Former Carmel teammates recall Wagner’s unlikely climb to Super Bowl glory

When future Pittsburgh Steelers legend Mike Wagner tried out for the freshman football team at Carmel, coach Angelo Dabeiro had a specific role in mind.

“His freshman year, I wanted him to become a manager,” Dabeiro recalled. (Later), he just decided he wanted to play football, so we gave him a shot. He was very determined to make the squad.”

Wagner, a Lake Villa native, ended up winning four Super Bowls as a safety for the famed “Steel Curtain” defense. He died this week at 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Three former Carmel teammates – Mike Gavigan, Mike Clements and Mike Geraldi – shared memories of Wagner's early days in football. He was undersized when he got to high school, which explains why he was cut from the team as a freshman and sophomore.

“He came back his junior year and I was like, 'Geez, look at Wagner,'” Gavigan said. “He grew like six inches.”

“I remember at the beginning of his junior year, he was like a deer on new legs,” Geraldi added. “He was getting used to being tall. I was in the defensive backfield with him my senior year.”

https://x.com/McGrawDHSports/status/2024368861802320317?s=20

Wagner spoke to the Daily Herald about his football career in 2020 and said there was a play in high school that always stuck with him. After Carmel rallied from a big early deficit against an undefeated Joliet Catholic team, Wagner was burned on a halfback option pass, which led to the winning touchdown.

“When I was teaching at Carmel, I took all the 16 millimeter film from that season and made it into a VHS tape,” Gavigan said. “And the Joliet Catholic game was not there.

“Mike Clements and I were at a Carmel-Joliet Catholic game in Joliet (years later), and here comes Wagner walking up the stairs. I went, 'Oh my God. Do you remember when you were a senior?' He says, 'Nobody will ever see that film because I have it right here.' He still had it with him.”

Wagner was not recruited out of high school, went to Western Illinois to study business and after a few weeks of walking past the football practice field, decided to ask if he could walk on.

“I went to College of DuPage, and we played Western Illinois' freshman team, and they had probably 120 kids on the team,” Clements said. “The second half, Mike played defensive end, head up (across) from me for the whole second half.

“I did not know he was playing football. I knew he went to Western, but he didn't have a grant-in-aid, he didn't have a preferred walk-on status. So nobody knew he was even going out for the team. I was surprised to see him that game.”

Wagner eventually became a starting safety at WIU and was drafted by the Steelers in the 11th round. During a preseason game at Green Bay in 1971, one of the Steelers veteran defensive backs was injured, Wagner went into the game and basically kept the job until he retired after the 1980 season.

Gavigan remembers that moment well, because it happened during his wedding.

“August 14, 1971,” Gavigan said. “The game was on in the barroom, and there were a lot of Carmel guys at the wedding. Word got out, 'Wagner's in the game. He's in the game.' Everybody emptied the dining room area to go to the bar and watch Wagner play.”

A few weeks later, Wagner's official NFL debut came against the Bears in the first game after they moved from Wrigley Field to Soldier Field. With 49 seconds left in that one, Kent Nix sailed a pass over Wagner's head to George Farmer for the winning touchdown in a 17-15 Bears victory. At the time, probably no one envisioned what was in store for the Steelers during the rest of the 1970s, becoming one of the NFL's great dynasties.

After football, Wagner got his MBA, worked in finance, coached high school football for a while and returned to Lake County many times. Gavigan said Wagner first received the cancer diagnosis probably 10 years ago.

“He came to a couple Carmel golf outings that we had,” Gavigan said. “One thing we can say about Mike is he was very humble. He came to our 50-year reunion (in 2017), he was wearing jeans and a regular shirt, didn't make any big entrance. Just real humble.”

Fitting for a Steel City legend.