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Contributor
“It’s a new day for the Steelers. The tone is being set, you have to bust your butt to make the club and if you don’t get with it, we don’t want you.”
(West Virginia State University)...Senior Scout, Assistant Director of Player Personnel... West Virginia State College ... 1968-2014 Pittsburgh Steelers47seasons ... Pittsburgh Steelers “super scout” ... Worked as a sportswriter and managing editor at The Pittsburgh Currier, one of the most influential black publications in the U.S. at the time, developing relationships and becoming extremely knowledgeable about the players and coaches affiliated with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) ... Credited with helping build the Steelers’ dynasty of the 1970s; drafting JOHN STALLWORTH (Alabama A&M;), MEL BLOUNT (Southern) and DONNIE SHELL (South Carolina State) from HBCUs ... Had a knack for locating talent at other small colleges including JACK LAMBERT at Kent State University ... Helped Steelers draft many players who would fill integral roles in the team’s six Super Bowl appearances during his tenure, IX, X, XIII, XIV, XL, XLIII ... Member of the Inaugural Class of the Black College Football Hall of Fame ... Enshrined in the Steelers’ Hall of Honor, 2018... Born Sept. 30, 1924 in Homewood, Pennsylvania.Died May 6, 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
From their inception in 1933 through the 1971 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers made exactly one postseason appearance, losing a divisional playoff game in 1947.
The organization’s fortunes would change dramatically in the 1970s, and a key figure in the transformation from perennial losers to four-time Super Bowl champions in a six-season span was Bill Nunn, a scout and later the assistant director of player personnel for the team from 1968 to 2013.
A look at the team photo of the 1974 Steelers, winners of Super Bowl IX, illustrates Nunn’s influence. In the picture are 11 players from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, including three future members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Mel Blount, Donnie Shell and John Stallworth. Nunn was integral in the Steelers finding talented players from HBCUs, giving the team an advantage over others in the NFL at that time.
Nunn, a standout basketball player at West Virginia State, spurned tryout offers from the New York Knicks and Harlem Globetrotters to join his dad at The Pittsburgh Courier, a national, Black-owned newspaper with a circulation of more than 400,000 at its peak. As sports editor, he regularly covered HBCU sporting events, making inroads at the schools no one else matched. Each fall, he compiled the definitive “Black College All-America” team, an honor the Courier first launched in 1950. He was a one-man selection committee, and his choices carried tremendous influence.
“That was the only exposure that the players from the black schools got,” he said in a 2010 interview with Steelers.com that coincided with his election in the inaugural class of the Black College Football Hall of Fame. “We would have a banquet in Pittsburgh and bring the guys to Pittsburgh and have the Black national champion, player of the year, coach of the year.” The Rooney family took notice of Nunn’s work and in 1967 offered him a part-time scouting role that within a couple of years became full time under the team’s new coach, Chuck Noll. He stayed 45 years — more than half of that time after he “officially retired” in 1987.
In addition to players from HBCUs, Nunn also found diamonds in the rough of smaller programs across the country. One success story was Jack Lambert (Kent State), who went onto a Hall of Fame career.
“With the success we had with the number of ballplayers from black colleges, I think it opened the eyes of a lot of other teams,” Nunn said. “With the attitude of Dan Rooney and Chuck Noll, it opened the eyes of a lot of people, and I like to think I was a part of that.”
Championship Teams
1972 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1974 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division, AFC, Super Bowl IX champions)
1975 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division, AFC, Super Bowl X champions)
1976 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1977 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1978 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division, AFC, Super Bowl XIII champions)
1979 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division, AFC, Super Bowl XIV champions)
1983 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1984 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1992 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1994 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1995 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division, AFC champions)
1996 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
1997 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
2001 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Central Division champions)
2002 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC North Division champions)
2004 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC North Division champions)
2005 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC, Super Bowl XL champions)
2007 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC North Division champions)
2008 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC North Division, AFC, Super Bowl XLIII champions)
2010 Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC North Division, AFC champions)
Full Name: Bill Nunn Sr. Birthdate: September 30, 1924
Birthplace: Homewood, Pennsylvania High School: Westinghouse High School (Pittsburgh)
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