the Tribune.

Richards did what he was told and found he was right about BYU’s quarterback situation. None could get the ball to him consistently. In his two varsity seasons (1970-71), Richards caught a total of two touchdown passes.

He made up for it with punt and kickoff returns. As a junior in 1971, he was the NCAA’s top punt returner, with 624 yards and four touchdowns.

Richards didn’t put the same kind of effort into his studies. He was declared academically ineligible for his senior season at BYU. “It was my fault,” he told the Deseret News. “The situation arose simply because of my own laziness.”

He transferred to the University of Hawaii for the 1972 season and snared five touchdown passes in five games before he tore ligaments in his right knee.

Seeing stars

Before the injury, Cowboys scout Bob Griffin twice tested Richards in the 40-yard dash and both times he clocked 4.4 seconds. Impressed, the Cowboys took Richards in the second round of the 1973 NFL draft. “We haven’t had anybody this quick on our team since we picked up (two-time Olympic gold medalist) Bobby Hayes,” Cowboys head coach Tom Landry said to the Honolulu Advertiser.

As a teen, the Cowboys were the team Richards dreamed of playing for someday. When he walked into their locker room for the first time at training camp in 1973, “I was standing there next to Bob Lilly, Jethro Pugh and Roger Staubach,” Richards said to the Salt Lake Tribune. “I wanted to get everybody’s autograph.”

(Before a 1975 game against the New York Jets at Shea Stadium, Richards “stuck a pen and paper in his uniform pants and ran over to Joe Namath, begging for his signature right at the 50-yard line. Namath told Richards it was an honor and sent him a signed glossy photo the following the week,” the Tribune reported.)

On Sept. 30, 1973, the Cowboys were routing the Cardinals at Texas Stadium. In the fourth quarter, Landry began putting in his reserves, including the rookie Richards and quarterback Craig Morton. Soon after, Richards caught his first NFL pass, a five-yard toss from Morton. “I just broke out smiling and was just about laughing all the way to the huddle,” Richards said to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Two plays later, Morton called for Richards to go deep. “I thought it might be a touchdown pass when it (the play) was called,” Richards told the Star-Telegram. “That’s what the play was designed for _ six points.”

Sure enough, Richards broke free and Morton connected with him on a 53-yard scoring pass. Game stats

Big playmaker

More good times followed. Richards returned a punt 63 yards for a score in a 1973 playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings and caught touchdown passes in playoff wins against the Los Angeles Rams (1976) and Vikings (1978).

Richards averaged 17.5 yards a catch in the NFL. Of his 17 regular-season touchdown receptions, 11 were of 40 yards or more.

On Oct. 9, 1977, Richards made the play that beat the Cardinals.

With 6:53 remaining and St. Louis ahead, 24-23, the Cowboys were at the Cardinals’ 17-yard line. Quarterback Roger Staubach called an audible but Richards couldn’t hear him above the din at Busch Memorial Stadium.

“I was able to read Roger’s lips and pick it up, though,” Richards told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

As Richards dashed to the goal line down the right side, covered by cornerback Lee Nelson, Staubach floated a pass. “It was a little bit underthrown,” Richards said to the Fort Worth newspaper. “So I just kept going like it was coming. Then, at the last second, I stopped and tipped it back to me with one hand. Then I got a hold of it and just went sliding in to score.”

Nelson, filling in for injured Perry Smith, told the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, “The guy made a hell of a catch. He caught it with one hand, one arm. I batted one of his arms away.”

The Cowboys won, 30-24. Game stats They would lose only twice all season (to the Cardinals at Dallas and to the Steelers at Pittsburgh) and rolled to the Super Bowl for a matchup against the Denver Broncos.

Richards was one of the game’s stars, catching a 29-yard touchdown pass from fullback Robert Newhouse to highlight a 27-10 Cowboys victory. Game stats and video

Troubled times

Richards was popular. His first wife, Barbara, said at his peak he got 1,000 pieces of fan mail a week. At the Super Bowl in Miami in 1976, Richards was “chased up and down the streets by the females, some handing him their telephone numbers, others just wanting to touch him,” the Associated Press reported. 

Richards told the wire service, “It’s kind of overwhelming. I mean, they walk right up with my wife standing next to me.”

He hobnobbed with celebrities such as Olivia Newton-John and model Jerry Hall. “It was glamorous,” Richards told the Salt Lake Tribune.

The glamour masked a dark side. Richards was hurting. He took a pounding in the games. A hit from the Steelers’ Mel Blount broke five of Richards’ ribs. His back ached all the time and so did his teeth from getting belted under the face mask.

Seven times, dentists did root canals to repair damage from hits to Richards’ face, the Dallas Morning News reported. He was prescribed Percodan. Codeine was another. Richards became addicted and “depended on painkillers to play,” according to the Dallas newspaper.

“I never took drugs to get high,” he told reporter Barry Horn. “I took drugs because I couldn’t stand the pain.”

His craving for painkillers spun out of control. “In the bleakest moments,” Gordon Monson of the Salt Lake Tribune reported, “he fished through his own vomit in a toilet for unabsorbed painkillers so he could taken them again.”

Richards told Monson, “There were times when I lived through the darkest dark you can imagine. With the painkillers, you fight and struggle to get up to ground zero, but then you discover you’re still 150 miles below the surface of the earth.”

In April 1978, three months after he scored his Super Bowl touchdown, Richards was rushed to a hospital when it was feared he had overdosed. Five months later, the Cowboys traded him to the Chicago Bears for two draft picks.

Richards spent two seasons with Chicago, got released and was done as a player at 29. His third wife, Amy, told the Salt Lake Tribune, “He got hooked on the narcotics in the NFL. When the NFL was taken away, he no longer had football but he still had the narcotics.”

His problems expanded. Richards turned to booze. “I was living in an alcohol fog,” he said to the Tribune.

He was in and out of treatment centers multiple times.

In December 1992, Richards was arrested on charges he forged his father’s signature on nearly $700 in checks to pay for painkillers. He pleaded guilty.

“This has been a horrible, horrible way of life,” Richards told the Dallas Morning News in January 1993. “Like any addict, I have been deceitful, manipulative and cunning. People who suffer from my kind of addiction can lose everything that means everything to you. I know. I have.”

Richards was sober for the last decade of his life, his brother, Doug, told the Deseret News.