Six months after capturing a fourth Super Bowl championship in six seasons, a nonpareil stretch of domination, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll quietly delivered a brilliant tutorial that was unfortunately witnessed by only a few reporters standing on the sideline for the third day of the team's 1980 summer training camp.

On a far-off corner of a practice field at St. Vincent's College, in the kind of crucible-like heat that always settled over Latrobe, Pa., about the same time the Steelers were settling into their non-air conditioned dorm rooms, Noll worked patiently with a wide-eyed wide receiver who was experiencing big problems understanding a rudimentary blocking technique.

	Parcells has been known to strike fear in players, but he's always commanded respect.

Time and again for nearly 15 minutes, the legendary coach, exhortative but never exasperated, slowly demonstrated the simple jab-step maneuver that the Pittsburgh wide receivers used on downfield blocks. Time and again, the nervous youngster flubbed the basic footwork that Noll and his staffers felt was critical to properly execute the block.

And then, with his voice barely above a whisper and with the rookie wide receiver no closer to successfully completing the simple task, Noll wrapped up what had to have been for him a frustrating one-on-one instruction with a snippet of encouragement for his student.

"That was good work," Noll said. "Good progress there. We'll come back tomorrow and get after it again, OK? You'll get it."

It was, to all who had watched what transpired between Noll and the rookie, a rather unforgettable experience in an era of Steelers football that produced more than its share of memorable events. What made the lesson all the more remarkable was that Noll, who regarded every minute on the practice field as crucial, had spent a quarter-hour with a prospect that he knew in his heart would have precious few tomorrows in training camp.

It would have been one thing if Noll had been working with Lynn Swann or John Stallworth or Jim Smith, the team's top three receivers. But his student that day was Larry Douglas, an undrafted college free agent from Southern University, and a kid whose chance of making the roster was less than zero.

Those long odds aside, Noll, the consummate teacher, still took the time to make an investment in Douglas. And a few weeks later, when Douglas was predictably waived, he recalled the personal attention he had received, and offered his appreciation for a coach who would be inducted into the Hall of Fame 13 years later.

"The man," said Douglas, "never treated me any different than anyone else on the team. He always showed me respect."

There are a legion of components that combine to make a great NFL coach -- a fertile X's-and-O's mind, communication skills, leadership, equanimity in handling players, organizational acumen, the art of delegation, a sense of the political innerworkings of the franchise, an eye for talent, among them -- and Noll demonstrated virtually all of those key elements in a brief time with the nondescript Larry Douglas.

But mostly he displayed respect for a player who was at or near the bottom of the depth chart totem pole. And in so doing, he also commanded the deep and unabiding respect of a player, engendered in him a loyalty that would have prompted Douglas to run through a brick wall, had Noll instructed him thusly in training camp.

That is notable because, nearly a quarter-century after the Douglas incident, and with Noll long since retired, many NFL owners and general managers still regard the nurturing of mutual respect as a key to coaching success. Such respect may bear different names and come in different colors, can manifest itself in myriad ways, but remains a commodity most coaches must possess, apparently, if they are to gain any degree of league tenure.

There are other imperatives, not surprisingly, as well. In the era of the salary cap and free agency, coaches must be able to fashion system on both sides of the ball that can be quickly assimilated even with roster turnover. That is, and Noll would be most proud of this, a function of teaching.

Off the field, a coach must function almost as a CEO, and has to be involved in the kind of organizational planning sessions the profession once loathed. At last week's NFL meetings in Phoenix, for instance, Carolina coach John Fox allowed that the most difficult part of his '02 rookie year was "dealing with all the (non-football) stuff that came across my desk."

In a poll of 14 owners, general managers or directors of football operations by ESPN.com, however, all but three of the club officials surveyed over the past two weeks cited respect when asked to identify the three "must have" qualities for a solid coach. In an NFL that has now superseded the NBA as the ultimate "coach's league," the degree of esteem both rendered and requited has become commensurate with success.

Indeed, if head coaches were to commission an anthem, Aretha Franklin probably would be retained to sing it. Success in the league is measured in wins and losses but apparently is spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

"Not every coach who gets fired is fired because he's lost the respect of his team, or because he just doesn't respect it anymore," said Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. "But certainly, when you're hiring a coach, that is one of the first things you consider: 'Does this man respect the game and will he respect the players? Will the players respect him?' The football stuff is a big key, but we're still dealing with a game of relationships, too, right? A coach has to have that certain 'it' to be successful."

That certain "it," of course, is the most nebulous of qualities, indefinable and virtually impossible to finger. Most times, owners acknowledged, it is more a gut feeling than a reality. But hiring and firing in the NFL is often dictated by the presence of a personality trait no one can reasonably explain.

In the weeks after Noll's retirement following the 1991 season, Pittsburgh owner Dan Rooney conducted exhaustive interviews seeking his successor, and eventually narrowed the field to three: former Steelers defensive tackle and Hall of Fame inductee Joe Greene, Kansas City defensive coordinator Bill Cowher, and Houston Oilers offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride.

After much deliberation and soul-searching, Rooney hired Cowher, who is now the dean of NFL head coaches, in terms of continuous service with a franchise. Greene is regarded as one of the NFL's best defensive line aides but has never really come close again to landing a head coach gig. Gilbride became head coach at San Diego in 1997, compiled a 6-16 record, and was dismissed less than halfway through the '98 season.

That isn't to suggest Gilbride and Greene would have been miscast as head coach of the Steelers, but rather that, in the eyes of Rooney, they didn't have whatever "it" he was seeking. The choice, of course, proved to be a sage one for Rooney and his franchise. Cowher has shepherded his team to playoff berths in eight of 11 seasons.

	“	You never want to downplay the football angle, but this is also a game of human interaction. You'd better have a coach the players want to play for, someone who walks into a room, and the guys all sit up straight. There has to be that connection there. ”
		— Bob Kraft, Patriots owner

While he has yet to win a Super Bowl, has lost three of four conference title games and often is difficult on players and assistants, there is no denying his track record or the fact Pittsburgh plays hard every Sunday.

"You just had a feel (with Cowher), like, 'This is the guy,' " Rooney said. "There was a certain presence there that just commanded your attention and definitely got your respect pretty quickly."

At a time when the league is being reduced to drive-through coaches, when the shelf-life with a franchise has been slashed by 40 percent since 1980 and average tenure for the coaching fraternity is less than three years with their current teams entering the 2003 campaign, the operative word definitely is quickly in this case.

"Every year, at the league meetings, they take a group picture of all the head coaches," said Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher. "And from one year to the next, when they send you the picture, you look at it and think about how it has changed just since the last one. You don't get a long time anymore to make a mark in this league."

It can't be by happenstance that the last four Super Bowls were won by head coaches -- Jon Gruden of Tampa Bay, New England's Bill Belichick, Brian Billick of Baltimore and Dick Vermeil of St. Louis -- who had three seasons or less of tenure with their championship teams.

Gruden won in his first year with the Bucs. Belichick and Billick in their second seasons with the Patriots and Ravens, respectively. By comparison, Vermeil was a laggard, hoisting the trophy in his third year with the Rams. In each case, the owner consciously sought out, they said, a head coach who could expeditiously garner respect in the locker room and on the sideline.

The goal anymore is to be wearing a Super Bowl ring before the head coach wears out his welcome.

"You never want to downplay the football angle," said New England owner Bob Kraft, "but this is also a game of human interaction. You'd better have a coach the players want to play for, someone who walks into a room, and the guys all sit up straight. There has to be that connection there. The faster a coach succeeds in making that connection, and in having players connect to him, the better off you're going to be."

No one made that connection faster than Gruden, the rubber-faced coach who provided the perennially underachieving Bucs some nebulous quality that apparently had been absent under predecessor Tony Dungy. There is no doubt that, in terms of lip service, Tampa Bay players respected the low-key and seemingly dispassionate Dungy. But the proof is in the performance and, in the 2001 playoff game at Philadelphia in which Bucs players vowed to save Dungy's job, Tampa Bay was routed, 31-9.

	Dungy

Whether the Bucs players had simply tired of Dungy -- and there seemed to be a kind of inmates-running-the-asylum feel to the team's training camp in 2001 -- might never be known. But in the hyperactive Gruden, the team got a coach who got its attention. And who, finally, got them a Super Bowl ring.

Credit ownership in Tampa, jilted again by Bill Parcells and reluctant to hire the unproven Marvin Lewis, for having that certain feel about Gruden, what he could accomplish, how he could connect with a veteran roster.

That connectivity doesn't always come in the form of facial contortions on the sideline, chasing players down the field, or flinging a clipboard. But if it is there, it is somehow palpable, obvious in how a team responds to a coach.

Journeyman quarterback Hugh Millen played 12 seasons in the NFL, under a variety of coaches, including Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells. And there was never a doubt in the mind of the ever-observant and always provocative Millen what separated the great coaches from the ordinary ones. The key, he said, was the respect they garnered by connecting with their teams.

"Different coaches do it different ways," Millen said. "Parcells might do it through fear. Jimmy did it another way. But here's the bottom line: To be a successful coach in the NFL, you've got to have some personality element that compels your team to play hard for you. There has to be something that makes a player want to step in front of the bullet for you. It's not just game planning and strategy anymore."

Most head coaches, some of them grudgingly, concur with the assessment.

No coach, for instance, prepares a team better than Parcells, whose practice sessions are micro-managed to the smallest detail. There are very few head coaches with the offensive expertise of Steve Mariucci. As he has proved in a very short time on the job, Marvin Lewis is a master of structure, and of serving as the one voice for an organization.

But it's conceivable none of those men would have been hired for new jobs in the last couple months if they didn't have a track record for engendering respect and providing it as well. A coach can stand at a grease board and be explaining the best-designed pass play imaginable but, if the players aren't paying any attention, the effort is wasted.

"You have to have a football-smart (coach) to win," said Washington owner Dan Snyder. "That's a given. But a coach has to first win with the guys in his locker room. That's a given as well anymore."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.