When Bill Cowher was in eighth grade, growing up in Crafton, he looked up to the kid from McKees Rocks -- the star quarterback, the hotshot basketball guard who played in the Roundball Classic.
Yesterday, Cowher hired his boyhood hero -- Tom Clements -- to be the Steelers' quarterback coach.
"I remember always thinking, 'Wow, those guys were so big,' " Cowher said.
Cowher knew of Clements because he was a two-sport star at Canevin High School in the early 1970s and his best friend lived right across the street from Cowher's house in Crafton. But Clements didn't know Cowher because he was four years younger and still in grade school.
"Our paths didn't cross until last year," Clements said.
That's when Clements first talked to Cowher about the possibility of working with the Steelers. And that's when Cowher told him of his boyhood adulation.
Yesterday, though, Cowher told him something else -- that Clements had been selected over Turk Schonert, a former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, to be the Steelers' first quarterback coach since Babe Parilli in 1973.
Clements was given a two-year contract and will join Cowher and the rest of the Steelers' staff tomorrow in Mobile, Ala., where they will be coaching in the Senior Bowl.
"I'll be learning the system with the [college] players," Clements said.
Clements was a quarterback coach with the Kansas City Chiefs last season and spent the previous three seasons in a similar capacity with the New Orleans Saints, working under Mike Ditka, another Western Pennsylvania native. He had a year remaining on his contract with the Chiefs, but they gave him permission to speak with the Steelers after Coach Gunther Cunningham was fired last week.
Clements was the last of the candidates to be interviewed, but he jumped to the top of the list when former West Virginia quarterback Jeff Hostetler, who won a Super Bowl with the New York Giants during his 12-year career in the NFL, withdrew his name from consideration. Hostetler, who lives in Morgantown, W.Va., did not want to move and told Cowher the job would have meant too much time away from his family.
For Clements, the job brings him back closer to his family. His mother, three brothers and a sister still live in the Pittsburgh area.
"When Bill offered me the job, I jumped on it," said Clements, who becomes the fifth Western Pennsylvania native on the Steelers coaching staff. "I still have family there and I grew up a Steelers fan."
Cowher has never had a quarterback coach before because his offensive coordinator always handled the dual responsibility. But new offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey was a tight ends coach before he was promoted and didn't think he was eminently qualified for the position.
Enter Clements, a star quarterback at Notre Dame and for 12 years in the Canadian Football League.
"It's more focused, more individualized instruction of the position," Clements said of his role. "It's learning the offense and learning the defense. The more knowledge you have of the offensive system and defensive system, that breeds confidence. That's what you strive to do."
That's what Clements will strive to do with Kordell Stewart, who will be working with his fifth offensive coordinator in seven years.
"I'm looking forward to working with him," Clements said. "But I have to familiarize myself with him. I wasn't able to see any film of him because the opponents we played [in Kansas City] didn't play the Steelers. But he's an outstanding athlete who's had his ups and down, as most NFL players have."
Steelers hire McKees Rocks native Tom Clements as quarterbacks coach 
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