Woody Widenhofer
1943 - 2020
The passing of anyone associated with the Super Bowl Steelers of the 1970's is always worth noting. So it is that we note the death earlier this week of former Steelers assistant coach Woody Widenhofer at the age of 77.
Widenhofer served as a defensive coach on Chuck Noll's staff from 1973 through 1983. As a linebackers coach, he can fairly be given credit for coaching and developing two Hall of Fame players, Jack Ham and Jack Lambert. His time on the Steelers staff encompassed all four Super Bowl victories by the Steelers during that period. In 1979 he was promoted to Defensive Coordinator, and it was his defense that won the fourth and final Super Bowl for Noll's Steelers in 1979.
He left the Steelers after the 1983 season to become Head Coach of the USFL's Oklahoma Outlaws, and he also had stints as a HC at the University of Missouri, his alma mater, and Vanderbilt University.
We are now only three months through this calendar year, and Widenhofer now becomes the third former Steelers coach from the Seventies Super Bowl teams to die, joining George Perles and Dan Radakovich who had died earlier in the year. How's that for an eerie coincidence? If I'm Dick Hoak, I'm thinking very carefully about leaving the house any time soon.
RIP Coach Woody Widenhofer.
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