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Mike Wagner—USC to Mars… Not Far Away
Mike Wagner—USC to Mars… Not Far Away
Remembering a 2019 Interview
by Jim O’Brien
Mike Wagner ( # 23), circa 1979
Mike Wagner wants to improve his golf game, make his swing higher and more consistent, learn how to read music to play the piano, enjoy bicycling in a safer manner, and read books about all the U.S. presidents.
he said while eating a plate of spaghetti bolognese bravo at Bravo on Route 19 in Cranberry Township, not far from his home in Mars, Pennsylvania. I had a personal favorite, eggplant parmigiana with a chopped salad, and it was sensational.
I met Mike at 1 p.m. and we both pulled into our parking spots at 12:58. There was one car between our vehicles. Talk about good timing. I reminded him that we had once met at Bravo in North Fayette. I looked it up in my book Steelers Forever, and the date was Wednesday, April 10, 2002. Mike had suggested 1 p.m. that time, too. And that seemed like only yesterday. Now we were meeting on Wednesday, January 6, 2019, nearly 17 years later.
I also met him for lunch at King’s Restaurant when he was playing for the Steelers in the early ’80s and he was living in Upper St. Clair. I used to run into him at the post office. I know he liked to play golf at St. Clair Country Club, and often showed up at celebrity fundraisers for several good causes.
Marianne Noll (left) with Mike and Becky Wagner, mid-80s at the Mel Blount Youth Home dinner.
photo by Jim O’Brien
So, Wednesdays are good for meeting Mike Wagner. Remember the movie Any Wednesday? It starred Jason Robards as a well-to-do Manhattan businessman who had a mistress (actress Jane Fonda) in a New York hotel.
I told Mike that I once attempted to interview Kordell Stewart in the Steelers’ locker room and he snubbed me. “Don’t you know the rules,” Stewart scolded me. “I only do interviews on Wednesdays.”
The previous visit with Mike was on a bright, sunny day. This meeting was on a day when it never stopped raining. Never. Pittsburgh experienced record rainfall in 2018 and it looked like 2019 was on its way to setting a new record. The parking lots along the rivers were shut down due to flooding.
As Mike walked toward me in the parking lot, he looked much like the fellow I had talked with in 2002—still walking ramrod straight, still taut, and still looking like he could chase down any receiver. This Wednesday, Mike weighed in at 170 pounds. “Every decade I make a conscious effort to drop ten pounds,” he said. “I bicycle 20 miles each day and, yes, I’ve fallen off my bike more than a few times. Bicycle people will tell you that it’s par for the course. Uneven roads, pot holes, cars suddenly moving in on you, lots of obstacles.”
His hair, including his eyebrows and mustache, may have had a little more curl to them, and there’s some gray on the sides of his handsome head. But, he looked terrific, as always. Mike is most accommodating, while careful in what he says, still recalling how Chuck Noll told his players to be careful when speaking to sportswriters. I tell Mike he looks like he just walked out of a window at Brooks Brothers. Even when he’s wearing a dark blue jersey.
I noticed that he slid the chair to his left, away from the table, so he could extend his left leg. “It was rubbing against my knee,” he said. He still has some wounds and soreness from his playing days with the Steelers. He’s had his share of surgeries and repairs and rehabilitation.
He asked the hostess to seat us in a corner where we could talk, without eavesdroppers. Mike smiles at some of my questions, as Noll often did during press conferences, but he tells good stories. Sometimes the smiles are smug smiles. “You still want me to tell you about something relating to me not playing in Super Bowl XIV?” he asked for openers once we were seated.
Mike still hasn’t shared that story with me. I just know that he and Jack Ham did not play in that Super Bowl game and, worse yet, they were not in the team photo for that season.
Injured players and players on the reserve squad were never on the sidelines when Chuck Noll was the coach. Why? Noll had those guys sit in the last row of the press box at home games. Today, mostly in hoodies and sweat suits, Steeler players are generally directly behind Coach Mike Tomlin.
Mike was eager to tell me about Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, two of his favorite Steelers this side of his former roommate, Jack Ham. He smiled when I told him I’d spoken to Randy Grossman on the phone earlier that morning and that Randy had requested that I give Mike his regards. Randy is also one of Mike’s favorites. “He’s a smart man,” said Mike. “And he makes funny observations.” That’s Randy.
“They’re all good guys,” added Mike. “We had a lot of good guys on our teams. One of the things that says a lot about the Steelers of my day,” said Mike, “is that we genuinely care about one another. I just went to a funeral for Ron Johnson in Detroit, and many of the guys were there. I didn’t call anyone to go out with me; I just felt I had to be there. When we see each other, it’s not just ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ We hug one another, and we mean it.”
Ron Johnson was the No. 1 draft choice out of Eastern Michigan in 1978, the year before I attended camp to cover the Steelers. He had a mean look and he backed it up. He played seven seasons (until 1984) with the Steelers, mostly as a cornerback, but some at free safety. Mike was a free safety with those same teams. Johnson had played for two Super Bowl winners—XII and XIV. I know from talking to them that J.T. Thomas and Mel Blount both attended the funeral service for Johnson.
I thought Johnson was from Michigan, but that was Ron Johnson of the New York Giants, whom I had interviewed in my New York days. Mike corrected me that Ron Johnson’s school was Eastern Michigan and checked his smartphone to verify it.
“It was hard when we lost Dwight White and Ernie Holmes in such a short period of time (in early 2008) and then we lost L.C. Greenwood (in 2013),” said Mike. “I got to know those guys more after we retired from playing, and they were special in their own ways.”
Mike is a smart guy. Graduating from Western Illinois, he got an MBA from Pitt and retired after nearly 40 years in the financial services field with several Pittsburgh banks and corporate entities. He and Andy Russell were good friends and called on one another about business.
“Jack Lambert tells me every time I call him that he hesitates to pick up the phone because he figures someone else has died. I’m 60 now and Ron Johnson was just 53. It’s scary. All those guys had gifts. J.T. Thomas was a much under-valued cornerback. He was solid. And, you should hear him play the piano and organ. He’s really good!”
Edwards was in the Pro Bowl in both 1974 and 1975 and surrendered his position to Shell the following season. Shell started for the Steelers for 11 seasons and was a five-time Pro Bowl participant.
Mike has always been proud of being a Pittsburgh Steeler. He likes to talk about those days and his teammates, but he is always careful to protect the franchise, the legacy of his teammates, the Rooneys, and Chuck Noll. “It’s different today,” said Mike. “Yes, it bothers me when I hear about some of the things that go on today. The players are too into themselves. I’m a big believer in team and good sportsmanship.”
Marianne Noll (left) with Mike and Becky Wagner, mid-80s at the Mel Blount Youth Home dinner.
photo by Jim O’Brien
It was a great lunch with great conversation. I’m looking forward to our next Wednesday meeting.
