Mike Tomlin has been running the Pittsburgh Steelers for nearly two decades now. And since the Steelers are one of the biggest teams in the league, one would think that we’d know a good deal about the 53-year-old. Not so.
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He has always played things close to the vest. It’s the way things were done in Pittsburgh before he arrived, and he has continued that trend. He holds very rare media availabilities. And when he does—while he has become known for his “Tomlinisms”, his Yogi Berra-esque quotables—he’s also the master at coachspeak. He’s able to say a lot without revealing anything.
But sometimes a reporter can catch him in a good mood. A day when he feels alright talking about himself a little bit. And ESPN’s Kevin Clark was that lucky reporter this week when he stole Tomlin away from camp for a few questions.
Clark and Tomlin talked football, but near the end of the interview, he got the head coach to reveal his favorite hobbies apart from the gridiron.
“I’m a big Sudoku guy. I am. I’m a puzzler. Crossword puzzles, Sudoku, spider solitaire, I like mind stimulation… Pretty much daily. It’s a component of what I do,” said the head coach.
Tomlin went on to say that he has been into puzzles for a long time. He mentioned that fighting over the crosswords with his mother is really how he honed his competitive spirit as a kid, and that spirit has helped him maintain his edge through some tough times during his 19 years at the helm in the Steel City.
“I’ve always been into it. When I was a little guy, my mother and I, we’d fight over the crossword puzzles in the daily newspaper. She’d always let me go first. And that made me angry, because then she would fill the rest of it in. I’m a competitor, that’s what got me goin’.”
Tomlin must have really been feeling good, because he answered a few other questions with surprising candor. When Clark asked him which play in his coaching career he wished he could have back, you would have expected Tomlin to say something like: “I don’t live in the past with my regrets, we’re focused on 2025.”
But instead, without skipping a beat, he brought up a specific play from his early coaching career.
“The first time I was responsible for a unit, we were playing the University of Minnesota. I was at Arkansas State. And I was in charge of the kickoff team. And we gave up a kickoff return for a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the game,” Tomlin started his narration.
“And so, needless to say, it wasn’t a sterling beginning. (Laughs) It still stings. Tyrone Carter. Tyrone was the guy that ran it back. And the funny thing is, later in life, I had an opportunity to coach Tyrone, and he reminded me about it from time to time.”
As Tomlin said, he would never be able to escape that play. About a decade later, in 2004, Tyrone Carter, who was a five-year NFL veteran at the time, joined the Steelers.
Three years later, Tomlin arrived as head coach, and clearly, the safety never let him live it down. You won’t see Tomlin speaking that frankly very often, so enjoy it when it comes.
