Jon Kolb's role in Steelers' dynasty just one of his life's adventures

Jon Kolb has four Super Bowl rings he earned as an offensive lineman for the Steelers during a 1970s run of four championships in six years.

But it’s the “ring” he got from Steelers owner Art Rooney in 1969 that Kolb thinks about the most.

An Owasso, Okla. native, (his high school graduating class had 67 students) Kolb was an All-American center at Oklahoma State University in 1968, and as the 1969 NFL Draft drew near, the Steelers had their eyes on him.

But in those pre-internet days of the late 1960s, long before ESPN and round-the-clock sports coverage, Kolb didn’t know the Steelers were interested in him or even that he’d been taken in the third round by Pittsburgh when draft day arrived.

“It’s noon and I thought, ‘I didn’t get drafted,’” said Kolb recalling that day 52 years later while sitting in his Wexford office Monday afternoon.

Kolb headed for the stadium in Stillwater to work out when he encountered a bunch of his teammates telling him a guy named Rooney with the Steelers was on the phone. Kolb thought his teammates were playing a trick on him because he had worked out for every NFL team except the Steelers.

But it really was Art Rooney on the phone.

“He said ‘congratulations, we just drafted you.’ And I said ‘Right, yeah.’ And then he said ‘are you excited?’ and I said ‘No!’ because I thought my friends had gotten some guy to do this. He said ‘well, we’re excited, we’re looking forward to seeing you’ and he hung up.”

That night, when Kolb watched the sports report on one of the local TV stations and learned the Steelers really had drafted him, he felt sick at the thought of how rude he had been to the Steelers patriarch. He called the Steelers offices the next morning to apologize to Rooney.

“He just laughed,” Kolb said. “Fourteen years later I was coaching (with the Steelers) and he would come into the coaches room and I would say ‘Mr. Rooney, I’m so sorry.’ I was still apologizing and he would always laugh.”

Based on the way things worked out, Rooney could afford to laugh. Kolb, whom the Steelers moved from center to left tackle, became one of the building blocks of arguably the greatest team in NFL history. The same year they drafted Kolb, the Steelers took defensive tackle Joe Greene in the first round and defensive end L.C. Greenwood in the 10^th. They would last 13 years together.

The next year they drafted Terry Bradshaw, whom Kolb would spend more than a decade protecting from defenses that benefited from rules not nearly as helpful to quarterbacks as those of today.

By 1974, the draft class included Donnie Shell, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, completing a group that stayed together through four Super Bowl championships.

This Sunday when the Steelers host the Detroit Lions, Kolb will be inducted into the 2021 Steelers Hall of Honor class along with fellow offensive tackle and close friend Tunch Ilkin, who died in September after being diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The other inductees are defensive back Carnell Lake and wide receiver Louis Lipps.

“The word honor says it all,” Kolb said. “I think about the Pittsburgh fans. They are people that work for a living, and the Pittsburgh Steelers have always been a team that goes out and earns it by playing physical football, and Pittsburgh fans understand that.

“From Art Rooney, who set the tone, I was rude to him and it didn’t even faze him. And then there’s Dan and Art Jr. and Art II. I have so much respect for them and Chuck Noll and my teammates. And to be part of this (Hall of Honor) group and one of them being Tunch, it’s a solemn thing.”

Kolb talked about playing the “game within the game” that left him unglamorously battling in the trenches with the three best defensive ends of that era — Dallas’ Harvey Martin, Joe Klecko of the New York Jets and Elvin Bethea of the Houston Oilers.

It was a tall order based on what defensive players were allowed to do in those days.

“They had the head slap (a move that is illegal in today’s NFL). I played Elvin Bethea twice a year and he had a head slap — he would take knee pads and cut them up and build this padded thing about two inches thick. His first step coming off the ball, (Kolb swings his right arm from behind his desk) bang! He could knock you out and then he followed up with an upper cut. Lyle Alzado, another good defensive end at that time, he had a head slap. It was a street fight,” Kolb said.

After playing 177 games, Kolb retired after the 1981 season and became a strength and conditioning coach and defensive line coach with the Steelers. He remained with the team until coach Chuck Noll retired.

Kolb could have continued to coach in the NFL, but that likely would have meant uprooting his family and making several moves. He wanted stability and, for that matter, new challenges.

An exercise science major at Oklahoma State, Kolb decided to go back to school and earned a Master’s degree in kinesiology and exercise science at Slippery Rock. A former National Guardsman, Kolb then founded a non-profit called “Adventures in Training with a Purpose,” an organization focused on helping military veterans, including some who are paralyzed or have chronic conditions, as well as first responders and others like Ilkin who used the facility up to 10 days before his death.

“This is not physical therapy. This is training,” said Kolb emphatically.

One of those who trains at Kolb’s facility in Wexford is state trooper Kevin Berkeybile, 34, from South Park, a Marine Corps veteran who is dealing with depression. He said Kolb’s military background makes him easy to relate to.

“I was kind of feeling down and wanted to get ahead of it and he’s easy to talk to,” he said. “I look forward to coming here. (Kolb) is genuine. He’s a genuine human being who wants to help other veterans and first responders. Even in the short time I’ve been here, I can definitely tell that he cares and genuinely wants to help me.”

While the physical training helps people with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression issues, Kolb has a psychologist on staff, Navy veteran Dr. Tim Murphy, who handles the counseling.

As for the workouts, Kolb says there is no particular agenda.

“We’re not dictating the purpose. The purpose is finding out what they can do and enabling people to get their life back,” Kolb said.

And everyone is welcome regardless of their ability to pay. Those who can afford it are charged a fee, but no one is turned away.

“We have to hustle to pay the bills,” said Kolb, who relies on fundraisers which his former Steelers teammates, including Rocky Bleier, faithfully attend, and on his son Caleb, the organization’s executive director and CEO who writes grant proposals and handles donor relations.

“I moved home because of this,” said Caleb, a former Nebraska wrestler who was living in Lincoln. “My dad needed help and now my mother, my father, my wife Sarah, who is director of operations and development, and even my dog are all here.

“I’ve never known my dad as a football player. His career was over by the time I was born. This is how I know him. Growing up I’ve seen him working with people who have chronic illnesses and physical disabilities. He’s always talked about how he didn’t want the Super Bowl to be the defining moment of his life.”

In fact, Kolb does not wear any of his Super Bowl rings.

Recognized earlier this week as the Steelers nominee for the “Salute to Service Award presented by USAA,” which honors a league member who demonstrates a commitment to supporting the military community, Kolb is always looking for the next challenge.

That includes climbing Mount Kilimanjaro last year at the age of 73.

“There’s something about a mountain,” Kolb said. “In Swahili, they will say as we’re climbing ‘let’s go up!’ and I went up. It goes back to a saying ‘the process is the purpose, the goal is the relationship and the plan is God’s.’

“I don’t think about Elvin Bethea and Harvey Martin and Joe Klecko anymore. That’s what I used to overcome. But I think you still have to have stuff in your life that you’re trying to overcome.”