In a glorified storage area off the locker room at Three Rivers Stadium you could find a man wearing a simple white T-shirt with "Steelers" stenciled across the front, and sitting at a desk using all kinds of tools to deal with all kinds of requests, to fix all kinds of problems. Part repairman, part inventor, he could be working on a set of shoulder pads, or a pair of shoes trying to get just the right fit, or maybe he was trying to create a piece of equipment the manufacturers hadn't yet realized was needed.
If the Pittsburgh Steelers were an Army battalion, he was their supply sergeant, the guy who constantly was searching, ordering, foraging for just the right thing the troops needed to be the best they could be.
Tony Parisi, who was the Steelers equipment manager from 1965-96 but meant much more to the franchise than that title, died on Thursday, Dec. 5. He was 91.
"Tony was an equipment manager who, if a company didn't make a piece of equipment that was needed, he made it himself," said Steelers President Art Rooney II. "If a player had a sore joint or needed a pad in a spot on his body where they didn't make pads for it, he'd figure out how to make a pad for it himself. And he always was one to figure out which were the right shoes to wear in different conditions, and he had the ability to convince players to change their shoes at halftime. He got to be one of those guys the players just trusted to put them in the best situation to perform."
Maybe the most significant example of that came in what at the time was the most important game in franchise history. As a climax to their 1974 season, the Steelers advanced to Super Bowl IX against the Minnesota Vikings in New Orleans, a game that ended up being played in old Tulane Stadium because the Superdome was not yet finished.
The weather that day in New Orleans was cloudy and cold, with 17 mile-per-hour winds and temperatures in the low-40s. Parisi anticipated that the conditions would turn the Polyturf playing surface into a slick track. And so he had ordered 75 pairs of nonskid rubber‐cleated shoes from a Montreal company and had them shipped to New Orleans for the game.
The surface indeed became slick, and after the Steelers had trouble with their footing throughout the first half, Parisi convinced some players to change shoes at halftime. To wear the rubber-cleated shoes from Montreal. One of the converts was Franco Harris, who carried 22 times for 97 yards and scored a touchdown after changing his shoes on the way to a 34-carry, 158-yard day that ended with the Steelers posting a 16-6 victory and with him being voted Super Bowl MVP.
"That's absolutely true. A true story," said Rooney, "and it wasn't the only time he did something like that."
On July 1, 2022, Tony Parisi was one of 20 individuals to receive the inaugural "Awards of Excellence" at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The 20 individuals included five assistant coaches, five athletic trainers, five equipment managers, and five public relations personnel.
Parisi's tenure with the Steelers included four Super Bowl Championships in the 1970s, and at one time or another he had 10 Hall of Fame players among those who paid a visit to the supply sergeant.
"People would be amazed how much he meant to those guys in the 1970s, getting them ready to play every week by making a pad, by making shoes work," said Rooney of Parisi. "All the little stuff makes a difference."
Rooney added, "On behalf of the whole Steelers organization, I extend my deepest sympathies to Tony's wife Joan and his family."
