Terry Bradshaw Pittsburgh Steelers

"When I got the confidence from that man (Coach Chuck Noll) was when I became a pro quarterback. Prior to that, I wasn’t making any progress. I knew that when I made mistakes, I was going to be benched. But when he said 'Go make your mistakes, we’re going to win with you, that’s when I became a quarterback.”

In 1969, Terry Bradshaw was considered by most pro scouts to be the most outstanding college senior. As such, he was the first player selected in the 1970 National Football League Draft. It took the 6-3, 215-pound Louisiana Tech graduate a few seasons to adjust to the pro game but once he did, he became the dominant quarterback of the NFL and led the Pittsburgh Steelers to eight AFC Central championships, and an unprecedented four Super Bowl titles in a six-year period from 1974 to 1979.

Bradshaw, who was born September 2, 1948, in Shreveport, Louisiana, had a powerful throwing arm and called his own plays throughout his pro career. His physical skills and on-the-field leadership played a major role in every one of Pittsburgh's championship seasons. In the 1974 AFC Championship Game against Oakland, his fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Lynn Swann proved to be the winning score in a 24-7 victory. In the Steelers’ Super Bowl IX victory over Minnesota that followed, his fourth-quarter touchdown pass put the game out of reach. In Super Bowl X, Bradshaw again threw the winning touchdown pass on a 64-yard bomb to Swann. He was named the Most Valuable Player in both Super Bowl XIII (35-31 over Dallas) and Super Bowl XIV (31-19 over the Los Angeles Rams).

In four Super Bowls, he passed for an impressive 932 yards and 9 touchdowns. In 19 postseason games, he completed 261 passes for 3,833 yards. In his 14-season career, Bradshaw completed 2,025 of 3,901 passes for 27,989 yards and 212 touchdowns. He also rushed 444 times for 2,257 yards and 32 touchdowns. Bradshaw, who was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player by the Associated Press and others in 1978, was also named All-Pro and All-AFC that year. He was selected to play in three Pro Bowl games.

Terry Bradshaw's Stats

Terry Bradshaw's Championship Games

Championship Games

1972 AFC – Miami Dolphins 21, Pittsburgh Steelers 17
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 5 of 10 passes for 80 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. He also rushed twice for five yards.

1974 AFC – Pittsburgh Steelers 24, Oakland Raiders 13
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 8 of 17 passes for 95 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He also rushed three times for 15 yards.

1975 AFC – Pittsburgh Steelers 16, Oakland Raiders 10
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 15 of 25 passes for 215 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions. He also rushed twice for 22 yards.

1976 AFC – Oakland Raiders 24, Pittsburgh Steelers 7
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 14 of 35 passes for 176 yards, no touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed once for four yards.

1978 AFC – Pittsburgh Steelers 34, Houston Oilers 5
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 11 of 19 passes for 200 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. He also rushed seven times for 29 yards.

1979 AFC – Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Houston Oilers 13
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 18 of 30 passes for 219 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.

Super Bowls

Super Bowl IX – Pittsburgh Steelers 16, Minnesota Vikings 6
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 9 of 14 passes of 96 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. He also rushed five times for 30 yards.

Super Bowl X – Pittsburgh Steelers 21, Dallas Cowboys 17
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 9 of 19 passes for 209 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He also rushed four times for 16 yards.

Super Bowl XIII – Pittsburgh Steelers 35, Dallas Cowboys 31
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 17 or 30 passes for 318 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed twice for minus-five yards. He was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.

Super Bowl XIV – Pittsburgh Steelers 31, Los Angeles Rams 19
Bradshaw started at quarterback. He completed 14 of 21 passes for 309 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. He also rushed three times for nine yards. He was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.

Terry Bradshaw's Career Highlights

All-Pro: 1978 (AP, PFWA, PW)

All-Pro Second Team: 1978 (NEA), 1979 (NEA)

All-AFC: 1978 (UPI, SN, PW)

All-AFC Second Team: 1975 (UPI), 1979 (UPI)

(3) – 1976*, 1979, 1980

* Did not play

(at time of his retirement following 1983 season)

• [Tied for 3rd] Most Consecutive Seasons Leading League, Average Gain Passing – 2 (1977-1978)

Post-Season Records

• [1st] Most Passes Attempted, Career – 456
• [1st] Most Passes Completed, Career – 261
• [1st] Most Passing Yards Gained, Career – 3,833
• [1st] Highest Average Gain, Game (20 attempts) – 14.71 (Super Bowl XIV, 21-309)
• [1st] Most Touchdowns Passes, Career – 30
• [2nd] Most Consecutive Games, Touchdown Passes – 8 (1977-1982)
• [Tied for 2nd] Most Games, 300 or More Yards Passing, Career – 3
• [Tied for 2nd] Most Consecutive Games, 300 or More Yards Passing – 2
• [3rd] Highest Average Gain Passing, Career – 8.41 (456-3,833)
• [Tied for 3rd] Most Touchdown Passes, Game – 4 (Super Bowl XIII)

Super Bowl Records
• [1st] Most Passing Yards Gained, Career – 932
• [1st] Most Passing Yards Gained, Game – 318 (Super Bowl XIII)
• [1st] Highest Average Gain Passing, Career – 11.10 (84-932)
• [1st] Highest Average Gain Passing, Game – 14.71 (Super Bowl XIV, 21-309)
• [1st] Most Touchdown Passes, Career – 9
• [1st] Most Touchdown Passes, Game – 4
• [Tied for 1st] Most Games, Winning Team – 4
• [2nd] Most Passes Completed, Career – 49
• [2nd] Most Passing Yards Gained, Game – 309 (Super Bowl XIV)
• [3rd] Most Passes Attempted, Career – 84
• [Tied for 3rd] Longest Pass Completion – 75 yards (to Stallworth, Super Bowl XIII)

Steelers’ Records held by Bradshaw at the time of his retirement following the 1983 season

• [1st] Most Yards Passing, Career – 27,989
• [1st] Most Yards Passing, Season – 3,724 (1979)
• [1st] Most Passing Attempts, Career – 3,901
• [1st] Most Passing Attempts, Season – 472 (1979)
• [1st] Most Passing Completed, Career – 2,025
• [1st] Most Passes Completed, Season – 259 (1979)
• [1st] Most Touchdown Passes, Career – 212
• [1st] Most Touchdown Passes, Season – 28 (1978)
• [1st] Most Touchdown Passes, Game – 5 (Nov. 15, 1981 vs. Atlanta)
• [1st] Highest Passing Percentage, Season – 57.7 (1975)
• [1st] Longest Pass Completion – 90 yards (to Mark Malone, Nov. 8, 1981 vs. Seattle)
• [1st] Most Games, 300 Yards or More Passing, Career – 4
• [1st] Most Games, 300 Yards or More Passing, Season – 3 (1979)
• [Tied for 1st] Most Seasons, Career – 14
• [2nd] Most Touchdowns Rushing, Career – 32 (1970-83)
• [2nd] Most Yards Passing, Season – 3,339 (1980)
• [2nd] Most Yards Passing, Game – 364 (Nov. 25, 1979 vs. Cleveland)
• [2nd] Most Passing Attempts, Season – 424 (1980)
• [2nd] Most Passes Completed, Season – 218 (1980)
• [2nd] Most Passes Completed, Game – 30 (Nov. 25, 1979 vs. Cleveland)
• [2nd] Most Touchdown Passes, Season – 26 (1979)
• [2nd] Highest Passing Percentage, Career – 51.9
• [2nd] Most Consecutive Passes Completed – 10 (Nov. 14, 1971 vs. Miami)
• [Tied for 2nd] Most Touchdown Passes, Game – 4 (Nov. 4, 1979 vs. Washington; Sept. 28, 1980 vs. Chicago)
• [3rd] Most Passes Completed, Season – 207 (1978)
• [3rd] Most Passes Completed, Game – 29 (Sept. 19, 1982 vs. Cincinnati)
• [3rd] Most Touchdown Passes, Season – 24 (1980)
• [3rd] Highest Passing Percentage, Season – 56.3 (1978)
• [3rd] Longest Pass Completion – 87 yards (to Dave Smith, Dec. 6, 1970 vs. Green Bay)

League Statistical Championships:
Passing Touchdown Titles: 1978, 1982*

* Tied

AFC Statistical Championships:
Passing Titles: 1978
Passing Touchdown Titles: 1978, 1982*

* Tied

Team Statistical Championships
Passing Titles: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982

• 1978 MVP (AP, MX)
• 1970s All-Decade Team

Terry Bradshaw's Career Capsule

Full Name: Terry Paxton Bradshaw

Birthdate: September 2, 1948

Birthplace: Shreveport, Louisiana

High School: Woodlawn (Shreveport, LA)

Elected to Pro Football Hall of Fame: January 21, 1989

Enshrined into Pro Football Hall of Fame: August 5, 1989

Presenter: Verne Lunquist, CBS Announcer

Other Members of the Class of 1989: Mel Blount, Art Shell, Willie Wood

Pro Career: 14 Seasons, 168 Games

Drafted: 1st round (1st player overall) in 1970 by Pittsburgh Steelers

Uniform Number: #12

Terry Bradshaw Enshrinement speech

Terry Bradshaw Enshrinement Speech 1989

Presenter: Verne Lundquist

Thank you very much. Just last Monday night in my home in Colorado, I was chatting with a close friend about the events that were coming up this weekend. He is a retired Air Force pilot, an historian and a member of the collegiate Hall of Faroe because of his all-American days as a lineman at West Point, so I value his insight. We talked a little bit about the specific events of this morning, of how this honor will be the single highest honor that can be paid each of these four men. But we talked in more general terms about the role of sport in our society throughout the ages. Of how from the time of recorded civilization those civilizations have venerated their athletes, the Greeks the Romans a multitude of nations since then including us. We do so, my friend said, and his name is Robin Olt, we do so because those who have accomplished in sport have the potential to give us a higher plane. They can provide a mirror so we can see what we can become. They do that especially when a quest of their athletic accomplishment, we glimpse their humanity. We see them prevail and we also see them stumble and fall. We relish their joy because we recognize their pain. Ultimately, the best overcome. And the best of best we put into the Hall of Fame.

Terry Bradshaw is being honored today for the totality of his accomplishment in 14 years with the Pittsburgh Steelers. I do want to touch on that for just a moment. His football career could be summarized numerically and rather easily 4 - 4 Super Bowls won in 6 years; no other quarterback who ever played the game can make that claim. Two things we all remember well about Terry he was instinctive, he called his own plays for heaven sakes and he could heave it, the boy could heave it a long, long way. For Terry only one statistic was important, he would ask at the end of four quarters, who won. When I think of Terry's approach to the game, I am reminded of a story about a former baseball manager Bobby Breggin's complaint about statistics people. According to the percentage freaks, if you have one foot in a bucket of ice and the other foot in a hot campfire, you ought to be perfectly comfortable. Terry shared Breggin's contempt. It is more than fitting that a new book on Terry's life is called ''Looking Deep.'' It is how he approached the game of football and how he continues to approach everything he deems important in his life now and for just a couple of moments that's the man I would like to talk about now.

Those of us who know him well it is not surprising that Terry has become a successful broadcaster. To those of us who know him well it is no surprise that it wasn't easy. There were early pitfalls. But in television, as he did in football, he became a success. With talent, a strong work ethic and an almost erry intuitive feeling of doing the right thing. To those of us who know him well, it is no surprise that Terry Bradshaw has now found a joy, a peace and a serenity in a wonderful marriage. No surprise because we know how terribly important marriage and family are to him and know it did not come easy. But in this beautiful wife, Charla, his wife for 3½ years, he has found his partner for life and his mother of his children finding Rachael who is two and little Erin who is five weeks old. And if you thought you saw an exuberance in his walk and in his smile after any of those Super Bowl wins, I wish you could have seen the bliss on his face and the radiance in his eyes when each of his little girls were born.

He is a man of the body of faith, a man whose faith manifests itself in simple acts of good works for family, for friends for others. Whether it is as basic as a late-night phone call to pick you up or as magnanimous as the anonymous donation of a gift of a bunch of bicycles for some under privileged kids, you can count upon Terry Bradshaw. For two decades now he has lived his life in public. We have known of his triumphs and we have known of his tragedies. For 20 years we have glimpsed his humanities ... we have seen him prevail. There is I believe engrained in each of us, a small hope that we will be remembered after we are gone that somehow those who come years from now will know that we were here, that we lived, that we loved, that we laughed, that somehow we mattered. For most of us that desire is very fervent, but the dreams are highly improbable. But for Terry Bradshaw, today that dream becomes a reality. Generations unborn today will come to Canton years from now, they will hear bis voice, they will see his face, they will watch his exploits. And no doubt they will say then as we do today, we whose memories are fresher and more fervent, boy wasn't he something.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor and deep privilege to present into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, my partner, my dear, dear friend ... Mr. Terry Bradshaw.

Terry Bradshaw

Believe it or not I have missed that. I can't begin to use the words to describe the emotions that all of us have felt, me in particular, in coming to Canton, Ohio and being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I can’t find the words to thank Pete Elliott enough. I know he spent the $50,000 I sent him to make sure I got in here. When I got the phone call, those of you that know me, know I'm not a man that hides his emotions well, I went nuts... I went crazy... which I already am anyway. I jumped around, I ran around the house outside, I just lost it for three days. I said, I can't believe this and then I stopped, and I said what does it mean ... what does all of this mean. It means that, yeah, your one of the best that ever played, and I said, no, wait just a second, wait just a second. What it means is that in football you never get anything that you don't share it with people. You don't get elected into the Hall of Fame by yourself.

Thank you, number 88 Lynn Swann; thank you number 82 John Stallworth; thank you Franco Harris; thank you Rocky Bleier. What I wouldn't give right now to put my hands under Mike Webster's butt just one more time. Thank you, Mike. Sam Davis, left guard, I love ya. Thank you, Sam. Moon, who never knew he played in the National Football League, thank you Moon. John ''Cowboy'' Cole, my left tackle. Larry "Big Boss'' Brown, my right tackle and two of the finest tight ends that I never had more fun playing with, one Big Baby Huey, Benny Cunningham, I love you, thank you. And Randy Grossman, the greatest set of hands a tight end ever had, thank you. Folks, Jim Smith, Calvin Sweeney, Theo Bell and I can go on and on, every one of them. Rocky Bleier, takes people to get anything done. We didn't get in here by ourselves.

Hey folks, I went to my dad in 1955 and I said pop, I'm going to go play in the National Football League. I was 7 years old, we lived in Camanche, Iowa. He said, that 1 s right son, move on. So, I did, and I got a ball. He gave me a Sears and Roebuck ball and learned how to throw that sucker. He said it has got to last a year and had gotten real big. I took this clothes hanger and threaded my shoestrings through it to hold it together. That’s commitment isn't it. That's what it has, that's what it takes. That's what Mel was talking about. I wanted it so bad. Not to get in the Hall, but to just get in the NFL. We moved back to Shreveport, LA ... I tried out at Oak Terrace Junior High school, failed, tried out again, failed. Went to Woodlawn High School, played for the greatest high school coach in the history of sports there, Lee Hedges. He taught me how to play quarterback. Lee Hedges. I went out to a small school. People said why did you go to a small school. Let me tell you why, let's get it out on the records ... I failed the ACT test. Best thing that happened to Taft was me failing the ACT test and signed with this little school. I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1970. Now folks we didn't have a love affair when it started. Ya all called me Ozark Ike cause I was big and white and d1Jmb acting. Said I was Li'l Abner, said I couldn't spell "cat'', but ya all didn’t, but some fool down in Dallas did. And I never understood what you wanted from me cause all I thought was, bell, we're supposed to win, isn't that what were supposed to do up here, just win. We're supposed to win. He's open, what do you do with the ball, throw it, Terry.

If he's covered what do you do, throw that sucker; get rid of it; you're going to get hit. My nature was attack, throw it deep, anybody can throw wide, let's go deep. You got to play in the huddle. Swann let's throw a hook. John said, I, Fred I gotta go deep. Earl fifty yards throw it deep. Let's go deep. Intercepted ... Oh God! wasn't it fun, didn't ya all like seeing that stuff fly down there. I mean it was fun. What a ride, what a ride. We, we did those winning because that's what we were bred to ... We the Steelers; all my boys, all of them. We loved to win, God, we loved to win. I love ... you know what. I want every one of you loving me, I want you clapping for me, I don't want you booing me and when we won you clapped. But it takes, it takes people, all our careers, we were blessed with great people around us. I'm a fortunate quarterback to have so much beautiful talent, so many wonderful athletes to go out and get the job done. It allowed me to be the kind of person I was. To go out and be aggressive and to attack and have fun and what a line. And tell jokes and cut up with reporters who still haven't figured me out yet. That was fun. I enjoyed that; I got a kick out of that. But folks when it's all said and done, the crowd finally goes home and we're left with our thoughts, we sit back and we say, it's people to share it with.

I got my mom and dad and my brothers are here, well one of them is. But, that's what it's all about. Awards aren't worth a .... I’ve saved a lot of stuff by not having a lot of hair for this thing right over here. But folks, I'm so proud of that thing; as ugly as that sucker is, I'm so proud of it. But it's not worth a .... it’s not worth a hill of beans if I don't have people that love me, to share it with. To my wife, Charla, my kids, God this has just been great. Art Rooney, boy I loved that man. I know you’re watching Art. I love ya. You were always, always by me. I love you so much. Thank you. Pittsburgh, hey, I love you. Thank you. Thank you.