About Three Bricks Shy...And The Load Filled Up

Fans want to be close to the game. They want to know the ins and outs of the players and coaches they worship on Sundays. They want to hear the coaches break down game plans and hear them give the iconic tearjerker halftime speech. They want to walk up to a player to either tell him face to face how much of a disgrace he is to the uniform, or shower him with praise for the toughness and fortitude that he displays in his style of play that created memories for the fanbases that will outlast the player long after he’s dead and gone.

A player’s persona is made before he is on camera, though in today’s revolving media cycle, true personality is often mistaken for the public perception that is put out for branding opportunities. The average person will more than likely never get to know the true depth of a person that they follow on social media or see on television, simply because they’ll never meet and converse with them.

In the days before electronic communication, interaction with the players came mostly from the stands, and if you were in a small town, you might see them out and about and ask a couple questions or pass along a remark about the last game. But for Roy Blount Jr, a former Sport Illustrated writer who “loafed” with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the 1973 season, his career provided him access into the inner workings and personalities of the franchise that would forever change the narrative of professional football.

A few journalists before and alongside Blount (and many after him) have written similar books that chronicles a single season of an NFL team. Paul Zimmerman’s The Last Season of Weeb Eubank follows the disastrous 1973 New York Jets, and George Plimpton’s Paper Lion, an inside look at the 1963 Detroit Lions, sold so well it was adapted into a 1968 motion picture. Blount’s venture into this arena with About Three Bricks Shy of a Load stands the test of time with any other books in this genre.

Blount, rather than just giving a game by game break down, takes a more social approach to pro football and in effect looks at a pro football team’s relationship with a city. In the first few chapters, Blount provides some of the social norms in Pittsburgh, citing the inhabitants that call it a “shot-and-a-beer-town” and also labels it as fighting town, saying, “…it is a good town for walking past a bar and having somebody sitting outside it offer to whip your ass for you.” Even the language of the town is unique within the city limits; instead of “hanging around” someone, you “loaf” with someone. You don’t call someone a “jack-off",” but rather a “Jagov,” meaning “a person that doesn’t take care of business, who makes a lot of noise and motions but doesn’t connect.” He also refers a James Parton quote that describes Pittsburgh as “Hell with the lid taken off.”

It becomes apparent that Pittsburgh for a Georgia boy like Blount was an unfamiliar place. It was a town of hard labor and hard living amongst immigrant families. A town during the 1940s that had soot flying everywhere from the factories, or never deemed quite “westerly enough” to attract the sophisticates. It was looked upon as a “Loser town,” a reputation that was personified in the sports teams in Pittsburgh. The Steelers, in fact, hadn’t won a single playoff game in their first forty years of existence until the 1972 7-6 win over the Oakland Raiders that would be immortalized by the Immaculate Reception. This was an up and coming franchise that was destined to turn their bad fortune around, and Blount decided to “loaf” with them on this journey.

The book is full of names and storylines that have been well covered in NFL history. Terry Bradshaw is the quarterback that has a cannon for an arm, and at moments displays all the makings of a premier NFL quarterback, but he is criticized for not comprehending the game quick enough, leaving fans and pundits to question his intelligence. Chuck Noll is the cerebral and detached head coach who’s stoic and patient approach to his job (and life for that matter) creates as much admiration as it does condemnation from reporters and even a few of his own players. Joe Greene, a defensive lineman in a class of his own, reflects on his early days as a Pittsburgh Steeler, full of dissatisfaction and rage at the consistency of losing that was taken out on offensive lineman, and even at one point made Greene contemplate quitting football for good.

What makes the book authentic, however, is the way Blount interacts with the Steeler’s fringe players and personnel. Some are mentioned in passing, such as the former film photographer Les Banos, who was a Hungarian secret agent that acted as chauffeur to Aldoph Eichmann and Adolph Hitler before working for the Steelers.

Many of Blount’s interactions are with the line players, however, especially the one’s that either hadn’t reached their prime before their four Super Bowl winning streak, or players that have been lost to history. One such player is Ray Mansfield, the center that played for the Steelers in the losing days, and was one of the most revealing figures in the book. Most Steeler fans remember Mike Webster as the center of Steeler’s dynasty, but is was Mansfield who snapped the ball to Bradshaw in the Steeler’s first two Super Bowl seasons.

Born in Bakersfield, California into a family of nine children, Mansfield, nicknamed “The Ranger,” was raised on the farms that prepared him for the grinding life of an NFL offensive lineman in the 60s and 70s. “I’ve been humiliated,” said Ray, “but I’ve never been intimated.” His thoughts on professional football are eerily similar to the critics of today who are concerned that sport is becoming too politically correct when he tells Blount, “Maybe we’re a dying breed. Maybe football will become flag football,” when reflecting on how the culture of football was losing it’s intensity. He knows that even as he gets older and his body isn’t able to recuperate from is injuries as quickly as it once did that he can’t afford to lose a step, for as Chuck Noll would remind him, he has a young Mike Webster ready to come in and take his place.

Blount’s fascination with lineman didn’t stop there. The Steel Curtain defensive line was another focal point of the book, particularly in the personality of Ernie Holmes, the opposite defensive tackle to Joe Greene that is not only remembered for his vicious playing style, but also for shaving his air in the shape of an arrow. Holmes’s reputation would be apparent to Blount from the get go, when Holmes sought out Steelers owner Art Rooney for help after getting into a high speed chase with the police following a mental breakdown. L.C Greenwood and Dwight “Mad Dog” White would round out the starting front four, each of them in pursuit of greatness in their own way, both on the field and for life after football.

An equally fascinating element of the book is Blount’s opinions on the game itself and the structure of professional football. “A football team is not an open society,” writes Blount, “it is a society at war,” referring to the independent personalities of the players on a team that clash with the strict nature of NFL management.

In a chapter that covers the concept of hitting, Blount asks several players and coaches to describe the thrill or psychological readiness to hit and be hit, many of whom get a pleasure from doing their assignment and taking someone out of the play, while others simply don’t think about it at all. Blount recounts his own pleasure from playing pick up games in the sandlot, but notes that the hitting he witnessed on the sideline was “went beyond, or fell short, of that kind of gratification.”

Blount also analyzes football as an art form in a competitive setting, talking about how the beautiful creativity of a throw or a run is insufficient if it doesn’t make strategic sense for winning the game. He writes, “The trouble with football aesthetically is that the creative situation brings two different composers together in an attempt to whip each other’s ass in a collaborative symphony. They don’t care what kind of symphony it turns out to be, just who wins it.” Blount even goes so far as to recooked a few rule changes to make the game more livelier, such as making the center eligible for a forward pass or requiring place-kickers to participate in at least one scrimmage play per quarter to be eligible to kick.

The book, published in 1974, was ahead of its time, not only within the genre, but also literally, for the Steelers Dynasty that began with their first Super Bowl victory in 1974 left Blount with multiple articles regarding the Steelers journey when they finally reached the top. In 1986, Blount expanded the book to include these articles in the new edition called About Three Bricks Shy…And The Load Filled Up.

In this new edition, Blount documents the latter days of the players he covered in the first edition. Dwight “Mad Dog” White was now working in stocks, while Hall of Fame cornerback Mel Blount was on his farm in Georgia, reflecting stoically on his time with the Steelers. Some moments being great, like the Super Bowl victories and the friendships, and some moments being unpleasant, such as his hold out or when he filled a lawsuit against Chuck Noll for a derogatory comment he made about Blount’s style of play. Also unpleasant was the article Blount included regarding the passing of Joe Gilliam, the back up quarterback that like Bradshaw showed signs of brilliance, but nonetheless couldn’t fight off a cocaine and heroin addiction that kept out of professional football for good.

About Three Bricks Shy…And The Load Filled Up is an important read that serves as a relic for a distinguished time in sports and journalism. Blount’s account goes beyond a reporter’s structure and provides a story about a team on the verge of history, giving the insight to a coach that rarely said more than he had to, and shared personal thoughts of those great players that are forever remembered in NFL lore, as well as those who might have never been heard from had it not been for this book.

A book like this reminds the reader that even though television was responsible for the rise of the game of football, the beat writers and authors are equally responsible for giving the public access into the in depth thoughts of the players and coaches that made the game great. And for a fan who wants to know the intricacies of arguably the greatest football team ever assembled, About Three Bricks Shy…And The Load Filled Up will not disappoint.