Former Steelers tight end Bennie Cunningham passed away from cancer on Monday.
Cunningham was Pittsburgh’s first round choice out of Clemson in the 1976 NFL Draft, and during a career that spanned 10 seasons, he caught 202 passes for 2,879 yards and 20 touchdowns.
Cunningham was a member of the Steelers’ Super Bowl XIII and XIV teams, and if you’ve ever seen the NFL Films highlight show of that second game–a 31-19 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in Pasadena, California–he is the guy walking off the field with his index finger raised high in the air (the universal symbol for “We’re No. 1!”).
Cunningham perhaps never had the career befitting a first round choice, but then again, in head coach Chuck Noll‘s conservative offense, averaging 20 receptions a season as a tight end was no small feat.
However, after catching just 10 passes combined during his final two seasons (a time when tight ends were rarely featured in Pittsburgh’s offense), Cunningham may have seen the handwriting on the wall and finally decided to call it a career following the ’85 campaign.
In a “Where Are They Now?” article published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2002, it stated Cunningham spent a decade as a counselor/consultant at West-Oak High School in Westminster, South Carolina, and that he was about to coach the school’s golf team that year.
Speaking of golf, Cunningham was one of the few close friends of enigmatic quarterback Terry Bradshaw during his time with the Steelers, and he said the Blond Bomber would often try to get the big tight end to play a few rounds after a hot day of practice at training camp in Latrobe, Pa.:
“We’d work out in the morning, and Terry and a couple of guys would take off to play golf before we had to go out again later that afternoon,” Cunningham said. “I couldn’t understand how those guys could do that. I don’t know where they got the energy.”
Cunningham may never be known as one of the Steelers all-time greats (or even the greatest tight end in team history), but he was named to the Steelers 75th Anniversary Team in 2007.
Bennie Cunningham was 63 years old.
