PITTSBURGH (AP)—For the Pittsburgh Steelers, the worst collapse in NFL history by a reigning Super Bowl champion is as maddening as it is saddening.

Barely a month ago, the Steelers were 6-2 after winning five in a row—beating the Chargers, Vikings and Broncos—and were well positioned not only to win the AFC North, but to take another run at the Super Bowl. Ben Roethlisberger was enjoying a career year statistically, the defense was as nasty as ever and the Steelers had the look and attitude of a champion.

BETTER TIMES—A Steeler player holds up the Vince Lombardi trophy after the team’s 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII in this Feb. 1, 2009 file photo, in Tampa, Fla.

Then, somehow, it all got away from them. Blame it on Troy Polamalu and Aaron Smith getting hurt. Blame it on a delayed Super Bowl hangover, blame it on overconfidence, blame it on a lack of preparation, blame it on an inability to close out close games. Right now, there’s a whole lot of blame to go around.

by Doug Tucker

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP)—Kansas hopes that Turner Gill can do for the Jayhawks what he did for Nebraska.

As a smooth option quarterback in the early 1980s, Gill was the difference-maker for the Cornhuskers, helping free them from Oklahoma’s long domination and propelling Tom Osborne’s program to the top of the Big Eight.

TURNER GILL

Later as an assistant coach, he helped develop a Heisman-winning quarterback and was a key member of the staff that led Nebraska to the 1994 national championship.

Kansas made the hiring official on Sunday and formally introduced Gill as successor to Mark Mangino on Monday morning.

“We the willing, led by the unknowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful; we’ve done so much for so long with so little, that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.”—.(Author unknown)

An old school group called Blood, Sweat and Tears released a song in 1969 called “Spinning Wheel.” Pardon my memory lapse but I recall that one of the lines of the song went something like this; “what goes up, must come down. Spinning wheel got to go round.”

During the hours following the Steelers’ dreadful loss to the Raiders, just a few days before the Cleveland debacle, (a 13-6 loss) the spin machine in Pittsburgh was spinning out of control. Head coach Mike Tomlin had an opportunity to stop the RPM(s) but instead seemingly chose to jump on the out of control Ferris wheel. The sad thing about it is that Mr. Tomlin, the man who is supposed to be running the show, seemingly has now become part of the show.

In Shakespeare’s words, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

It was a thought that first created the cellular telephone, made airplanes and created this ink. But it was the thinking of the Creator who designed a man like the late Chuck Cooper.

Cooper, a Pittsburgh native who attended Westinghouse High School, attended West Virginia State prior to enrolling at Duquesne University following World War II. While at Duquesne, Cooper captained the 1949-50 squad to a No. 6 national ranking on his way to earning All-American honors.

PROUD WIFE AND SON—Mrs. Irva L. Cooper and Charles Cooper lll admire a portrait of the late Chuck Cooper, the first African-American drafted into the NBA that was unveiled at halftime of the inaugural Chuck Cooper Classic Dec. 5 at the A.J. Palumbo Center.

“He was such a great player, so athletic and so smooth that we called him Silk,” said John “Long-John” Barry, who was a teammate of Cooper’s and is also in the Duquesne Basketball Hall of Fame. “His roommate was Ed Dohler and he had nothing but great things to say about Chuck. What a gentleman.”