Bill Walsh, one in a long line of great Pittsburgh Steelers centers, was happy to earn a $7,500 salary as a rookie in 1949.

He was aware of how lucky he was to play in the NFL, and he got a raise every year.

“I don’t have any regrets about that,” Walsh told author and historian Jim Sargent. “Anyone who played in those days was happy because there were people working for 50 cents an hour. You could save your money and get a real nice down payment on a house, as long as you were working in the offseason.”

Walsh played six seasons with the Steelers through 1954, going to two Pro Bowls and earning All-Pro in ’52 and ’54.

He is the Tribune-Review staff’s choice for the best Pittsburgh athlete to wear jersey No. 46.

But 1954 was his final season as a player. The Notre Dame product knew he had to find a full-time job, so he retired at age 27.

“I hadn’t gotten hurt with the Steelers,” Walsh said “But one of the big things was trying to get a job in the offseason. You needed to get work if you wanted to save your football check, you know.

“You could live on it real good for a year, but if you wanted to put it away and save it, you had to get a job.”

Walsh joined Terry Brennan’s staff at Notre Dame, launching a 37-year career coaching offensive linemen. He coached for the Irish and Kansas State and in the pros with the Dallas Texans of the AFL (later the Kansas City Chiefs), Atlanta Falcons, Houston Oilers and Philadelphia Eagles. He was former Steelers line coach Mike Munchak’s coach in Houston.

When the Texans won the 1962 AFL championship, beating George Blanda’s Oilers, Walsh cashed a winner’s check of $1,700.

“That was good money for us. We paid off our debts, and I think I bought my wife a dryer,” he said.

Walsh also coached in two Super Bowls with the Chiefs (I and IV), losing to the Green Bay Packers and defeating the Minnesota Vikings.

Walsh, who died in 2012 at age 84, played on winning teams everywhere but in Pittsburgh.

He grew up in Phillipsburg, N.J., where he won nine letters in three sports and his high school team lost two games in four years.

At Notre Dame, he started 27 games, helping the Irish to a four-year record of 33-2-3, with national championships under legendary coach Frank Leahy in 1946 and ’47.

In his six years, the Steelers had a winning record (6-5-1 in his rookie year of 1949) only once.

But he loved playing in Pittsburgh — he was the Steelers’ third-round draft choice in 1949 — where the team used the single wing under coach John Michelosen, the same system he learned at Phillipsburg.

“Heck, I’m thinking, ‘Single wing, Wow!’ ” he said.

In those days, the Steelers shared Forbes Field with the Pirates, and Walsh remembers loyal fans coming to games.

Walsh told Sargent: “We always said, ‘We would have loved to have been a winner in that town’ because the people were so good to you. All the players talked that way, and it was true. It was a great town.”

Former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Ivan Nova also wore No. 46.

The New York Yankees traded Nova to the Pirates in 2016, one of a series of deals former general manager Neal Huntington finalized at the deadline that year. With the Pirates, Nova compiled a 25-25 record with a career-best 3.99 ERA in his only three National League seasons.

The Pirates traded Nova to the Chicago White Sox after the 2018 season.

Check out the entire ’Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.

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