Proud Scotty: Southmoreland’s Grimm inducted into Pa. Sports Hall of Fame
Submitted photo
Southmoreland graduate Russ Grimm (right) poses with George Von Benko at Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame banquet.
Submitted photos
Southmoreland graduate Russ Grimm is shown during his playing days with the Washington Redskins, where he won three Super Bowls. Grimm, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame on Tuesday.
Southmoreland graduate Russ Grimm is shown during his playing days at Pitt. The Panthers were 39-8-1 in his four years there.
Former Southmoreland High School athletic standout Russ Grimm received another big honor when he was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame Tuesday at the Delta Hotels by Marriott in Breinigsville.
Grimm was part of the 60th Class of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame joining: Jan Hutchinson, Art Howe, Eugene Guarilia (deceased), Larry Miller, Nicole Levandusky, Dave Crowell, Frank Bolick, Billy Sheridan (deceased), Bob Bubb, C. Vivian Stringer, Dan Baker and Matt Millen.
“I’m proud of the honor,” Grimm said. “When you look at the list of athletes in the Hall of Fame it’s unbelievable the amount of athletes that have come out of Pennsylvania.”
Grimm was an outstanding football and basketball player for the Southmoreland Scotties and the football field is named in his honor. After earning nine varsity letters at Southmoreland, Grimm who was a quarterback and linebacker in high school, earned a scholarship to play at the University of Pittsburgh.
“It was a strange road. I went to Pitt as a linebacker for the first two years,” Grimm recalled. “My sophomore year I played a little bit on special teams and after my sophomore year Jackie Sherrill brought me in and said we got a lot of guys that graduated on the offensive line and we’d like to move you over to center. I looked at him shocked and said I’ve never had my hand in the dirt and I’d rather stay at linebacker. He looked up at me and said I’m not asking I’m telling you.
“I tried to transfer to West Virginia, for some reason Pitt hired Joe Pendry from WVU who recruited me, and the next thing you know I ended up staying and playing offensive line.”
Grimm embraced the move to the center position and it turned out to be one of the best things that happened in his football career.
“I went to Pitt and I was like 215 (pounds) coming out of high school,” Grimm stated. “My sophomore year I was like 238 or 240 when they moved me to offensive line. The summer that year I was lifting weights and eating pizza and I had no problem with it.”
Grimm entered Pitt at the right time. The football program was in the midst of an outstanding run. The Panthers were 39-8-1 during Grimm’s four seasons at Pitt.
Grimm was part of an elite team that included future Hall of Fame linebacker Rickey Jackson, future Pro Bowl guard Mark May, and future Pro Bowl linebacker Hugh Green, who all joined the team in the same year, as well as future Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino, who joined the Panthers in Grimm’s final two seasons. In 1980, the team added future five-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman Bill Maas, future NFL receiver Dwight Collins, and future NFL defensive back Tim Lewis.
Those two years of 1979 and 1980 were among the best in school history, as the team posted a 22-2 record over that span and barely missed out on playing for the national championship both times. In 1980, future Pro Bowl tackle Jimbo Covert joined Grimm on the offensive line, giving Pitt a total of three future Pro Bowl stars out of their five offensive line starters.
Marino marveled at the protection he got from his offensive line.
“There were games when my uniform never got dirty,” recalled Marino. “There were games when I never hit the ground. That’s incredible.”
“I was fortunate. Johnny Majors left after the 1976 season,” Grimm offered. “I was in the 1977 class with Jackie Sherrill and we had a lot of great guys that year like Hugh Green, Mark May, Gregg Meisner, Jerry Boyarsky. We ended up getting like 15 or 16 guys drafted out of that class. Marino came in as quarterback. We had a lot of great players.”
Grimm was drafted in the third round by the Redskins in the 1981 NFL Draft.
“Again I tell people all the time it’s nice when you’re blessed with some athletic ability, but it’s always better when you have a lot of luck to go with it,” Grimm explained. “I was drafted by the Redskins, Coach Joe Gibbs was a rookie head coach, he had just been hired. I could have been drafted by George Allen and it would have been a lot tougher making that team because he liked the over-the-hill gang.
“We ended up starting some young guys up front: Mark May, Joe Jacoby, Jeff Bostic, and we started out 0-5 and then things kind of got on the right track and we finished that first year 8-8, then it took off after that.”
During his 11 seasons as the Redskins’ starting guard, Grimm helped lead his team to four Super Bowl appearances and three Super Bowl victories (Super Bowl XVII in 1983, Super Bowl XXII in 1988, and Super Bowl XXVI in 1992). Along the way, Grimm was selected to four consecutive Pro Bowls (1983-1986). He was named an All-Pro in each of those years as well.
Grimm was part of NFL lore. Along with Bostic, May, George Starke and Jacoby, Grimm was a founding member of the Redskins’ renowned “Hogs” offensive line of the 1980s and early 1990s (deemed one of the best front fives of NFL history).
“Everybody goes, ‘Did you guys start calling yourself the hogs?'” Grimm said. “Joe Bugel was the offensive line coach and used the term in a practice one day and a reporter picked up on it. Bugel used it, saying alright hogs let’s go down and hit the sled. Somebody picked it up and then fans took over and the next thing you know there’s hog snouts in the stands. It was good.”
After retiring as a player, Grimm returned to the Redskins as a tight end coach from 1992 through 1996, and offensive line coach from 1997 through 2000. After his coaching stint with the Redskins, Grimm joined the Pittsburgh Steelers as offensive line coach in September 2000. In 2004, he was promoted to assistant head coach (offensive line).
In 2005, Grimm added another Super Bowl ring (totaling four) to his resume as part of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ coaching staff.
In 2007,Bill Cowher resigned as head coach of the Steelers. Art Rooney II announced Grimm as one of the candidates for the job. He was named as a finalist for the job along with Ken Whisenhunt and Mike Tomlin. On Jan. 22, 2007, the Steelers hired Tomlin as their head coach. The day after Tomlin’s hiring, Grimm was hired to serve under Whisenhunt as the Arizona Cardinals assistant head coach and offensive line coach. Grimm remained with the Cardinals until Whisenhunt and the entire offensive staff were let go in December 2012.
In 2016, the Tennessee Titans hired Grimm as their offensive line coach. Grimm announced his retirement from coaching after the 2017 season.
“It was great,” said Grimm, who recalled his last game as a player. “I retired and I knew I was going to retire because my body was getting beat up after my 11th year. Luckily it was a year we went to the Super Bowl and we won. Me and a couple of guys stayed up all night having a few cocktails and I’d already announced that I was going to retire after the Super Bowl.
“Joe Gibbs called me about five or six weeks after the season was over and asked me how I was doing? I said I’m good and he says would you like to coach? I said what position and he said tight ends. Well back then in the one-back system that we ran in Washington the tight ends were basically a glorified guard. I coached tight ends and five years later we got Norv Turner to come in and he moved me over to the offensive line. Then I went from there to the Steelers, Cardinals, to the Titans. Yeah, it was fun.”
Grimm was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010. He was inducted into the Western Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and the University of Pittsburgh Hall of Fame. In recent years Grimm had a leg amputated, but it hasn’t slowed him down or changed his outlook.
“I only have to buy one shoe and one sock,” Grimm joked.
“I tell people all the time that I went to a Wal-Mart one time and I figured that I would put two left boots in a box,” Grimm stated. “I was checking out and normally they don’t check to see if you have a right or a left and the girl opened the box and said I’m sorry these are two left boots. I said that’s alright and I pointed down to my leg and she said that’s okay and slid them right on down.”
Grimm, 64, is back residing in Western Pennsylvania.
“Everything’s been great,” Grimm said. “My life has been great, my kids are doing well, everything has been positive. I try to keep it that way. I’m pretty laid back. I still do a little hunting and fishing and I get around just fine. I enjoy it.”