Sep 25, 2002 By Jim Wexell For The 5 min read

PITTSBURGH – The last few years of his life were marked by an array of difficulties, but friends and associates of former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster are asking that he be remembered for what he accomplished as one of the toughest players to ever don a black-and-gold uniform. Webster died early Tuesday morning in Allegheny General Hospital at the age of 50.

“This is really a sad day,” said Steelers owner Dan Rooney. “Mike Webster was just a terrific football player for the Steelers.”

“I lined up against Mike in practice every day,” said Joe Greene. “We didn’t do walk-throughs then, we practiced. He got better and I got better.”

“Playing with Mike was the highlight of my career,” said eventual successor Dermontti Dawson. “I had an opportunity to play right next to him my rookie year, and I tried to emulate him throughout my career by being No. 1 in the drills and making sure I was always the first to the ball.”

“The toughness that he had,” remembered former teammate Tunch Ilkin. “He was the standard. We’d get dinged up and go, ‘Well, Webby would play.’

“He dislocated his elbow and missed four ball games. The next year, I dislocated my elbow and asked, ‘How many games did Webby miss?’ I mean, he was so competitive and so tough, we all emulated him.”

And now they mourn his loss. Webster died at 12:44 a.m. Tuesday morning. An autopsy will determine the exact cause of his death.

Webster was selected in the fifth round of the Steelers’ fabled 1974 draft and moved into the starting lineup for the final game of the 1975 season. He remained a part of the starting lineup for 150 consecutive games. The streak ended in 1986, when he missed four games with the elbow injury. He returned to play with the Steelers until 1988, but the team left him unprotected under Plan B the following off-season and he announced his retirement in late February. Five days later, the Kansas City Chiefs signed Webster as an assistant coach, but he played center for the Chiefs before retiring after the 1990 season.

Webster was named to nine Pro Bowls and six consecutive All-Pro teams in a career that culminated with his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997. A few years earlier he had been named to the NFL’s 75th Anniversary team and in 2000 he was named to NFL Insider’s Dream Team. Of course, the list of accomplishments includes the four Super Bowls he helped the Steelers win in the 1970s.

“He helped Terry Bradshaw,” said Rooney. “Mike knew every player’s position on both teams. He knew every offensive guy, but he also knew the defensive people. He would talk to Terry after a play and say where the line splits were, where the defense was and what running plays would work. It was a great help.”

Webster played in 177 consecutive games with the Steelers and rarely missed a play or practice.

“As a back-up center for a couple, three years, I never got on the field, not one play,” said Ilkin. “My rookie year, he hurt his knee against Kansas City late in the season. He was on crutches till game time and he played in the game. He was just amazing.”

Webster was an avid weightlifter and, of course, questions of possible steroid use were broached Tuesday.

“All I know is that Chuck Noll was very, very specific in that he did not believe that players should take steroids,” said Rooney. “He was very much against it, spoke often about it and I think Tunch will tell you that the players listened to him. That’s all I would know about the situation. I know it was very much discouraged.”

“You know,” said Ilkin, “he was a great player. He was just a guy who worked hard. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what contributed to it. You’re sad for him and his children.”

After his retirement, Webster ran into financial difficulties and at times was homeless. He was arrested in 1999 for forging prescriptions for Ritalin and was sentenced to five years probation. At an emotional press conference, Webster apologized and his doctors and lawyers explained that a “significant head injury” was diagnosed the previous year that had caused Webster to “behave erratically.”

Late in the next year, Webster was named one of five honorary captains for the Steelers’ final home game at Three Rivers Stadium, but he didn’t show up. This past summer, Webster was invited for a made-for-TV reunion at Heinz Field, but an ailment forced him to take in the festivities from an upstairs suite. Webster died a little more than 72 hours after becoming ill Friday night at his son’s high school football game. Garrett Webster is a 6-foot-9, 340-pound tackle at Moon Area High School.

“I’ll always remember Webby’s toughness, the way he was a mentor to all the younger guys, and the fact he was a guy also in the community,” said Ilkin. “You forget he was the chairman of the Spina Bifida Foundation in Western Pennsylvania for I don’t know how many years. Every year he had a Christmas party for the spina bifida kids. He’d bring out players on the team. He was a guy who was so willing to give himself in the community and so willing to give of himself to his teammates.”

“For the past 30 years, we had great centers,” said long-time assistant coach Dick Hoak. “Mike, though, was so good and had such agility and strength that he allowed us to do things we could never do. He was able to handle a nose tackle single-handedly and that allowed us to do things with our guards that we never could do.

“Mike was one of the strongest and toughest guys I ever saw play.”