Steelers Infamous RB Frenchy Fuqua Threw Ernie Holmes An Epic Bachelor Party In 1976 That Nearly Ended In Disaster

Fuqua warned Holmes that if he kept going at that rate, he'd be asleep before his surprise arrived. But Holmes didn't listen; he drained yet another bottle of cognac. 

"His mood swung from left to right, from disappointed to offended, to surly to engaged. Fats addressed the entire room, saying, 'You sons of b****es ain't s**t!' He said his teammates didn't care about him, even as he played hard for them."

Fuqua tried to placate him since he was acting like a fool. At one point, he was trying to drink out of the neck of a broken cognac bottle, and Fuqua could see bits of glass in the liquid. To get the party back on track, Fuqua said he would make a phone call and asked the two women to come earlier than planned.    

Pomerantz said several teammates, including Franco Harris, John Stallworth, and Jimmy Allen, sensed the danger in the air and snuck out. When Holmes noticed some of his teammates left, it only infuriated him more.  

"Holmes, was by nature, tactile and physically intimidating. When he horsed around with teammates in the locker room, he sometimes hurt them without meaning to. Fuqua thought about that as he looked at all the windows in the suite. If he grabs me and throws me out the window, I'm going to fall 24 floors! Fats prattled on and on and on. He blocked the front door and told teammates, 'Ain't nobody going nowhere!'"

This continued for some time, with Holmes raging at his friends about how no one appreciates him. He was angry that Greene, White, and Greenwood got all the attention. He continued breaking glass as he bemoaned his fate. 

This wasn't new to his teammates; they knew they had to wait him out. That's why when he stumbled to the ground, no one rushed to help him up. Instead, most of them ran to the door to escape! 

"Holmes was out cold. Fuqua enlisted the help from several teammates, and together they dragged him into the suite's bedroom, no small task. They couldn't lift his enormous body onto the bed, so they left him kneeling beside the bed, with his head and arms resting on it. The next morning at 7:30 [AM], Fuqua returned to the hotel to awaken Holmes. But Holmes was already sitting at a table in his suite, smiling and drinking coffee. He said, 'I had a good time last night!' Fuqua decided that Holmes didn't remember any of his bachelor party. It was just as well. Fuqua handled clean-up details, including the bill from the hotel to pay for the broken glass."

After handling the minutia, Fuqua took Holmes straight to Three Rivers Stadium and parked him in the infamous sauna. They were two hours earlier than report time for practice. Fuqua made the sauna extra hot and told Holmes to sweat out all that booze so Head Coach Chuck Noll wouldn't kill them all.

Holmes was well known for his intense emotions on and off the field. He had a history of mental health struggles during a time when men were expected to be free from emotions. Unfortunately, his love of excess hastened the end of his career after only six seasons when he could not maintain his weight.    

Steelers' Ernie Holmes Kept His Teammates On Their Toes

According to Pomerantz, Holmes wasn't always violent or aggressive; he was like a child who struggled with impulse control. His teammates all had stories, and they fell into one of three categories, said Pomerantz in his book: "Mood Swings," "Eating to Excess," and "Courvoisier." It wasn't uncommon for the categories to overlap. 

He said once, after winning Super Bowl X, Steelers tight end Randy Grossman was celebrating with his wife in Miami. The couple was passing Holmes in the hotel hallway. Holmes had a woman on each arm and a bottle in each hand, but that didn't stop him from grabbing Grossman's wife and putting her on his shoulder as he walked past. 

"If it had been Joe Greene or Dwight White or Jack Lambert, Grossman told himself later, he would have fought to protect his wife's honor. 'But short of an elephant rifle,' Grossman said of Holmes, 'There is no way that I'm going after this maniac.' After half a dozen steps, Holmes lowered Grossman's wife to the floor, roared with laughter, and walked off."

The stories of Holmes' outrageous appetite were fodder for legends. Once, when Greene's mother cooked up a huge feast at the family home in Texas, Holmes ate the entire pot roast and pie. He then ate three more meals when they left to return to Pittsburgh. There was the time he ate 12 plates of spaghetti with giant meatballs. Once, he ate roast suckling pig, brains and all, at a local restaurant to the disgust of his teammates.

Are you surprised to hear about the wild night the Steel Curtain had? What's your favorite Steel Curtain memory or story? Click to