Longtime Steelers coach Dick Hoak is being honored this week at the Pro Football Hall of Fame with an Award of Excellence for his many years as the team’s running backs coach.
However, senior alumni also may remember Hoak as a steady, versatile running back for Chuck Noll’s Steelers from 1961-70. When he retired as a player, Hoak was the team’s number two all-time rushing leader. A year later, Noll hired him as an assistant coach, and he remained a Steeler until retirement in 2006. He had been with the Steelers 45 seasons: 10 years as a player and 35 years as coach.
“I beat the system,“ Hoak said when he finally left the coaching sidelines. “Coaches are hired to be fired. I was hired but never fired. I had an opportunity in the early 80s to become a head coach in the USFL but I turned it down because I felt it would be disloyal to the Rooney family.”
Hoak was a high school standout in suburban Pittsburgh and (of course) enrolled at Penn State. He was a running back and quarterback for the Nittany Lions and was team MVP in his senior year. The Steelers selected him on the seventh round of the 1961 Draft.
His coaching credentials include five Super Bowl rings and his standing as the only assistant to transition from Noll’s staff to Bill Cowher’s coaching room. During his tenure as the Steelers running back coach, no other NFL team rushed for more yards than the Steelers. Hoak is a member of the Steelers Hall of Honor. His career with the team totaled 741 games as a player and coach.
We at NFL Alumni are pleased to see our 85-year-old brother Dick Hoak honored this week in Canton along with the late Elijah Pitts, who also was an assistant coach and running back in the league.
Both men deserve this prestigious Pro Football Hall of Fame honor!
