BUTLER TWP — Success is in the details.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Andy Russell learned that from Chuck Noll in his first meeting with the legendary coach in the summer of 1969.

Noll summoned Russell, who was coming off his first Pro Bowl season, to the club headquarters. Russell thought it was to congratulate him on his great 1968 season.

"He said, 'Russell … I don't like the way you play,'" Russell said. "He told me, 'You're too aggressive' — I've never been told I was too aggressive — You're too out of control.'"

Russell was taken aback by Noll. Of course Russell was aggressive. He was trying to make plays for a losing team.

"At the end (Noll) says, 'I'm going to make you a better linebacker in your 30s than you were in your 20s,'" Russell said. "'Success is in the details.'"

That was part of the message Russell sent at Succop Theatre on the campus of Butler County Community College Friday morning.

Russell was in town promoting his third book, "Beyond The Goalpost," detailing his life after his 12-season, 14-year NFL career concluded in 1975.

"(Noll) made me a believer," Russell said. "He was right. I was out there running around like a chicken with his head cut off. You have to play the game and use your brain. It's the same in business."

Business acumen runs in the Russell family. His father was a senior executive with Monsanto Company. When Russell told his father he was going to play professional football, his father scoffed at the notion.

"It was an embarrassment," Russell said. "To play a game for a living? That's how much things have changed."

Russell spent 12 seasons in the league. He played his rookie season in 1963 and then left for the Army for two years, returning in 1966.

During the season, Russell went to work in the morning, attended practice and then went back to work in the evening.

The pay was small at best.

"James Harrison makes more money in one game than I did in 14 years of playing combined," Russell said.

When Russell joined the Steelers as a rookie in 1963, then-coach Buddy Parker had traded his top seven draft picks.

"Imagine a coach doing something like that today. He said he hated rookies, that rookies lose games," Russell said. "He said if he had it his way all of us would be gone."

But Russell shined as a rookie, helping the downtrodden franchise to one of its few winning seasons at 7-4-3.

Noll was right about Russell, though. He made the linebacker a better player in his 30s.

Russell made the Pro Bowl six straight season from 1970 to 1975, winning two Super Bowl rings. He wore the 1974 ring at BC3 Friday because "The first one is always the hardest to get," he said.

Russell was one of the first players to bring home film to study. He said that was one of the reasons why he was able to stay at the top of his game — and on the field, as he didn't miss a game in his 12 seasons.

Russell said he believes he could play in today's NFL at a high level.

"Never underestimate the ego of a former jock," Russell said. "I think I could play just fine. I would have to be much bigger and stronger, which I could do."

Russell played with 225 pounds on his 6-foot-2 frame. That made him one of the biggest linebackers in that era.

"I wouldn't trade any of that experience during my playing days for anything in the world," he said.