The messenger guard.

Back in the palmy years of the American Football League (1960's), we maintained a friendly relationship with many of the players and coaches in it.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The San Diego Chargers topped our "division." Our heroes were Sid Gillman, the head coach; Al Davis, a dynamic rookie coach just a year away from inheriting the Oakland Raiders and the presidency of the league; and Chuck Noll, another rookie coach with a growing reputation--he had been the sport's first "messenger guard," a position invented for him by Paul Brown while a member of the Cleveland Browns.

Since Chuck Noll had never written for us or crossed our path in any other way, it took a little time for us to cut the umbilical cord. It happened the evening we accidentally wandered into a Dixieland jazz club in down-town San Diego.

It had everything: sawdust on the floor, peanuts, potato chips, a choice of soda or beer, and no cover charges.

Chuck knew almost as much about the music as we did, and we rarely knocked ourselves out over the X's and O's. Most of our conversation was on books, education, and the newspapers--all of which Chuck spiced up with his sly sense of humor.

We honestly thought it was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship. We talked, we listened, exchanged a few innocuous letters, and then sat around wondering where all that Pittsburgh Steeler genius was coming from.

Excuse the pettiness. But we really had to learn what Chuck Noll was all about from his initiation as a messenger guard to his induction speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame:

"I enjoy football. I don't know how to do anything else. I don't even have an alternative.

"Neither do I like being upfront as far as media attention is concerned. I don't think that it serves any purpose. My goal is simply to put a football on the field and help the players be the best they can be. In short, get it done on the field, make it happen, without necessarily talking about it.

"Neither have I ever had a radio program or a TV show, or done commercials.

"That has been by choice. If the commercials could have helped us win a football game, I'd have done them. But I never believed they could.

"If money is your goal, then do it. That's the only thing some people are interested in. But it never happened to me."