By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

For the seventh consecutive game against the Bengals, Steelers coach Bill Cowher will look across the field at a former assistant.

For three years, former Steelers secondary coach and defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau was Cowher's counterpart with the Bengals. Cowher won five of those six games.

Today, the opponent is Marvin Lewis, Cowher's original linebackers coach. But their relationship goes back further than 1992, when Cowher was introduced as Steelers head coach at age 34 and hired Lewis - then 33 - off the University of Pittsburgh staff.

This friendship dates to the mid-1970s, when as prep players in suburban Pittsburgh, Lewis' Fort Cherry High School football team faced Cowher's Carlynton team.

Cowher (Class of 1975) was a year older than Lewis. Fort Cherry won 6-0 in Cowher's senior year.

"And it was on a kickoff return," Cowher said. "They won the one that counts in your senior year. ... So Marvin has one up on us."

Lewis was a quarterback and linebacker/defensive back in high school. Cowher played center and middle linebacker.

"Bill was a very intense player, just like you see on the sideline now," Lewis said. "He was a middle linebacker and offensive center. Rumor had it that he would foam at the mouth."

The hotbed of western Pennsylvania spawned more than just movies like All the Right Moves. It is the birthplace of five current NFL head coaches, a number no other region of the country can claim.

Besides Cowher and Lewis, the Chargers' Marty Schottenheimer (also a Fort Cherry graduate), Dolphins' Dave Wannstedt and Saints' Jim Haslett all come from western Pennsylvania.

Cowher coached for Schottenheimer with the Browns and Chiefs before becoming Steelers head coach. Lewis served a minority coaching fellowship with Schottenheimer and Cowher in K.C. in 1991.

Cowher hired Lewis to coach linebackers from 1992-95, and Haslett was Cowher's defensive coordinator from 1997-99. Lewis coached at Long Beach State in the mid-1980s, when Wannstedt was a Southern Cal assistant, and they met while recruiting players off the same high school fields out west.

"It all comes from the hard-working style of western Pennsylvania," Lewis said when asked to explain the coaching thread, "where guys played all sports, all positions, learned the fundamentals, learned the game from the bottom up and were very competitive in everything they did."

Lewis recalled going to the high school games as a junior high kid on Friday night but not watching. He would play football behind the stands or on a hillside. The whole town, it seemed, was there. Afterward, the pizza parlors were packed. It was a big night for adults after a week in the steel mills.

"It's taught early, and there are good high school coaches," Cowher said. "You learn very early how to compete, how to work, and you appreciate opportunity when it's given to you."

Lewis and Cowher had opportunities to coach in the NFL while they were young.

Cowher was 28 when Schottenheimer hired him to coach the Browns special teams in 1985. Two years later, Cowher - a linebacker and special teams player in the NFL - was coaching Cleveland's defensive backs.

"When I first went to the secondary, I had never coached it before. I was 30 years old and it was a situation where I was coaching guys I had played with," Cowher said. "When Marvin came here, he was a very young coach coaching (veterans) Greg Lloyd and Kevin Greene.

"The one thing that happens when you start at an early age is that players will respect you when you recognize sometimes that you're always learning, too. You can't profess to have all of the answers, and part of this job is having a relationship with players that you develop trust with them and they respect you for the work that you put in."

Cowher said he remembered how the contentious Lloyd yelled at and challenged Lewis, but Lewis held his ground. Lloyd has stayed in touch with Lewis and called him Wednesday.

Fast forward. The affection Lewis and Cowher have for each other is evident in their words.

"His football team plays with his passion, and he gets the most out of his players," Lewis said of Cowher. "He's able to be harsh, strict, demanding, and yet he listens."

Cowher can see the Lewis effect on the Bengals in game film.

"There's no question that they're playing with a confidence and a resolve that you knew he would get (out of his) players," Cowher said. "Their performance last week (at Oakland) was very impressive."

Bengals vs. Steelers

When: 1 p.m. today.

Where: Paul Brown Stadium (sold out).

TV: Ch. 12, 7.

Radio: WCKY-AM (1360), WOFX-FM (92.5).---

E-mail mcurnutte@enquirer.com

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