PITTSBURGH — "They say people have changed. Well, people have not changed. It's what you accept from people that's changed."
— John Mitchell
John Mitchell made that comment in a recent interview with Jim Wexell of SteelCity Insider shortly after he announced he was retiring after 29 years as assistant head coach/former defensive line coach with the Steelers. An admirer of the beliefs and actions of Winston Churchill, he couldn't have been more intuitively correct had he delivered the famous "We Shall Never Surrender" declaration himself.
And, make no mistake, what John Mitchell accepted from people never changed.
He was tougher on his players than a three-day-old pork chop when he was hired by Bill Cowher in 1994 and he never stopped driving them for nearly three decades. But his objective was always doggedly two-fold: develop his defensive linemen into better football players but, more importantly, better men.
"John Mitchell, to me, was invaluable at every level," Cowher said the other day on the phone. "He had the pulse of that defense. It all started up front with Mitch."
Cowher called Mitchell and former Kansas City Chiefs defensive line coach Tom Pratt the best line coaches with whom he ever worked.
"He just learned it the right way and it never left him," said former Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, who was on Cowher's staff as a linebacker coach when Mitchell was hired. "He never compromised on that and it never left him for as long as he was with Bill's staff and later with Mike (Tomlin)."
Cowher's original staff in 1992 included former Steelers lineman Steve Furness as defensive line coach. But he moved on from Furness and hired Mitchell two years later because he wanted his defensive front to be tough and reflect the attitude of the defense.
"That's where your football team is going to take on the identity you wanted," Cowher said.
Mitchell worked all his players the same, regardless how they were obtained or their contract status. He treated No. 1 picks such as Casey Hampton and Cam Heyward the same as he did low-round picks such as Aaron Smith (fifth) and Brett Keisel (seventh), even an undrafted free agent such as Chris Hoke. And it was not with kid gloves.
"He cared about them, and they felt that through his voice and his passion," Lewis said. "He would tell them, 'In order to achieve these goals, you have to do it this way.'
"Football was really important to Mitch, from his time at Alabama and getting into coaching as young as he did. He passed on an NFL career basically to come back and coach at Alabama, to teach the kids how to do it and how to do it right. He was one of the great people for young people to learn from."
Mitchell's legacy as a trailblazer has been well documented. In 1971, after transferring from a junior college, he became the first African American to play football and become a team captain at Alabama. He was selected to the All-SEC team in each of his two seasons at Alabama and was drafted in the seventh round in 1973 by the San Francisco 49ers.
When Mitchell was cut in training camp, he returned to Alabama to enter law school but was offered a full-time job as defensive ends coach by coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. Even that was a historic development. Mitchell became the first African American assistant coach for the Crimson Tide.
"I would not be exaggerating by saying he was the epitome of what an assistant football coach should be," said former Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, who worked 14 years with Mitchell during two different stints with the Steelers. "John had a tremendous teaching ability with his players. He was kind of easy-going, but he had goals that he wanted to reach and he held their feet to the fire. He made them better people.
"There are no words I can use to really explain John Mitchell unless you worked with him and knew him as a person."
