Welcome to Memory Lane! For those who aren't fans of our podcasts, I've been sitting down each week with a former Pittsburgh athlete for a long form interview that comes out every weekend. Recently, I've been adding a transcription of the interview to the podcast post on our website.
Unfortunately I was unable to book a guest this week. To make up for it I decided that I'd post a reader-friendly transcription of a few recent Memory Lane interviews, like I started to do last week for my chat with Ross Ohlendorf.
This one is for the Pitt fans! Times might be rough for the Panthers on the gridiron. Allow me to take you back to a better time in program history, when Pitt Stadium was rockin', there were stars at every position and the Panthers were a National powerhouse.
A large reason why Pitt football thrived in the 1980's was because of its dominance up front. Year in and year out the Panthers were plucking teenage giants from Western, Pennsylvania and turning them into first round draft picks.
Jimbo Covert was one of those players. I sat down with the College and Pro Football Hall of Famer recently to discuss his time in Oakland, his relationship with Mike Ditka, the 1985 Bears and more. Here is a transcribed Q & A of that conversation. Enjoy!
Noah: You grew up in beaver county and went to freedom high school. Is Beaver County, the most underrated football factory in the world, considering all the greats that have come out of there.
Jimbo: Yeah, you know, I think so. I think, you know, a while ago when all the steel mills were working, and it was you know, you know, JNL Steel one time had 25,000 people, my dad worked at Armco steel, as did my grandfather and my uncle. So, you know, when you think about all those steel mills up and down Beaver County. Friday nights were a big thing and it was a tradition. And I just think that yeah, that that kind of culture and that work ethic and just toughness, just I think really was indicative of what you know, high school football was back then. So I think maybe not not as much of a force as it was say 25, 30 years ago but there are still great players coming out of Beaver county in Western Pennsylvania. That's a good thing.
Noah: I think what makes it unique compared to other areas I mean, there are the Texas’ and the Florida's, but those are a lot of big school powerhouses where if you come to Western Pennsylvania, especially in Beaver County, there's not one 6A School in Beaver County. It's a lot of small schools. You have your Aliquippa, your Beaver Falls, your Freedoms, and a couple other programs that go along with them. And I just think that that's unique that it's small schools that are producing these high quality athletes.
Jimbo: Sure. I mean, you know, Freedom high school, when I graduated from there, I think we had 500 kids in my entire high school. And, and we had, I think I was in a really large class, which is 220 people. So, you know, when my son went to school down here in Florida, I think they had, you know, 6000 kids, you know, Cypress Bay, so I mean, completely different.
Noah: Now, I was reading up on your high school career, obviously, very impressive football player, but I read that you were just as good as a wrestler. Would you agree with that?
Jimbo: You know, it was my mother's favorite sport. And, you know, I didn't really grow up wrestling, I didn't really start until I was eighth or ninth grade. So a little bit different than kids out East that, you know, kind of grow up wrestling. And you know, we're in tournaments down there in the grade school. I didn't do that. But I gravitated towards it and I just thought it was a tremendous asset for me for football as well, because it touches such great balance, strength, you know, endurance. The greatest shape I've ever been in my life was when I was a high school wrestler. I really enjoyed it and I was pretty successful at it. I took third in the state twice. I still replay some of those matches in the state tournament that I might have done something different. And maybe would have been state champ. But you know, those days have gone by, but I mean, I love wrestling. My nephew, Jimmy Covert is coaching freedom, high school wrestling, and they've done extremely well. And he's really building a hell of a career for himself there. And I think that program is doing great.
Noah: So you go on to play for Pitt, and what is looked at by many as the best years in the history of the program. You played with guys who have some gold jackets now. But the thing I really want to talk about was how you got to the offensive line. You originally were playing defensive line and you had a position change after an injury. Take me through how that all one came to be.
Jimbo: Well, I got recruited as a defensive lineman and Jimmy Johnson recruited me. He was out at my high school probably every other day. When I got there as a freshman II played every game I started a few games, but there were three or four sophomores in front of me: Bill Neill, Greg Meisner, Jerry Barofsky. I just think they felt that they wanted to try to keep those guys together. They were great players don't get me wrong, but it's just hard to crack the lineup. So I was a defensive tackle. When I just wanted to play and I came back my sophomore year and was playing defense and got hurt in practice. I had a bad shoulder in high school. It was a torn rotator cuff and just kept popping out so I just finally decided surgery was the right thing to do. So I got it done and I missed the rest of the year. When I came back as a redshirt sophomore, I was still playing defense and was so frustrated because I didn't feel like I was gonna crack the lineup. Joe Moore was the offensive line coach. He came over to me and said, ‘Hey, why don't you try to come over here and see what you can do? They were having problems replacing a guy named Bob Gruber, who played in the league for a while. I went over there and I think there were 12 days left until spring practice. I just tried to learn it that whole summer. The first couple games were a little shaky. My first couple games left tackle, but, you know, after one or two games, about two games, I really settled in and the rest is history. I'm really fortunate. I had great coaching. I had a guy named Joe Moore, like I said, who I think is the greatest offensive line coach in the history of the game at any level. And if you look at what he has done, and how many NFL players he's produced, I mean, his track record speaks for itself. So you know, I don't have to brag about him. But, he was a huge influence on my life and, and my career and I just owe everything to him as far as a football player.
Noah: You mentioned guys in the NFL, looking at your teammates on the offensive line while you're at Pitt, you had guys like Russ Grimm, Mark May and Bill Fralic as teammates. Was that the best offensive line you played on?
Jimbo: Well, I mean, if you think about it across the line… Rob Fada, Paul Dunn, Emil Boures and Jim Sweeney. And I mean, you could just keep going down the line and all those guys played in the NFL as well. We were lucky at Pitt to have great recruits. They did a great job recruiting great players, big linemen, strong linemen on both sides of the football. That really allowed us to do the things we wanted to do with Danny back there. We always had a great rushing attack as well. Yet, we still threw all 35 times a game. So I mean, I think it was really probably a result of the great offensive lineman.
Noah: Who is the best player that you played with at Pitt?
Jimbo: There's a lot to choose from. I went to Pitt, and I wanted to play defense, and my number when I first got there was 98 because Hugh Green was 99. I just looked up to him. I thought he was probably the greatest defensive player in college football history, in my opinion, I don't see anybody that's, you know, that's going to challenge that. If you look at what he did his entire time there. He was a four time All American. He also had a great career in the NFL. He just got injured and just couldn't play that long. But he was a fantastic player. You could just go down the line. We had Dan Marino, we've got other players that are just, you know, that I played with. Guys like Bill Fralic and Russ Grimm. There's just a lot of guys. I mean, look, you got Chris Doleman on the other side of the ball. He is a Hall of Famer. We were really, really lucky with the amount of talent that we had back then and I think it's all due to the coaching staff.
Noah: You mentioned Dan Marino, I read a story prepping for this about how the two of you trained for the NFL Draft together. Take me through that process. I mean, you both of you knew you're going to be first round picks. Dan obviously went a little later than he was anticipating to go but I think he made some teams pay for that over his career. But take me through the training process and then draft day seeing you and all your friends get taken.
Jimbo: Well, we were roommates at Pitt, me and Danny and Paul Dunn. Really it was funny in the end of the summertime, when the agents would call and you're trying to get people on the phone they would call and ask for Danny and I answer the phone. I'd say he's not here and he’d be sitting there and just didn’t want to talk to anybody. About two hours later, the same guy would call and the same number for me and Danny would answer the phone. I don't know why they couldn't connect on the number. We kind of had fun, that that whole summer but we worked really, really hard. Every year I worked in the summer, but that year, I just decided I was going to focus on getting ready. We spent a lot of time in the weight room, a lot of time conditioning, a lot of time running, a lot of time jumping rope. I think that really helped us. That year, unfortunately, we didn't have the kind of record that we wanted to have. That was really disappointing for everybody. When we got in the postseason, I played in the hula bowl and the senior bowl with Danny. He was MVP of both games. I think you got a car in the senior bowl. So you're sitting there thinking this guy's gonna get drafted, extremely, extremely high. And he just didn’t and he fell back from a lot of stupid, untrue rumors that were out there. But he ended up in the best place because he went to a good football team that had a good record and good players. He got a chance to play for Don Shula. And it became the right place for him to be. So, I thought I was, probably when the year started, I was probably a mid,like, say mid 20s pick. I thought maybe before the year started, at least that was the feedback I was getting from people and the first round. And then I really focused on my game my senior year and then when the combine started I thought I was going to be somewhere in the teens, maybe, you know, low teens. And then I started hearing from like Bill Parcells with the Giants who were picking 10 or 1, ‘we're going to draft you’ and then the Kansas City Chiefs, ‘we're going to draft up there,’ and I think they were seventh or something. But I never thought I was going to go to the Bears. It just came out of nowhere. And I think how that happened was as John Elway went to Baltimore and all of a swapping that went on. And then Chris Hinton got picked and Denver and then they swap that. That's how I ended up going as the sixth player draft.
Noah: So you end up in Chicago, and you play under a head coach who had a very, very similar path in Mike Ditka. He’s another Beaver County guy, a Pitt guy and a first round pick by the Chicago Bears. Take me through your relationship with him.
Jimbo: Yeah, we still are close. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. I mean, he's the reason why the Chicago Bears were a resurrected team when I got there. We weren't good. He was there a year before in 1982. I think a five year period 84 through 88, we won more games than any team in NFL history up to that point. I mean, people forget, I mean, we were 15-1 in 85, but we were 14-2 and 86. We were a 50 yard field goal away from being 15-1 two years in a row, which is pretty remarkable. When we lost to San Francisco and NFC Championship game Jim McMahon was hurt. Steve Fuller did the best he could, but you know, I mean, Jim McMahon was something special for us and proved that so. He did a phenomenal job. When I first got in there, my first practice I came into the meeting room, and he said, ‘Okay, guys, I got good news and I got bad news.’ He says, ‘Good news is we're going to the Super Bowl, bad news is half you guys won't be here when we do.’ And I mean, he meant that. There were just guys that were hanging around getting a paycheck, who just wouldn’t pay the price, and he wanted to weed them out. And when he did, you know, good things started to happen.
Noah: So you get there a couple years before, things really start to get moving in Chicago and you're around to see it all develop. You see the final picks, you see, the defense really starting to come together. McMahon's playing his role. What's it like to watch that juggernaut of a team really come to form?
Jimbo: You know, what, when I first got there, like I said, we just weren't very good. And, you know, I don't know how many games we lost in the first half of the season. I know that we weren't very good. And we lost more games in five weeks than I lost in my three years at Pitt. Kind of kind of interesting, but um, but you know, you could tell that there was such a nucleus of players there. I mean, when you think about it when I got there in 1983 Jim McMahon was there. Walter Payton was there. Mike Singletary was there. Dan Hanson was there. I mean, they had a nucleus, but the class of 83 all the guys that came in with me and Richard Dent and Mike Richardson. We changed things. They plugged us in, in these roles that they needed us in certain positions, and then everything started to gel. Jim McMahon got the protection they needed. Walter was so great that he just needed more offensive lineman, Dave Duerson came in at 83. He stepped right in and made a pro ball. So when you think about all those things, that class of 83 is what really jolted the Chicago Bears and I think catapulted us to the success that we had.
Noah: I think the 85 bears were the first example of a modern football team, where you had some personality and flair. I mean, McMahon with the headband, and you had the dances and everything. You were like the first really cool football team. Did that ever cause any problems? You know, the extra media attention you guys got? Or was it just business as soon as you put the helmets on?
Jimbo: You know, I think in 85, it was so new that that it was just everyone enjoying themselves and having a ride and enjoying the ride. I think as you know, the next year, it got a little weird, because then it became about who was getting this commercial and who's doing that and just immediate attention. Then if someone did something, the media would say, well, ‘this guy's doing this and not focusing on football.’ So that's really when you talk about social media today, I mean, social media, if that was around when the 85 bears were around... Who knows how long that team stays together? Maybe just one year? So when you think about it, you know, all the outside influences that would attack and say ‘this guy's doing this, he should be focusing on football,’ you know, ‘this guy's not healthy, he didn't work hard enough in the offseason.’ It just, it just wasn't a tenable situation. So, the team started to break up. Unfortunately, we only won one Super Bowl. But if we could have kept our quarterback healthy, I mean, like I said, we were 14-2 with a backup quarterback the next year, so I think we could have won at least another Super Bowl.
